[ ah... well, that kind of puts a damper on the positive feelings that were burning here a moment ago, doesn't it?
datz isn't going to object to putting it out of its misery if that's what it wants. maybe it brought them here to do just that. not that he could easily raise a weapon right now with ponta on his shoulders.
to the others, quietly, though he's still facing forward: ]
...Don't see that there's much of an alternative, do you?
[ And... once again, the situation sucks. Even with the words he misses the most still ringing in his ears, Ponta immediately feels melancholy again. Slaying a beast that is this miserable... it doesn't feel very heroic.
Not that he can easily contribute right now either, more piece of luggage than party member. ]
... I'm afraid not. There's no healing item for these, I expect.
well, as their current available sword wielding member, it probably falls on him to do the deed. kogitsunemaru will step forward, sword already unsheathed. let him be the weapon that he is, protecting the humans from having to make the choice for themselves. ]
It may be kinder, to free their suffering instead.
[ he will reach forward to send the dragon as peacefully on its way as he can. if their last member has no objections to it.....? ]
[well. she wouldn't normally have any objections, but.
something is wrong. something is wrong. the little light in her arms has been something she's been guarding so preciously the entire time she's been here, and now is no different. she holds it tightly to her chest, trying to shake off the dark. let go, it whispers. she ignores it. she has her flame. it's trying so hard to stay lit, she's doing her best to stop it from going out.
but she can see this monster. she can see how much in pain it's in, she can see the shadows curling off of it. her heart aches before she even realizes who it is. it's too familiar. it's a little like looking in a mirror, and she can't help but look closer. she takes a step forward.
who's already dead, nimona?
she sees it in front of her. him, in front of her, tall and grinning, freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks. his eye's a little worse for wear this last week, but it's fine. he tells her that he can see just fine, and that he'd have to be some kind of weakling to get taken out here. he grabs his hat and puts it down on her head, and for a second, everything is okay.
and then she sees him as he is here. she sees the monster, and the way it whines. and for a second she sees portgas d. ace struggling to breathe, taking his last, staring up at her and asking her to kill him, and.
shadows whip out wildly from her spine, from her chest, almost like tentacles. she rips apart, and grows in size, the scream warbling as she becomes something else.chaos, the shadows whisper. destroy those who have what you never have had, and never will.]
the monster - the creature, with the sad eyes, lifts its head. it looks between the three travelers who stand before it, and it scoots forward when nimona begins to transform. it can't get far.
it drops its head near datz and ponta, with an almost cacophonus thud, and it closes its eyes and it takes a pained breath. in, out. in, out. ]
Te... [ ... ] Aelfric... prayer... plenty....
Sorry...
[ and then there's a warm, bright light, brief, that wraps around ponta's legs.
with the last of its strength, the creature heals ponta enough that he should be able to stand on his own.
and just like that, it disintegrates into thin air and dust, leaving nothing behind but scraps of fabric. bloodied, teal, white, and gold. ]
[ datz can still hear her voice in that scream, and he can hear the agony in it just as plainly. it jolts him out of whatever thoughts he may have been having about the monster in front of them, and he whirls around to face the— no, he's not going to think that. to face nimona behind them.
he just barely sees the dust flying away out of the corner of his eye after it gives the last of what it has to heal ponta, and even as he feels the weight leave his shoulders, it doesn't quite register with him what just happened. ]
[ It's hard to feel any euphoria about being able to stand on his own when Nimona's scream is still echoing in his head. There's a loneliness in that which not only matches but likely surpasses his own experience.
Nimona...
Despite all the sympathy he has for her in this moment, his hand goes to his dagger. If the Nimonster makes any move to get closer in attack, he will cast a gust of wind to push her back, but otherwise he is waiting. Hoping she's still herself in there. ]
[ the remnants of the dragon get tucked into the back of his memory when it's not an all hands on deck emergency situation of life or death.
because, right now? this is bad. good thing kogitsunemaru (sword) is already at the ready. however, given he's now on the opposite side of where he needs to be, there's gonna be a moment while he sprits towards nimona to keep her focused on him.
did she hear what he did as well? did the voice that so desperately wanted him to give in sink its claws into her?
either way, it doesn't matter because he needs to make sure she isn't about to bring the entire temple down around their ears. ]
[she's not really all there, at the moment - which is pretty clear the instant that ponta sends a gust of wind at her. it hits, and it makes her stumble back a couple of steps with a snarl. those tentacles whip out wildly, snapping around and cracking into the walls.
she sees the sword. she sees something trying to hurt her, again, and there's something in her that wants to let him do it. but the shadows whisper otherwise - hurt them, hurt them.
and so she does - she starts to move forward, swiping her claw out at all three of them furiously. her aim is to shred through them, to toss them into the wall, break bones. and as she does that, a separate shadow tentacle whams into kogi's chest, trying to get him away from her.]
