middleofsomewhere | Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

The memory Clef experiences includes a familiar face, if an unfamiliar location. A clandestine meeting, despite the pair's loud voices, wherein Vexen reveals to Demyx that Saix is orchestrating a betrayal of the Organization.

Edited 2022-05-30 05:11 (UTC)

Clef was confused. He had been heading back to the library and then... he was in a cave. Frowning, he leaned closer to investigate the walls, trying to determine the mineral content when he became aware he wasn't alone. He turned to see who was with him and... fell into a memory. One not his own. Unaware of what was being shared from him...

-------------

They had finished. They had chased the horrible glass creatures from world to world until they ended here. A door that seemed to stand between Light and Darkness. But they had won. And Light shined over the exhausted and injured warriors.

The vantage point was... wobbly. Clef was floating on his spit of land inside a transparent pastel shield of magic, but even his resources were flagging. But it was done. The Deva who had tried to use her power to destroy chaos - by making everything the same - had been defeated. Her monsters destroyed. All that was left was to get back to Naut and rest. For once, even Clef didn't want to research, to read. He wanted to get back to his Crystal Castle, see that Zelda and the boys are safe and then to fall over on his bed and sleep. For a month. He'd say a century, but given he had adopted Link and Link was sure he wouldn't see even one century, he'd have to content himself with just a month.

But then the Darkness shifted. He turned, trying to figure out what had caught his attention when he heard a laugh. Light, but icy. Menacing. Before he could brace himself, the floor cracked. Even though he had been floating above it, when the others fell, Clef fell with them, falling through the shattered shards of the ground before the door at the end of all things.

Black surrounded them. Then dark violet. Then a flash of light. His shield broke and he joined the others in being spilled across cobblestones, mist taking up most of their vision. Or at least most of his. But it was an almost familiar mist, and as it cleared he saw they were all there, all alive and all... Back in in Naut... In what passed for home these days.

It is the Central Plaza. But there's Isis' purple and crystal glass already making its way like a sentient serpentine wave.. The group scatters in different directions to avoid it and watch as the glass weaves past them and spirals into the air.

"Ah. So you are still alive. What an oversight on my part," a voice scoffs. The glass coalesces, forming a figure shrouded in light. The Deva of glass herself. Who... should be dead. He recognized her from his studies. But was she connected to the Deva they had just fought? And how? As her power moved, he saw a similarity in their abilities he would have to study later. First he had to survive. He mustered what power he could into reforming his shield and floated away, but without land under him in the sphere, his footing was uneasy. Once he was out of the Blast radius it was a simple thing to create ground inside the shield under his feet. Or would have been were he not so tired. So spent.

He wasn't the only one. He was among the least wounded. How were they going to take down another Deva now? The only hope was those who remained behind to defend Naut while they were gone. They would - hopefully - be fresh. Though if there was a Deva on the attack here, they might not be. He had no way to know how this realm had fared.

A voice spoke. Familiar, but not someone Clef actually knew, at least... not well. People didn't stick in his mind the way books and facts did, for the most part. "A Shard. The last remaining part of Isis' will. That witch has hidden a shell of herself among her countless pieces to bring part of herself back to finish the vision that she had failed to accomplish. It seems as if I was not the only one who had thought of a failsafe. I'm honestly surprised you Wakened have gotten this far. I thought you would have perished before you even reached the first world."

Ursaems, the Deva of Entropy, walked into the scene, followed by those Wakened who had remained. Backup or brainwashed? With the Deva... it could be either way. He'd been brainwashed himself too many times to presume their friends were here of their own free will. All he could do was... hope.

And protect them. Save them. If not.

Somehow.

The Shard shimmered, the projection almost having a static-y quality to it before it solidified into solid light in crystalized form.

"Usraems. You double-crosser. I'll show you who has failed here," Isis's Shard hissed. She raised her hand and fired a ball of energy towards her previous double agent. The blast strikes Ursames and encases half of his body in crystal. The crystal starts to spread and it's clear that the rest of him will be trapped as well.

