bravenewworld | Descent into Darkness

Descent into Darkness

As the characters arrive, they will find what appears to be a rather deep cavern. Upon entering, the caverns are quite narrow, with twists and turns everywhere and different tunnels that all seem to be interconnected. As characters travel deeper within the caverns, reality around them will start to warp, they will start to see and hear things that aren’t necessarily there - images of old enemies, past failures, voices of condemnation, visions that strike at the soul and core of the characters. Once this begins, it will only increase in power and volume, demanding it be confronted, lest they be trapped within these caves forever.

[OOC: This event will run for a week. All characters who enter the caves will be subject to some of their deepest fears, darkest demons, and most abject failures. To overcome them, characters must help each other out, finding their purpose through strength of character and resolve to move forward. In general, these visions should require characters to come to grips with themselves. Illusory images and voices can and will appear and can take any number of forms, depending on what is most appropriate to a character. Additionally, characters may thread with each other and are encouraged to help each other out to overcome these personal demons. For those who wish to take part, they are able and encouraged to narrate their own personal demons, which will be on display for everyone who enters their thread. IC threads may be made in this post.]

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[ Cordelia watches closely, listening to the conversation intently. She frowns, not in doubt, but in worry for him.

Procedure gone wrong? Had they been right all along?

His purpose? His duty? That gave her pause. Waiting for the shadow to say his piece, Cordelia reaches out, putting a hand on his shoulder. Her expression is solemn. ]

You do not need to be ruled by the past like this.

He lands between Yuuna and her copy on all fours, tail thrashing behind him like an unusually fat snake.

"Sinbad. Are you really going to be so Tauros-headed-"

"Quiet! Father - Daddy told me to be brave, he told me he could tell I'm suppose to be doing something great." He hisses as he rises up to his feet at the ranger's touch. "He died because he wanted to save me."

He shouted. "My father was a brave soldier who stood up to everyone that called him for a coward for opposing more war! He would never, ever tell me to give up! My ambition is a world where no one had to suffer like he did - is that so wrong?"

Is that right?

[ Was she sweating? ]

I didn't think time travel was possible. That sounds pretty crazy, you know.

And that's why you decided to become a delver and an explorer?

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to take you seriously when you are shorter than I am.

[ Although that does give her an idea. ]

But if you want to prove it, I may have a task for you. If you truly are an explorer. Otherwise, I may just have to call for help and have you removed. I could do that, you know.

[ Hearing something tap at her window, the tiny blond looks up, raising her head from her knees. Then immediately jumps to her feet. Giant. Bird. Giant bird! At her window! WHAT SHOULD SHE DO???

She very, very cautiously makes her way over. Those talons look intense, friend. Very good for ripping apart small children. She isn't too sure. ]

Ah... hello? Are--are you lost?

[ She should probably open the window, but she's a little worried she's going to get her eyes clawed out or something. ]

Edited 2015-07-22 15:23 (UTC)

[ Sanae nods slowly. ]

"I do." She says slowly, beginning to nod her head. An illusion. A fake. What she saw before her was not real. Robin, her cousins, the others; they were all right. If this Yuuna could be trusted.

Her hand felt firm on her shoulder, and Cordelia reached for it slowly, taking a deep breath. "I do remember."

[ whatever is going on with this place has to have some solution; there must be a cause, something they can break or yell at or bargain with until it all goes back to normal. that is the resolution that Jack has come to, at least, and he holds tight to it even as his surroundings shift and blur again. these will just be more illusions, more strange passing visions that he can't understand.

until he follows the voices down the hall, and finds himself in Lux's bedroom. as if he's just going to leave a kid here, even if it is because of an illusion. Lux is older than this, and this is probably something she has already been through - but there's no way he could ever bring himself to just walk away from this scene.

he sneaks across the floor barefoot and crouches down in front of her. ]

Hey. [ his voice is hushed and gentle. ] You wanna get out of here?