[ oof, he gets a good swipe across the chest out of that, but... it's fine. no big deal. can hardly even see the blood in these dark thief clothes.
seems like that wind magic's the best thing they've got right now, and he really doesn't want to draw a weapon on her when she's in a state like this, so for the moment he's just going to focus on covering ponta while he does his thing. ]
[ So much for his poor arm that was healed up after the first shadow hand encounter. There's a new bleeding gash on it now, but the muscle isn't impacted so heavily that it would stop Ponta from casting. ]
I'm going to try holding her down!! Please get through to her!!
[ He doesn't feel like anything he says would hold particular meaning to Nimona right now, but hopefully one of the others has a firmer bond to rely on...?
His wind casting strategy changes, from gusts to blow her away to a torrent of wind from above, intended to pin her to the ground. Is it strong enough for that? Probably not. But he's trying. ]
[ me: i'm gonna roll for funsies dice maiden: Rolling 2d20: 2 + 1
WELL I GUESS KOGI'S GOING THROUGH IT. the foot he's been pretending isn't injured doesn't hold his weight enough and Nimona's slash strikes true, raking down his sword arm. with the second tentacle coming at him at the same moment, there's not enough time or strength to block and off he goes, flying into the wall.
the cracking sound echoes throughout the temple. the noise he makes sounds horrific. and best of all, the fact he doesn't get back up immediately is probably the worst ]
[she lets out a little shriek, when she feels the wind again - she doesn't want that anywhere near her, with the way it blows the shadows aside. the rest of this ragtag little team can probably see flashes of pink whenever the shadow is blown too far away. it's strong, strong enough to make her stagger, held under the gust of wind momentarily. she hits the ground, but it isn't going to stop her entirely.
those shadow tentacles grow, expanding from every part of her body, and sharpen and blunt as necessary. one goes for ponta, aiming to stab through his shoulder, trying to get him to stop casting. another sharpens, whirling through the air to slice at datz's face before turning to something a little like a hammer, trying to get him to drop his weapon - however it works out, she's trying to break bones.
but when kogi slams into the wall, she stops, looking at him. and when he doesn't get up immediately, she wails.]
[ oof. the shadow just misses his eye, but his vision gets blurred by the blood flowing down from the gash above it anyway; he can barely see the shadow reshaping itself into a crushing weapon before it swings at him and he feels a sharp pain in his arm.
the pain behind that wail seems worse than this, though, so... he'll deal. while she's having her moment looking at kogi's fallen form, he'll try to peel off to the side and run around to see if he can find that bow she had on her before. is it still on her? on the ground nearby? they were supposed to destroy that thing, right? so maybe— ]
[ Ponta tries to dodge, but his usual speed and agility are hampered by his injured leg and he's not nearly fast enough. The shadow tendril pierces through his shoulder with the precision of a bullet.
Ponta screams, because it's kind of hard not to. Maybe feeling nothing is very very preferable to feeling so much physical pain that you forget about your lack of emotional depth.
And still, whatever happened to Kogi is worse. As soon as the tentacles leaves him, Ponta stumbles to the ground and uses his healthy arm to take out his remaining healing items. He has one revival item and Kogi...
Ponta is going to try and crawl to him to check if he's alive. Because if he's not, he's getting fucking revived. ]
[ it takes far longer than it should for him to regain consciousness, but between the screams from both nimona and ponta both, it stirs him enough to slowly blink awake. he's probably not moving anytime soon, and probably can't feel certain parts of his body, but he's at least (vaguely) alert. peepaw's STR stat comes in clutch yet....
[the bow is - around, it's probably on the ground close by. she's forgotten it existed entirely.
above them is glory, who keeps trying to call out to her - fluttering around and blasting away the tentacles with little beams of light. but when she sees datz trying to go for the bow, she'll come down to try and help him, cover him from getting hit.
she's distracted by this, so she doesn't go after ponta and kogi this round, but she's crawling to her feet, snarling, her mouth opening wide, too wide, as she bellows:]
[ WELL THIS DID NOT GO AS PLANNED and i rolled a fucking 5 here even though i guess in retrospect i should have added +4 since it's stealing but. WHATEVER IT STILL WOULD HAVE BEEN LESS THAN 10
he doesn't have a chance to grab one of his weapons from its sheath before he's getting picked up in (and probably kind of skewered by) her teeth, but he does manage to grab his last resort item out of his pocket and just. slap it on her snout. because fuck if he knows what else he's supposed to do with this.
nimonster has been shown alrond's promissory note that says datz can do what he wants and what he wants is to not be eaten, actually, thanks ]
[ So. This is bad. Kogi is down for the count and Datz is... well, Datz may be getting eaten right now. This means that they're down to... absolutely nobody who can actually fight. Unless they do something, they might just die.