"Nngh-!"

"Not so fast!" a voice cried out. The other Deva arrived on the scene, staring down the Shard. They stood in front of Ursames and then addressed the Wakened.

"It'll take us some time t' free him from this glass. Go! Buy us some time! We will lend you lot a bit of our power," Antovil said, putting his hands in front of him. All the Wakened would feel a rush of power. Wounds are healed and energy is replenished.

Clef stretched and the wobble faded. He found himself nodding. They could do this. Refreshed, replenished, and healed? And back in Naut, so close to the source of all Chaos? What couldn't the Wakened do? Bending was willpower. And fighting for the home they had come to love? What couldn't they do?

The Deva turn their attention to freeing Ursaems. They were tense, but unafraid, as if trusting the Wakened to have their back. Clef, for one, was not going to betray that. In this they were all aligned.

The projection of Isis laughed. "Oh you fools. You have not learned one bit. And that will be your downfall," she sneered and then summoned a horde of glass creatures of all shapes and sizes. "Finish them! Glass them! I will have my Perfect Order soon enough!" she commanded.

Okay so maybe she was the exact same Deva they just had just fought. Maybe he really should pay more attention to people in his studies...

The creatures lunged at the weakened. Those, like himself, who were shielded were fine for now. But any who took so much as a cut were almost infected by fast spreading glass.

Clef put himself into a support role almost at once. He extended a shield around the wounded and used his Bending to force the glass out. Contested Bending tasks weren't usually hard for the mage. His will was one of the strongest. But Ascension counted for a lot. He had Ascended only once. A Deva, even if distracted, had access to more power to back her will. Ironically enough, given the order she sought, it was still chaos magic. He could expel it, but it took focus and intent. That and keeping up his shields were most of what he could handle. He had to trust the others, only able to see the battle field between rescues. And then mostly just to look for others who needed the help.

Azmuth, one of the few in Naut smaller than him was doing much the same as Clef. While on the far other end of the size scale the golden Dragon Tiamaris seemed to be doing quite the good job of destroying the creatures. Leia... At first he thought something had happened to her, but his friend was passing harmlessly and formlessly through the battlefield using her Bending to smash the glass creatures together. Good enough.

But even distracted as he was, he would have had to have already been dead to miss Agatha's early contribution. He still didn't know how he felt about the redheaded scientist, but her couldn't think about it now, and couldn't doubt her effectiveness as she whistled a sharp and high enough note to pierce glass. Shatter it, actually. "SHOWTIME!" she yelled after that as a carpet of her creations surged forward, some fighting, so bringing weapons and armor to the Wakened.

Isis's projection snarled, furious as the Wakened defeat wave after wave of her horde. She seemed to be weakening. Summoning glass creatures must have taken energy and that chipped away from the remnants of her will. No matter! She too had chipped away at the Wakened.

She seemed to think that she could finish them off.

The Shard shattered and then reformed itself, creating a projection that stands tall in the plaza. She stepped forward with a thunderous crunching sound as glass took over the entire area. The whole plaza became covered in the same crystal-like purple and blue glass, sharp and uneven all over. It's crude intimidating. She looked... determined in her fury. "How is this for change?" she bellowed, sending out a wave of glass projectiles.

"Wakened! This is our fight for survival, so it is! Aye, this is the very last of that traitor’s will, and she will fight ye with all her might, but we know your will shall champion the day over hers! Don't let her encase you in glass, don't let her stop change and time itself!" Nictyx called out. They have freed Ursaems and were ready to join in the fight.

Clef heard Leia reply. "Oh you can bet I will. I didn't live and die a rebel just to let reality be taken down by a piece of cheap costume jewelry!" as glass projectiles from midair flew instead at Isis. Thick vines cracked through the glass-covered ground and wrap around the Isis creature's legs, both hindering her motion and attempting to crush the legs themselves.

A beach formed over part of the glass as Clef dived back into action to help someone else. Leia looked fine. Nita looked fine. Ah... there was someone who didn't. He put up a shield and focused his will on expelling glass from the wound once more.

