1184/12 D-Point: Snakes, Swords, Stars, and Singularities

12 D-Point: Snakes, Swords, Stars, and Singularities
Date of Scene:	08 March 2016
Location:	The Dark Kingdom
Synopsis:	CONTENT WARNING: Character death. Hagane and Firebird take on some seriously OP youma, and manage to both kill them and bring down an entire section of the Dark Kingdom with, I kid you not, a god damned black hole. Unfortunately, it is at the cost of their lives.
Thanks to:	Phish and Ships for GMing.
Cast of Characters:	22, Mikoto Nakajima, Minoke Sato
Tinyplot:	D-Point

---

Phish and Ships has posed:
The air is cold and damp and smells of sand and isolation, here. A lot of the rest of the group has been separated at various points; it's really easy to lose people here, even if one may rejoin them later. The people who'd been with either Minoke or Mikoto have been split off, and now they both come out of creepily organic half-melted stone tunnels, lit only by phosphorescent glows in streaks behind the not-stone--

--they come out of the tunnels into a wide, dark cavern. They're both on a sandy ledge that's fairly wide but has poor purchase, and there's a really rickety-looking rope bridge stretching across it. There's also another tunnel that lets out onto their same ledge -- and the bottom and the roof of the cavern are both swallowed by blackness. Lights like stars speckle the blackness far overhead, and occasionally, a little sand will sift down from above.

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
Mikoto has been wandering alone for over an hour, now. Her blade in hand, her customary swarm of Flickers dancing and shimmering softly above her head. She's been looking for any sign of her comrades, but the dark energy of the area swamps the sensory capabilities of her Wide Area Search spell, so she's had to go searching the hard way. It's something she finds deeply annoying - and she's decided that as soon as she gets back, she'll look into WPS' notes on dark energy and find a way to filter it out.

If she gets home, that is.

Stepping into the open cavern she breathes a sigh of slight relief, at least the narrow passages are behind her for a moment - she's got room to maneuver.

And better yet, there's Firebird! She hurries over to her redhead student and grins.

"Good to see you," she offers. Then, out of a little paranoia, "What's the first rule?"

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird was separated after the battle with the DD Girls with everyone once she entered the Dark Kingdom. She sighs softly as she clicks her tongue, looking around. Firebird lost track of Carnwennan as she simply starts searching - then she smiles as she finds the signal as she zooms over. "Hagane..." she whispers softly. "Well, the first rule is don't die..." She sighs softly. "I could make a 'don't talk about fight club' but this seems more serious.

She sighs as she looks around. "I have _no_ idea where anyone else is - or where we are..."

Phish and Ships has posed:
"You're in the Dark Kingdom," a gentle boy's voice says kindly from above them. He's just hovering there, a pretty boy with white boots and gloves, brown hair-- but his body is a starfield, matte black except for those pinpoints of light, like he's literally a portal to outer space. He smiles, and his teeth are sharp, and his eyes are twilight; one hand lifts as though he were conducting an orchestra. "We can't let you come any further. The easy thing to do would be to cut the bridge, but..."

The two tunnels the girls came out of collapse unceremoniously behind them, making the ledge rumble and the sand on it dance.

'We.'

A voice comes out of the third tunnel entrance, and it belongs to a pale and willowy girl with long, wavy platinum blonde hair and a little star-shaped mark on her face, below and to one side of her mouth, like a movie star. She's wearing a glossy chrome bathing-suit-looking thing and thigh-high boots of the same material, and no gloves. One arm crosses over her midsection and she leans in the tunnel entrance, checking the manicure on her perfect nails. "But we don't like you. You're not pretty enough to keep as trophies, and not clever enough to see what kind of interesting tricks you might come up with before we kill you and feed you to Our Great Leader. So go on. Run across the bridge, darlings. Give me a little sport."

All at once, her perfect manicure turns into perfect silver claws, long and sharp, glittering, and she leaps at Mikoto!

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
If they simply dropped the bridge, that would be little problem for a pair of mages who can fly at will. So that doesn't particularly worry Mikoto. She looks back and forth between the two as they appear, and a little smile flits across her lips.

"Your 'great leader' is about to be leading a charge into a brick wall. Maybe you'd like to try alternative employment? I'm hiring." She doesn't expect them to accept. But you never know.

She leaves her Flicker Shots where they are for the moment, matching the blonde's lunge, her left hand held out with a shield to parry one set of claws as she twists to present a narrow aspect, making it hard for the other set to reach her without running into Carnwennan's blade. It's a classic fencing posture, just reversed - but there's room enough for the blade to dart out at the youma for a quick thrust.

"You hear that, Firebird? We aren't pretty enough for them. Standards must be awfully twisted around here."

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird creates her satellites that gently orbit her. "Hmmmmm...." she muses softly as she just floats there, Swirling Vortex changing into flail form as she whirls the flail to create a defensive screen.

"Yeah - how rude! Hagane is gorgeous - how dare you besmirch her like that," she states in reponse to the taunts. "But I've come to expect nothing but lies and weirdness from the forces of evil so..." She ponders. "Why don't you kids move along and play somewhere else before one of us has to take you over our knee and spank you?"

Phish and Ships has posed:
That's when the boy's other arm comes up to gesture, and slam down on the air. Mikoto might not be familiar with the sensation, but all of a sudden, it might be hard to stay upright: she's suddenly incredibly heavy, immensely heavy. "Don't," he says apologetically. "You'll only make it hurt more. Just stay there and let her kill you quickly."

The girl with the claw nails weaves out of the way of the blade a third of a second before hitting it, and the hand that'd been pointed at Mikoto's midsection whips away from the shield. She instantly drops to the floor and spins in the sand, holding her nails up to catch Mikoto as she expects the mage to start falling right onto them. "Promises, promises," she teases. "He's right, though! And I don't need a job from the likes of you."

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
Mikoto has, in fact, sparred with Firebird before. So the sensation of increased gravity is not a surprise to her - she knows how to land safely. What is, is the blonde's quick reaction to it. And 'safely' was not calibrated for the presence of a second, close-combat attacker.

Claws rake over her thigh as her knees flex to absorb the force of the landing. A series of parallel slices mars the perfect tailoring of her suit, trails of red glistening on the bare skin beneath.

Go ahead, she thinks. Focus on me. Let Firebird get into position and thrash you.

She shifts her weight to her uninjured leg, twisting around for another sword-thrust, letting the momentum of her fall add to the force of it. Time to start taking these two seriously.

"Hey, keep your options open," she adds out loud. "D'you really want to be playing second fiddle to the old hag forever? Why not join an outfit that's going places?"

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird was interested that the two were focusing on Hagane. "Ah - so you can use gravity too... no matter," she states. She focuses on the boy as she focuses on him. "Target the boy. Fire." "Target acquired. Calculating flight vector. Firing." The six shotputs would fire at the gravity user. "And gravity is MY domain, not yours!" She follows the shotputs with a swing of the head of her flail, seeking to create a seventh deep impact into the boy. "We'll get these brats, no problem!" she calls to Hagane.

Phish and Ships has posed:
"I'm sorry," the boy says to Firebird, and he really does seem so, even with his strange eyes and his sharp teeth and his evil evilness. "I don't control gravity."

The shots fired at him impact, and he rocks a little in midair, but-- they literally bounce off him, caroming off and flying away from him in all directions-- except for one, which floats there in midair for a second before he catches it in his hand and wings it whipcrack fast at her head. Firebird can sense the change in it-- to move his arm that fast, it must be incredibly light, but just before it's about to leave his hand, it moves far faster than something that light should with a throw even that good.

"I control density."

The girl, on the other hand, gets a clean slice through the side of her torso. She just-- she definitely just moved away from it a split-second before Hagane's thrust even started, but didn't account for the width of the blade. She yelps in aggravated pain, and has no witty comeback, only fury--

--and vanishes.

A second later, she comes visible an instant before her stiletto-booted foot comes down on Hagane's knee.

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
Density. Ooh, that's good. Useful, even, because it makes it harder for her to move... but it also makes her harder to hurt. Unless he's very, very, very good with it. And Mikoto does notice the blonde's quick reactions, she even has a plan for it.

~Carnwennan, give me a random variation on each attack. Let's see how quick she really is.~ The Device acknowledges the telepathic instruction, and Mikoto starts to move into another thrust...

And the girl is gone. Overbalancing, she starts to tip... a flicker of flight magic and she starts to recover... and then there's a boot slamming into her knee.

Down she topples, falling back as her balance is thrown completely to pot, skidding back from the force of the impact. Combined with the slices to the thigh, that leg is unlikely to bear her weight again without at least some assistance.