[ Feeling someone's presence hovering over her, the small blond slowly looks up. Her prismatic hair is gone, and any features that came from two evolutions have been abandoned for much younger features. She looks a bit different--her face is a bit more round, even a shade or two paler than normal, and the freckles she had from being out in the sun were gone. She looked like she hardly ever got outside, if at all.

Lux looked up at him, and for a moment it seemed she might recognize him, but that moment quickly left as she sniffled a bit. ]

Who are you?

[ There was an interesting lilt to her voice, one that wasn't present when they talked before. The high-class magi spoke in a similar fashion.

The confidence she had before was also missing. ]

How did you get in here? Surely the guards would have seen someone pass through, if not one of the Growlithe...

[ Now she was just talking to herself. She shook her head, drawing her knees close again and resting her temple on top of them. ]

Father would be mad if I left.

What, you mean you haven't heard of me?

[ he springs to his feet and sweeps a bow so exaggerated that he even balances on one foot, his other leg going out behind him. ] I'm Jack Frost, the spirit of fun and adventure! I come to rescue children from boredom and rules. Parents and guards can't stop me when there's freedom to be spreading.

[ just for effect, he lets ferns of frost spread across the floor from his feet as he straightens up (he pretends to be losing his balance as he does, "luckily" landing steady) and then he twirls his staff around in his hands and points to her with the crook. ]

And you look like a princess in need of rescuing, Lux.

And have you? Is she the person who you respect most, and want to follow? Or was that just expectation?

[She is sweating...]

Excellen. It's absolutely possible. [Look who you're talking to.]

But, this isn't time displacement. What're those sounds?

"Good," Yuuna replied, reaching out with her other hand to touch one of the bodies, just to be sure. Cold. Completely so. That meant something, quite a lot of something.

"Dead for hours. And that doesn't add up since we just saw some of them. Definitely a trick. But who's doing it, is the question. and why?"

[ Steel? World Shaking rubs his nose, grunting confusion. What is...steel....is that the sharp smell? He can kind of smell it if he focuses, but it's very far away....

Haruka hasn't really heard World Shaking hold a conversation with other humans before, so she listens carefully to this one even as her eyes flick about. World Shaking and Right having different impressions of the surroundings would imply this is an illusion, not the actual future. She needs to remember to make better use of Right's ability to understand Pokémon.

But she'll table that for later. Right now they're coming up on the Habitat.

Or what used to be the Habitat, and is now a completely demolished wreck, the tall building having flattened the area around it. Mankind's attempt to live together with Pokémon only did itself in in the end. ]

[ Rushing Wind is a good chaperone, too: she'll remain alert to the human's weight atop her and straighten out her flight path if he starts to feel insecure on her back. She'll also fly as fast as she can with a passenger in an attempt to catch up with that moving shadow, but it knows the terrain and remains ahead.

For her own part, Haruka can't keep pace with a Pidgeot, but she is making good time on the ground, eyes focused just on their quarry. But it's not getting any closer...and that half-broken pillar they just passed registers as odd in the back of her mind. She dismisses the feeling until it can work itself out unconsciously. All she has to do is run. This is simple. Racing right towards a goal, focusing only on that goal, comes easily to her.

Still, that pillar seemed kind of familiar. Like they'd passed it before. ]

That, at least, has some meaning to her. She understands the idea of heart, of how important it can be and how it can affect the world around them. Heart, as cliché as it sounds, is at the truth of all things. Battles are won with heart, as is love. Peace is found by heart, as is strength. Never forget that had been one of the first things Master Yashio had told her. Her tears, still falling, slacken significantly and she nods once. She also has no doubt that if she was grabbed up, Takeshi, Merrill, Haruka, Hayato, and others would not just sit around.

“I’m just…I’m afraid of a war. I know it’s coming. It feels so…inevitable. Just, what if you’re wrong? Not about me. I won’t…I refuse, I’ll fall on my own sword before I become something like that. But Gigas is full of trained soldiers. We’ve…been lucky before. But for how long?”