So Ponta remembers another thing he is supposedly blessed with. And well, he's near Kogi right now. So he just... kind of... waves good arm in some kind of dance-like motion to cast a buff on him. Whatever that means.
[ it's hard to say how aware he is of the `vague wiggles` but the rush of adrenaline certainly feels like a kick to the teeth. his next blink certainly feels more aware and with the next breath or two, he does a very creaky roll to his feet. truly amazing he can stand imo. he probably doesn't look any better than he feels but here he is for at least one last round.
[okay well. the boop startles her? she actually has no idea what to do with this, the note slaps her on the nose and she kind of just goes bwuh. and spits him out on the floor, goodbye. she's so sufficiently disoriented by the way that he really just told her no like a misbehaving dog that she doesn't really strike out again. she just stares down at him.
until kogi says her name, anyway. that's a challenge. and she looks up at him, breathing harshly, before pushing datz away from her, and stomping over to him and ponta, snarling.
but - here's the thing. she lifts a claw, like she's going to use it to swipe their heads right off their bodies, when glory shoots another light beam - it slices through the shadows and it hurts, and it's just enough. it's just enough for a weak point to show, something wavery and white and bright, where her heart is.
[ well, he's still not sure if it's really the answer here, but he'd at least spotted where the bow was before she picked him up in her jaws before, so even though he's pretty disoriented himself by the time she spits him out, he manages to grab it and dashes toward the altar while bleeding everywhere and shouting over his shoulder. ]
WE'RE NOT KILLING YOU! WE'RE GONNA BRING YOU BACK FROM THIS!
[ it's fine he has a plan, probably. that revive item won't be for him after all.
his body is heavy, and kogi's certain that without the boost, he wouldn't be able to move at all. but with glory's attack, and ponta's aid, it's enough to give him energy to push himself forward, sword raised.
it's not a perfect shot by a mile. honestly, it's probably the messiest he's ever done. but for this moment, it's enough. his blade strikes true and he closes his eyes tiredly ]
she hears datz yelling, somewhere, she hears him try to make sure she knows they'll bring her back. there's something in her that believes him. there's something bigger that overwhelms her as kogi's blade strikes right into her heart. relief. unabashed relief, as a flash of light breathes fire through her.
this is the end she'd picked for herself, originally. it's funny. even after all that rewriting, even after all those promises, this is still what she gets.
there's silence, for a second, and then - the shadows curl down, and down, and down, and then there's just a girl, standing with blood and shadow all smeared across her face, a sword pushed through her heart all the way out the other side.]
... Thanks.
[she manages, looking at ponta and kogi, with a little smile. and then her eyes close, and she slides off the sword and crumples to the ground.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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datz isn't going to object to putting it out of its misery if that's what it wants. maybe it brought them here to do just that. not that he could easily raise a weapon right now with ponta on his shoulders.
to the others, quietly, though he's still facing forward: ]
...Don't see that there's much of an alternative, do you?
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Not that he can easily contribute right now either, more piece of luggage than party member. ]
... I'm afraid not. There's no healing item for these, I expect.
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well, as their current available sword wielding member, it probably falls on him to do the deed. kogitsunemaru will step forward, sword already unsheathed. let him be the weapon that he is, protecting the humans from having to make the choice for themselves. ]
It may be kinder, to free their suffering instead.
[ he will reach forward to send the dragon as peacefully on its way as he can. if their last member has no objections to it.....? ]
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something is wrong. something is wrong. the little light in her arms has been something she's been guarding so preciously the entire time she's been here, and now is no different. she holds it tightly to her chest, trying to shake off the dark. let go, it whispers. she ignores it. she has her flame. it's trying so hard to stay lit, she's doing her best to stop it from going out.
but she can see this monster. she can see how much in pain it's in, she can see the shadows curling off of it. her heart aches before she even realizes who it is. it's too familiar. it's a little like looking in a mirror, and she can't help but look closer. she takes a step forward.
who's already dead, nimona?
she sees it in front of her. him, in front of her, tall and grinning, freckles splashed across his nose and cheeks. his eye's a little worse for wear this last week, but it's fine. he tells her that he can see just fine, and that he'd have to be some kind of weakling to get taken out here. he grabs his hat and puts it down on her head, and for a second, everything is okay.
and then she sees him as he is here. she sees the monster, and the way it whines. and for a second she sees portgas d. ace struggling to breathe, taking his last, staring up at her and asking her to kill him, and.
her lantern goes out.
and nimona screams.
shadows whip out wildly from her spine, from her chest, almost like tentacles. she rips apart, and grows in size, the scream warbling as she becomes something else. chaos, the shadows whisper. destroy those who have what you never have had, and never will.]