Between people he caught a flash of one of the newly wakened. A girl in a long pink cloak and a mask over her face. He would hardly have noticed, except that she seemed to be using a weapon much like Sora's, though different as well. After the battle he would have to find her again. Maybe she knew the boy...

and then someone called for help and he flew over the Keyblade wielding girl to the next person who needed aid.

He had heard some of the end of the battle. Raised voices and a shattering of glass louder than any other. But he was working on someone almost lost and then with the last shattering the glass... vanished.

Clef looked up, tired once more, to see people picking themselves up, checking on each other. No glass seemed to be remaining. At least none that he could see. He needed to find out if it was truly over this time. And if it was... he needed to find Link, Shadow, and Zelda so they could go home. And maybe change what their Castle looked like for a while. Crystal was too much like glass, at the moment...

------------------

He knew that voice didn't he? It was familiar at least. And the guy in front of him in the memory... He'd seen him hadn't he? And that jacket? Maybe? He wished Link and Shadow had seen it, they'd know.

But men of science who made mistakes. Atoning. Those were things he could understand.

But much of the rest was going over his head. This felt like a memory of his own. Like he was in a Storm again. He had been rooted in it, but the second it was over he lost the context. None of it made sense. He would have to figure out if anyone else had any of these weird visions...

And then he saw Vexen. That he wasn't alone. "Oh." he was still a bit shaken from the odd vision, and the sense that he had understood it at the time but didn't now. Which was disconcerting. "Were you also waylaid here?" He at least knew the other as a frequent visitor to the library, even if they had not spoken much. Or.. at all? At the moment he was distracted enough by the vision to not recall for sure.

Vexen had been in the lab, taking advantage of the peace and quiet to work without distractions...and then he wasn't. Instead, he was absorbed in a memory, experiencing a battle fought with magic not his own. A door...it looked so familiar. He could have sworn it resembled depictions of the door to Kingdom Hearts, and yet...

The memory gave him no details to be sure, but he was certain he saw a Keyblade in the hand of an unfamiliar woman. Who? And what was it they were fighting? Some sort of powerful being, one who wanted absolute order. Pfeh. From his experiences, he could say confidently that absolute anything was trouble. But ultimately, the vision left him with more questions than answers as he rubbed his forehead, peeking out at Clef from behind his fingers. He recognized him, they'd spoken before...he'd been intrigued by the boy(?)'s ability to conjure drinks from thin air.

"I would call it abducted, really. I had no intention of leaving the train for camping on the beach, of all things, and yet..."

A sigh. He should have figured his luck would find some way to make this 'memory cave' thing his problem.

He looked around the cave, then back at Vexen. "I would hardly call this camping, or a beach," he said, then blinked. "I knew the voice was familiar. That was your voice I had been hearing." And they were together. Which made sense if...

"I suspect this might be a memory Storm like phenomena. Did you perchance see a memory of mine?"

Look, someone missed the memo that the train had even stopped, okay?

He had taken note of the message, even if he had also summarily ignored it. In the absence of Lea insisting (and in the absence of Ken entirely, but that was...a different matter), he had fully intended on staying indoors for the duration of the 'vacation'.

"I believe so, though I heard no voice to be certain. I suspect we are in the memory caves, near to the beach the train brought us to."

"I am unfamiliar with any such caves. I suspect you have the superior knowledge in this instance. Do you perhaps know how we are to leave? I had plans to do some research on the nature of nightmares today."

He shook his head and shrugged.

"I only know what the train has shared by way of her own research. This...phenomenon is something that can be deliberately triggered, if people want, for Kingdom Hearts knows what reason, to trade memories willingly, but evidently it also has a mind of its own."

"Perhaps I shall request a book on the topic at the next platform. It may be interesting if we can figure out how to trigger such sharing of memories at will. It would make teaching and cooperation much swifter, in theory. We just have to avoid overuse as it might lead to an abundance of same thought, thus rendering outside perspectives null and void."