This, as much as anything personal, is her real fear. She’s no soldier. She knows that. Her confidence is shaken at best, foundation crumbling at worst, after Sanctuary. That had been bad. So very, very bad.

“Then, remember that. Not this…fake,” Yuuna all but growled, spinning Sinbad around to face her, pulling him tight into a hug against her chest. She glared at the two doubles, eyes gleaming an unearthly cobalt blue for just a moment before fading to their usual brown. Her lip all but peeled back into a snarl, tearstained cheeks flushed with mounting rage.

“Begone, away with you, fakes. You’re not real, and I refuse to listen to this anymore. No father should tell his child to give up, especially on a dream so noble as that. And nobody should take power just so they can hurt people. That’s all wrong, and you’re both full of Boufallant chips!”

[ Rushing Wind hears Nocturne coming and turns around, having discovered nothing of interest. She flaps a greeting and tries a hesitant trill. Do you know who she is....?

Hearing her Pidgeot's hesitation, Haruka grits her teeth. This isn't feasible. Whatever's making an illusion this complicated isn't going to be discovered so easily.

Frustrated, she lashes out against the illusion itself: will Michiru notice that, at least? If she pounds an Earthquake into the wreckage? This attack does make distinctive craters. She might not trust whatever's conjuring this, but she does trust her partner. Michiru! She's here!

She's here and she's trying to break things. What a troublesome soldier. ]

[that's a quiet laugh from Michiru. Gardevoir gives her Trainer a sidelong glance, but otherwise keeps her face neutral.]

She's fine, I'm sure. She's the better fighter, after all. [at least when it comes to pure strength.

The street and the buildings only seem to degrade more the further they go, throwing out sharp shadows thanks to some unseen light source.]

[ Tendou could keep a clearer head from his bird's eye view, there were less distractions when he wasn't moving himself. So he was suspicious the second time they crossed the broken pillar. ]

Pidgeot, I know I'm not your trainer, but could you hold still for a moment? I need to check something.

[ Either way, he's hopping off the back of Rushing Wind, landing beside pillar and waiting, armed crossed over his chest. If his suspicions were right, he would be spotting the lady again soon. If he wasn't, well, he'd just have to run after her. Hopefully the Pidgeot was willing to land him a hand.

Or a wing, as it were. ]

[ Haruka hums her assent in the back of her throat and keeps on walking, her Pokémon on either side of her. It's dumb that she feels better after what just happened. None of it was real, after all.

But maybe that just means she's dumb. She can live with that. Perhaps. ]

[[ ooc: works for me! go team dragons... ]]

[Nocturne blows right past Rushing Wind, unseeing. The crashing noises from behind her draws her attention and she turns, hesitating for a heartbeat zooming back. Training or not, the situation has changed.

Michiru starts, turning quickly towards the noise. When the dust settles though:]

...Haruka?

[there's a hesitancy to her voice, as if she's afraid to get her hopes up. There are, technically speaking, many other things that will Earthquake wreckage out of frustration.]

[ Rushing Wind follows, also alert to crashes (if more sanguine about them: crashes just mean "Trainer" to her). World Shaking is also watching Haruka with interest, unsure whether he should join in. For now he will just stand and see what Trainer is doing.

Haruka waits until she can see Michiru looking...where she should be, then sends another Earthquake into the ground. She's here, Michiru. She's here. You just can't see her. ] I suppose I should be offended.

[ Having gotten her partner's attention, she begins walking towards Michiru again. Outsmarting situations may not come to her naturally, but she learned from the best. And the look on Michiru's face as she - as Michiru, the one who always reassures Haruka - had wondered whether everything was futile...

Haruka's willing to do whatever she has to, try anything she has to, to not see that look again. So here's a Gust, off to one side. How many things are both Ground and Flying-type? ]

She is.

[If you need a wrecking ball.

The light source draws Rei and Casius up short, and with a tug on his fur she pulls him to one side.]

I don't like the look of this.

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Descent into Darkness

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbzflQJo6pI

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