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the monster - the creature, with the sad eyes, lifts its head. it looks between the three travelers who stand before it, and it scoots forward when nimona begins to transform. it can't get far.
it drops its head near datz and ponta, with an almost cacophonus thud, and it closes its eyes and it takes a pained breath. in, out. in, out. ]
Te... [ ... ] Aelfric... prayer... plenty....
Sorry...
[ and then there's a warm, bright light, brief, that wraps around ponta's legs.
with the last of its strength, the creature heals ponta enough that he should be able to stand on his own.
and just like that, it disintegrates into thin air and dust, leaving nothing behind but scraps of fabric. bloodied, teal, white, and gold. ]
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he just barely sees the dust flying away out of the corner of his eye after it gives the last of what it has to heal ponta, and even as he feels the weight leave his shoulders, it doesn't quite register with him what just happened. ]
Pink— Nimona!
[ what the hell is this? ]
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Nimona...
Despite all the sympathy he has for her in this moment, his hand goes to his dagger. If the Nimonster makes any move to get closer in attack, he will cast a gust of wind to push her back, but otherwise he is waiting. Hoping she's still herself in there. ]
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because, right now? this is bad. good thing kogitsunemaru (sword) is already at the ready. however, given he's now on the opposite side of where he needs to be, there's gonna be a moment while he sprits towards nimona to keep her focused on him.
did she hear what he did as well? did the voice that so desperately wanted him to give in sink its claws into her?
either way, it doesn't matter because he needs to make sure she isn't about to bring the entire temple down around their ears. ]
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she sees the sword. she sees something trying to hurt her, again, and there's something in her that wants to let him do it. but the shadows whisper otherwise - hurt them, hurt them.
and so she does - she starts to move forward, swiping her claw out at all three of them furiously. her aim is to shred through them, to toss them into the wall, break bones. and as she does that, a separate shadow tentacle whams into kogi's chest, trying to get him away from her.]
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seems like that wind magic's the best thing they've got right now, and he really doesn't want to draw a weapon on her when she's in a state like this, so for the moment he's just going to focus on covering ponta while he does his thing. ]
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I'm going to try holding her down!! Please get through to her!!
[ He doesn't feel like anything he says would hold particular meaning to Nimona right now, but hopefully one of the others has a firmer bond to rely on...?
His wind casting strategy changes, from gusts to blow her away to a torrent of wind from above, intended to pin her to the ground. Is it strong enough for that? Probably not. But he's trying. ]
no subject
dice maiden: Rolling 2d20: 2 + 1
WELL I GUESS KOGI'S GOING THROUGH IT. the foot he's been pretending isn't injured doesn't hold his weight enough and Nimona's slash strikes true, raking down his sword arm. with the second tentacle coming at him at the same moment, there's not enough time or strength to block and off he goes, flying into the wall.
the cracking sound echoes throughout the temple. the noise he makes sounds horrific. and best of all, the fact he doesn't get back up immediately is probably the worst ]
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those shadow tentacles grow, expanding from every part of her body, and sharpen and blunt as necessary. one goes for ponta, aiming to stab through his shoulder, trying to get him to stop casting. another sharpens, whirling through the air to slice at datz's face before turning to something a little like a hammer, trying to get him to drop his weapon - however it works out, she's trying to break bones.
but when kogi slams into the wall, she stops, looking at him. and when he doesn't get up immediately, she wails.]
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the pain behind that wail seems worse than this, though, so... he'll deal. while she's having her moment looking at kogi's fallen form, he'll try to peel off to the side and run around to see if he can find that bow she had on her before. is it still on her? on the ground nearby? they were supposed to destroy that thing, right? so maybe— ]
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Ponta screams, because it's kind of hard not to. Maybe feeling nothing is very very preferable to feeling so much physical pain that you forget about your lack of emotional depth.
And still, whatever happened to Kogi is worse. As soon as the tentacles leaves him, Ponta stumbles to the ground and uses his healthy arm to take out his remaining healing items. He has one revival item and Kogi...
Ponta is going to try and crawl to him to check if he's alive. Because if he's not, he's getting fucking revived. ]
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for how long is a different question. ]
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above them is glory, who keeps trying to call out to her - fluttering around and blasting away the tentacles with little beams of light. but when she sees datz trying to go for the bow, she'll come down to try and help him, cover him from getting hit.
she's distracted by this, so she doesn't go after ponta and kogi this round, but she's crawling to her feet, snarling, her mouth opening wide, too wide, as she bellows:]
K̴̫̲̠̎̂́̄̇͌̃͘I̶̡̳̙̺͔̝̫̺͗̎Ļ̴͙͖̺̟̻͔͉̉̇̽͜L̴̦͖̟̟̪̥͊̉́ ̷̱̙͔̤̰̠̥̄̑̽̈͊͂M̶̢̖̝͉̳̗̥̘̱̀̈́̑̑Ȩ̸͙͕̳̑̃ ̵͖̠̳̲̃́̏̚̚͠B̴͔̰̝͆͋ͅẼ̸̻͇̩̗͗͋̈́F̷̺͍̥̒͝O̵̪̣̱̪̘̓̅̊R̷̖̀̔̒Ẹ̵̲̖̩͐̍̓ ̷̺͍̼̦͈̐̽̅̄̊̚Ỉ̷͔̞͎̳̤̙̩͈̊̉̋̈́́̒̓ ̶̩̲̹̲̓̒̃̏͝K̴̼͐̽͂̅̐̐̈́͂̍Ī̵̛̟̪͇͇͈͂̈L̵̡͔̤̭̩̬̟͈̯̃̋̇̊L̵̤͕̪̿ ̵̯̯̻̘̪̹͉̹̽Ẏ̵̫̬̮̭͓̰̊̏̑͝͝Ỏ̶̡̧̹͓̼̗̙̑̑̌͒͊͠͝Ù̷̲̣̭̥̌̕͝-̶̯̰̹̙̳̈́͂̚-̵̻̮̠̮̭̫͑̓͘̚
[and tries to just. straight up eat datz. i'm sorry, she tries to chomp him.]
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he doesn't have a chance to grab one of his weapons from its sheath before he's getting picked up in (and probably kind of skewered by) her teeth, but he does manage to grab his last resort item out of his pocket and just. slap it on her snout. because fuck if he knows what else he's supposed to do with this.
nimonster has been shown alrond's promissory note that says datz can do what he wants and what he wants is to not be eaten, actually, thanks ]
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So Ponta remembers another thing he is supposedly blessed with. And well, he's near Kogi right now. So he just... kind of... waves good arm in some kind of dance-like motion to cast a buff on him. Whatever that means.
It better work. ]
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kogitsunemaru has reached awakening status ]
N-nimona. Hold on a little longer.
[ on a scale of one to that's just fucking stupid, grandpa how bad would challenging pull her attention enough for the others do to something......? ]
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until kogi says her name, anyway. that's a challenge. and she looks up at him, breathing harshly, before pushing datz away from her, and stomping over to him and ponta, snarling.
but - here's the thing. she lifts a claw, like she's going to use it to swipe their heads right off their bodies, when glory shoots another light beam - it slices through the shadows and it hurts, and it's just enough. it's just enough for a weak point to show, something wavery and white and bright, where her heart is.
he can strike. that's the way to ends this.]
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WE'RE NOT KILLING YOU! WE'RE GONNA BRING YOU BACK FROM THIS!
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his body is heavy, and kogi's certain that without the boost, he wouldn't be able to move at all. but with glory's attack, and ponta's aid, it's enough to give him energy to push himself forward, sword raised.
it's not a perfect shot by a mile. honestly, it's probably the messiest he's ever done. but for this moment, it's enough. his blade strikes true and he closes his eyes tiredly ]
All will be well, Nimona.
no subject
she hears datz yelling, somewhere, she hears him try to make sure she knows they'll bring her back. there's something in her that believes him. there's something bigger that overwhelms her as kogi's blade strikes right into her heart. relief. unabashed relief, as a flash of light breathes fire through her.
this is the end she'd picked for herself, originally. it's funny. even after all that rewriting, even after all those promises, this is still what she gets.
there's silence, for a second, and then - the shadows curl down, and down, and down, and then there's just a girl, standing with blood and shadow all smeared across her face, a sword pushed through her heart all the way out the other side.]
... Thanks.
[she manages, looking at ponta and kogi, with a little smile. and then her eyes close, and she slides off the sword and crumples to the ground.]
1/2
CYOA COMPLETE ⭐️ REWARDS