"Too bad," she snarls out. She makes a wild swing with the blade - never intended to connect, but to activate a spell.

(("Flakschrecken!")) As Carnwennan's point arcs through the air, three gleaming streams of mana spiral up the length of the blade, hurled free once they reach the end of it to arc around and slash towards the blonde.

"I don't know how to give up."

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird frowns. "No wonder - but it's a type of gravity manip..." She squeals as she sees one of her own satellite shots captured and fired back at her at high speed. Her protection spell, a gravity-defelction aura kicks in - buti t's moving too fast as she uses her arms to protecth erself - she has no timem, and a sickening CRUNCH is sounded as her right arm is shattered by the high-speed impact. Fortunately Firebird's a lefty but even so - her mobility is limited. "Hmmmm. Alright then... let's try this another way..." she hisses. She focuses on the boy. "Gravity Crush!" Target acquired. Applying compression. A dark red aura surruonds the boy as she tries to crush him, applying more and more gravity. "If you make yourself lighter, you crush faster. If you make yourself heavier, you can't move..." She whispers. "Gotcha, you little brat..." She is sure that Hagane can handle herself as she is working onturning this youma into pasty goo.

Phish and Ships has posed:
The mana shots, seeking their target, mean that neither going invisible nor dodging is going to do the 'dream girl' any good whatsoever; she takes one to the hand, and the other two sink into her gut and sizzle, black smoke starting to emit from the wounds. "And that's why you're going to DIE!" shrieks the girl, and her lovely face distends, her jaw unhinging and her teeth vanishing, two long pulpy snake's fangs extruding from the top lip, which now occludes her eyes. "THAT AND YOU MADE ME BREAK A NAIL!"

She dives for Hagane, her body lengthening and twisting and merging until she resembles an immense silver snake-- no, a naga with a snake's mouth instead of a woman's-- and it's her clawed hands that come to knock away Hagane's arms and her fanged mouth that shoots forward to sink venomous teeth into the girl's midsection.

The boy, floating in the air, winces when Dream Naga shrieks about her broken nail, but he's got bigger problems. He gives Firebird a chiding look, shaking his head. More and more dense, yes: he's not making himself as diffuse as air, he's giving himself more and more mass, yes. But he's also not actually starting to fall. "Sweetheart, I'm a youma. This is the Dark Kingdom. I have more dark energy at my disposal than you have mana in your entire life, and I will die before I let you aid your annoying princess and her ridiculous entourage."

More and more mass. More and more.

In fact, he's gathering so much mass that it's starting to react very, very weirdly with the gravity crush Minoke is squeezing him with. He's becoming strangely... attractive.

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
Mikoto tries to roll out of the way, to get up off the ground with her flight spell, to do anything to get out of the way of the striking serpent. She's just not fast enough.

She tries to keep up the witty banter, even as pain rips through her from the venom that pours into her chest. "Gonna break... more than a nail... stupid twit. Too bad..." With her fangs sunk into Hagane's chest, it makes other options... simpler. One hand grabs hold of that platinum blonde hair to pin the head in place. The other lifts Carnwennan's blade - which shrinks down into a long dagger as she moves it into position - and she goes to thrust it into the youma-girl's brain through the ear.

"Too bad," she repeats. "... coulda been a great team."

Her racing heart simply speeds the spread of the poison, and her breath is quick, shallow, and harsh. Still, she holds the youma in place as tightly as she can.

And from far above, the glassy energy-shards of hundreds of Flicker Shots descend. Each one, individually, is fairly weak. But in such numbers...

They swirl into a whip that lashes around the boy, a tightening spiral designed to flay him alive.

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird keeps it going, the compression and gravity distortions causing the whole cave to shimmer. She moves closer to Hagane, until the two are near each other, keeping her crushign force onthe boy. "You can't... hold out forever..." she whispers softly as her arm is now fully numb - she hasn't got it as bad as Mikoto... but she's still in bad shape with a previously-broken rib and now a shattered arm, Vortex, back in mace mode, danging loosely from her left hand.

Firebird growls, "Any minute now... you'll go... squish..." "Increasing compression..." comes the voice from Vortex as the aura aroudn the boy glows brighter as she keeps trying to crush him. "How... are... you doing... Hagane?" she whispers, not realizing how bad Mikoto's injuries really are.

Phish and Ships has posed:
The snakey youma-girl's way too pleased with herself to be distracted by things like 'foreseeing one's own death', and she just pumps poison into Hagane, starting to suck her energy out with all the fervor she can muster, which is rather a lot. That really does make it a simple thing, lodged as she is, occupied as she is, to jam that dagger through her head and through her youma-y brainmeats like it's an icepick and she's Leon Trotsky. It doesn't reverse anything, but it does make her instantly slacken and drop on Mikoto like the dead weight she very suddenly is.

"I don't have to," the boy says, corners of his mouth turning down. The flicker shots all end up getting sucked in towards him, faster and faster-- literally falling into him. The ones that head for his torso vanish into it, and the ones that brush by his head or his hands and feet do, in fact, curl themselves into a circling whip that lashes at those defined parts of him, and horrifyingly, the ichor that passes for blood in these youmas actually also gets sucked into his torso. "I'm not going to squish. You're going to squish," he tells Minoke, "and so's your friend."

Now it's the body of his girlfriend that's horribly, horribly heavy on top of the venom-filled Mikoto.

Mikoto Nakajima has posed:
Shallow breaths and a grey, ashen face show how bad off Hagane is, by this point. Pinned under the youma-naga's weight, she can neither flee, nor close with the enemy to attack. This... annoys her. Not because she particularly wants the boy dead. She wants Beryl dead. She actually regrets killing the snake-girl. But war is war, battle is battle, and Firebird is wounded.

"'wennan. Di - dimensional transfer... alibi two. Target Firebird." She knows there's no possible antidote for the poison in human medicine. But at least she might have a chance to get her student to safety. "Mino-chan... find Ikuto... you gotta..."

(("Warning. Local dimensional wall unstable. Mana supply critically low. Transfer not advised.")) Carnwennan has its own opinion on the matter, of course.

"Overri - over - " each attempt to speak the word is broken by a hacking, gasping cough, wet with undefined fluids. She can't quite get it out... and then...

Minoke Sato has posed:
Firebird's eyes turn to Hagane, that horrible cough rending at her heart, and can only stare. The unmoving form, trapped beneath the massive snake, its fangs buried in her chest. Hagane's words and breath grow shallower. "Vortex... s... scan... Hagane... for life signs..." she whispers softly, coughing a bit. "Life signs fading. Heart beat slowing. Neural activing diminishing." Vortex falls silent for a moment, and then there's a clang, as Carnwennan drops from Mikoto's still hand. "Apologies, Master." announces Carnwennan. Firebird just lowers her head. "Fine. I was going to make this easy on you. But... there's no further choice now. And... now I just don't care anymore."

Firebird raises her one good arm, lofting Vortex... and shrieks, "SINGULARITY!" She pushes every drop of mana she can gather into it. Every last drop, even though it leaves her falling at Hagane's side with a heavy thump. She watches as the black hole tears open above her. "Mana supply limited." Firebird whispers, "I... I don't care, Vortex. Use everything. Everything it takes... to kill that bastard if it's the last thing you do!" She focuses as the black hole was torn open right by the youma - but the gravitational distortion he was already causing combines with the Singularity for devastating results as the cave's roof shudders, the floor, the walls... the pull was too strong as the whole thing begins to collapse down. She has no thoughts of leaving - she plans on dying here with Hagane. She looks up as she sees a wall of rock fall down on her, and smiles, knowing she did good. "Beautiful..."

Phish and Ships has posed:
The boy youma's eyes widen, and--

--it really is beautiful. Scattered points of light from above, the star-shot torso of the youma, and the glittering sand from the ledge all whirl in and dance through the darkness of the cavern, moved not by wind but by the enormous gravitational forces at play. Some of them stretch into glorious strings of light, some of them shatter and rain stardust down--

--and the second before the rock wall falls to crush the dying friends, the most beautiful star of all explodes into being and fills the cavern with a wash of gold like the edge of the sky at dawn.

The power is so great that the two of them, even as they died, have managed to close off and compress and disintegrate an entire section of the Dark Kingdom's labyrinthine hell.

It's more power stolen from Metalia, it's more fuel to help the remaining heroes give their all to stop the destruction of this beautiful world. Somewhere, someone knows, and a fraction of burden lifts from a pair of tired shoulders.

Hagane and Firebird have done well.