"I believe it to be a specific property of these caverns. Something about wanting to return here because some individuals caught glimpses of the train's inaccessible memories. An intriguing concept to be certain, but..."

But exposing others to the nightmares of his past is exactly what he'd wanted to avoid.

"Well, I shall just say that I hope what you witnessed was not especially unpleasant, and leave it at that."

"A conversation that without context means little to me, and I am certain I can more or less forget it, if that is your preference. Perhaps a sample of the stone of the cave, perhaps the the effect radiates from the base sediment."

"It may also be a property of the location itself. My previous experience with...memory-related magic was at the precise behest of a sapient wielder. I would hope that such is not the case here, or else I will be quite displeased..."

Of course, casting his magical sensors out...just tells him the magic suffuses the area.

"Taking a sample and returning it to the train should be a simple matter. My specialty is quite useful for splitting stone, so long as some form of natural fissure is present."

"Then if you would be so kind as to gather samples for us, I can store them if need be." He was always willing to cooperate in circumstances like this. "Sapient wielder?"

"Of course. My own primary form of storage is magical, so if you have a mundane container, it would be best to avoid cross-contamination."

Finding a crack would be easy enough. Between his natural height and his Float spell, he didn't have to worry about not being able to get close enough to see.

"A young woman, with a peculiar knack for manipulating the memories within people's hearts. I'm not certain if this manner of effect would be within her capabilities or not, however...the circumstances were unfortunate, to put it mildly."

"Ah no, mine is magical as well. I have become accustomed, over the last decade, to those without means of storage at all, save their hands and shallow pockets."

He considered that, sitting on his floating spit of land as he did, staff standing beside him on its own. "Someone who is on the Train?"

"Then the pockets of my coat shall have to suffice. It is enchanted, but only to repel ambient Darkness."

The way he said the word made it clear that he wasn't talking about shade. A pause, and a snap of his wrist caused ice to form in a small crack in the wall, expanding it until the edges crumbled and fell away as stones.

"If the child has been on this train, it was before my time. I met her approximately a year before my arrival here, though our interactions were brief. Mercifully so, as I doubt she would have appreciated the intensity of the interrogation I had in mind for her."

"I shall store my own samples and we can compare them for differences. Though if we were truly concerned about contamination from magical storage, we would also have done well to use a more mundane method of collecting the samples in the first place."

"And if you were to meet her now?" Clef was perfectly capable of carrying on two conversations, at the same time, with the same person.

"I merely manipulated the temperature to create ice within the cracks of the stone. The ice itself is wholly mundane. Unfortunately, I am...rather lacking in non-magical objects which I might have used."

He stooped down to pick up one of the stones and slide it into one of the deep pockets of his labcoat.

"If I should meet Namine now...such was part of my plan, before I was whisked away to my first platform. I doubt she has the most favorable impression of me, however...curious as I may be about her unique capabilities, it would be best if any questions came from elsewhere."

He used Bending to float some stones to himself, though his barrier and into the gems of his staff. "Ah, I would have created a pick axe, if we needed a more mundane method. I suspect it would amount to nearly the same contamination."

"Because of her impression of you? Or your own concerns over your behavior?"

"My shield would have been suitable, enough, but I find this method easier."

Though he has distinctly superhuman strength as a Nobody, his magical stamina remains much better than his physical.

"And...it is more the former. I was a rather different person back then, one who cared nothing for what distress I caused the subjects of my curiosity. I was willfully complicit in her manipulation and the abuse of her powers, and I would not be surprised if my presence was a painful reminder of that time."

"It is interesting to consider various different methods," he said with a nod.

Of course, if he had made the pickaxe, he would have handed it over to the other to wield. He was a bit short for proper leverage.

He nodded, considering that. "Change, when it happens can be deeply personal and isn't always obvious. And even when it is, trust is a bridge that sometimes can be difficult to mend." Or impossible.

Jema'grethy: Memory Cave

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject