melodiesofeternity | Anniversary Event: Defying Fate

"True enough logic, yet there's no way to tell how many times we might have to go through these events. Or if this one might be the last go-around."

Then it might well all be for absolutely nothing, the thought darkens Sephiroth's expression noticeably, he even goes so far as to swallow to clear his throat from the sickening sense of defeat that would cause. Drawing in a steady breath through his nose and exhaling slowly, keeping himself in check.

"Exactly. Knowledge is power."

Serge beams. "You've gotta believe, Sephiroth. We've got a second chance, here. I don't think whoever's arranging this would go to this much trouble to let us get it right, just to not give us enough time to do it properly."

The other man seems upset by the notion of looming failure, so he does the first thing that comes to mind: He puts a hand on Sephiroth's shoulder. "We'll figure it out. We're the Heroes of Light, after all! I don't care if we're Calamity-marked or whatever, if there's one thing I know for a fact about the future, it's that it's never set in stone. Little changes add up to big ones and before you know it, the impossible's suddenly turned out to be totally doable."

Serge is correct that the looming failure is like a thunderous cloud over Sephiroth's never-too-bright mood, but it's the larger consequences for him personally that makes it all the harder to swallow. What's the point in having been given a fresh existence, a new physical body, yet only to have none of the influence he'd been destined for, and then to die as pointlessly as any other mundane form of life.

It wasn't just a failure, it was utter defeat in everything he'd strove towards.

Sephiroth stiffens visibly as Serge puts a hand against the silver armor forever at his shoulder -a flash of a reaction held back from being manifest at the physical contact; he'd let Serge make the touch, of course, else the reaction would have come just as he'd moved to raise his hand. But whatever that particular crease of expression was it vanished almost immediately.

In amidst all the spoken sentiment which wasn't worth a second thought, there was one notion that Sephiroth did connect with though. Little changes do indeed amount to Big ones, and he himself had once delivered the impossible before. The circumstances, the environment, the life-mechanics here; different yet not. Perhaps he did just need to have a little more faith in himself; in what he already knew.

"Well, we'd better get to it then, whatever it is that we're to see here..." Sephiroth then stepped away from Serge to take a large view around, pinpointing whereabouts their two adventurers were wandering off to and marching back towards them.

For now, the ghost city was quiet. Too quiet, perhaps. With all the monsters across Vaikuntha having turned into calamity fiends, shouldn't this place be the worst of them all...? Yet, somehow, it wasn't.

On their left was an abandoned and crumbling building reminiscent of a saloon. They could see by the broken window that there was an old treasure chest inside, still closed but the lock was so old, it would probably break in no time.

On their right, the two adventurers were heading toward the city center. They didn't appear to be in any danger for the time being, but...

What would the Heroes of Light do?

"Hey guys!" Serge calls out to the pair, jogging to catch up. "We should stick together, yeah? I feel like this place should be a lot more dangerous than it's been..." It really should be. The whole planet's swarming with Calamity monsters by this point, but this places is... peaceful. Quiet. In spite of the overwhelming instinct to be positive, he felt a growing dread in his gut.

The Dead Sea had been quiet, too. Right up until it hadn't been.

Sephiroth had looked into the broken window of the saloon and seen the treasure chest there as he marched past but Serge' jogging suddenly from where they'd been conversing pulled his attention back to how far ahead the other two adventurers were getting. Perhaps there would be a chance to check out for potential loot later, it's not a priority as far as he's concerned.

The silver-haired swordsman quickly checks himself over before also picking the pace up to close the gap. Just on the slower side of sprinting in order to catch them up.

[OOC: Small side note, I'm actually away visiting family this weekend with no way of posting! Don't wait for me if it's pressing, and just assume Sephiroth is there keeping up with their adventurer buddies. If need me to check something, DM me on Discord]

When they go forward to find the two adventurers— They don't find them. The fog covering the city grows denser and denser, until seeing two feet ahead would be a feat in and of itself. So long as Serge and Sephiroth would stick together, they wouldn't be separated. But should they move further than seven feet away from each other, they be separated.

"Hihihihihi..."

They could hear a feminine laughter coming from around them. The voice came from somewhere in the fog... And then Serge would feel a hand upon his shoulder. Is it Sephiroth? Or something else?

For some reason, Serge doesn't think that Sephiroth is the touchy-feely type. That, and whenever the main character of a ghost story hears creepy laughter and then feels a hand on their shoulder, it's never their companion.
He does not turn slowly around to find the source of the commotion. "Sephiroth, wait up."
He turns around, then, quite quickly, to find what's touching him, but half-expecting there to not be anyone.

Most unfortunately for Serge, there was someone. It was an undefined, white and translucent figure. A woman by the look of it, one that may have been considered very beautiful if not for the crazed smile and shiny blue eyes, the only part of her that looked solid. Her hair were very long and reached down the ground, why, it looked as though she floated and the hair was actually what kept her up.

"Heroooo of Liiiiiiight...."

Her grip upon Serge strengthened and he would find himself frozen as her touch literally appeared to drain his life energy. Sephiroth would hear the voice as well and he could probably fend her off, but he wouldn't be able to see the ghostly form.

While he's certainly not the touchy-feely type, he's sharp enough to acknowledge that the fog is becoming denser at a rate that can't be anything normal. In fact, Sephiroth stopped -not far from Serge at all- as soon as it was clear that the two adventurers had vanished, cursing lowly under his breath; his intention had been to see what exactly befell them, the loop might now need to come around again to get another crack at it. Or if he might be so inclined; he knew the short cut.

He focused up on what all of his other senses were telling him, listening hard to try and pinpoint the laughter first but once something was clearly interfering with Serge, Sephiroth reached out to the young man's forearm and sharply jerked him towards him, stepping forward as if to put himself before Serge and the invisible assailant.

The sing of sharpened steel within the fog echoed as Sephiroth drew his katana.

"Show yourself-"

The creature disappeared the very moment Sephiroth reached out for Serge. However, her voice could still be heard.

"Accursed...."

There was no clear source to the voice around them.

"Harbinger of the Calamity... What do you seek?"

Serge breathes again, when the specter vanishes. "Wow. Uh. Thanks, there was a... ghost. Lady. Couldn't move." He draws his weapon, looking around at the fog with a frown. "We want to stop the Calamity. But..." He steels himself, inhaling.

"I want answers. About Crystallis. About my connection to it and who I was."

"..."

There is no answer from the voice, but a path clears up in the fog. It leads toward the opened door of an abandoned building.

If it were possible, the immediate shift in tone from the voice when Sephiroth intervened might have caused him to line-face even more. As it's pretty much his base neutral in such situations, however, only the tiniest fraction of his expression tightened further. He wondered if the reference to him -as it had to be him- as a Harbinger of the Calamity might be due to his chosen asterisk; or something else entirely more on a personal level...

Serge broke into those considerations, though, and Sephiroth looks over his partner once more before casting his gaze towards the path in the fog that's been created for them.

"Couldn't possibly be more foreboding..."

"Yeah..." Serge nods. "But I didn't get this far to chicken out at the last minute." He starts forward, if Sephiroth comes with. "Besides, what's the worst that can happen? If this is a trap, we can just try again."

"Exactly right."

Sephiroth really didn't want to lose sight of those two adventurers they came into this place with, as it was his intention to come and see what happened to them first before getting so involved like this.

But perhaps some events really can't be changed.

He'll silently follow Serge into the door opened for them, slipping his katana back and up behind his left arm; flexing his hand around the handle keenly. Ready for anything.

Should they step in the abandoned building, they would find themselves in a completely different place. The ghost city? Gone. The fog? Gone as well. They were in a castle that looked suspiciously similar to the the castle of Sen Riqeaux, but something was different. Looking by a window, the city surrounding the castle wasn't the same. More importantly, the land they could see on the horizon was not unusual. It was all covered by blinding white crystals, as if the earth itself had been crystallized.

There were no noises around them, as if the place had gone completely empty. To their right, they can see a treasure chest, again. The path on their left is blocked and backward leads toward the throne room.

Serge stops, frowning as B'alesia is replaced... "This... isn't Sen Riqeaux. But it looks so similar..."
The world, frozen in crystal. For a fleeting moment, he thinks he sees an ocean, frozen in a single moment forever- but then it's gone, replaced by this world of crystals and silence. "What happened here?"

Sephiroth spends almost too long being transfixed looking out first on the city surrounding where they've been transported to and eventually to the shining white on the horizon. The silence felt as if it could have been shattered by a pin drop.

As a result, Serge's comment is louder than normally would be heard and is more than enough to rip Sephiroth from his thoughts.

"Hm." He takes a pause to better survey their specific surroundings again. "...abandoned, perhaps-"

Sephiroth looks to the treasure chest on their right, narrowing his eyes at it as if it's been put there on purpose to test them.

Is the treasure chest there to test them? Perhaps it is, perhaps not. Whether or not it is doesn't matter ultimately as ere long, they can hear noise originating from the throne room. Should they approach, they may get to see three people in the room. One is a blonde young man, looking quite serious and wearing a white suit as he stares by the window.

Another is tall woman, looking quite a lot like the ghostly woman Serge saw outside, standing by the throne.

... And between them is the spitting image of Serge.

This isn't the first time Serge has seen another him.
Even so, it's a shock, seeing himself standing there, bold as brass- though not quite. The scar's missing. Not quite the Serge from El Nido, either, something subtly... different, about him, though he can't put his finger on him. "Another one," he mutters, under his breath.

As Sephiroth inevitably leaves the chest and approaches the commotion coming from the throne room, he approaches slowly, drinking in as many details as he can from looking around as he does so.

Similarly for the three people; it seems to be a royal pair of some sort? Does it seem they're noticed here or just spectators?

Though initially confused about Serges' apparent-self being there in the scene as well, his adventuring partners muttered comment clarified something in an instant; Serge perhaps is as aware as he himself is, in regards to the existence of alternate realities, the potential for any number of versions of a person. It had been a concept thrust at Sephiroth by his own interest, by Takeshi, pretty early on in this Vaikunthan saga.

"Hm-"

The blond arrogant-looking young man by the window, the ghostly woman, and the copy of Serge do not react to the two intruders. Rather, the blond man flicks his combed hair and turns to the woman with an impatient look.

"Well? Are you going to give us any news? Garland decide to keel over from a heart attack, every else die trying to stop the Calamity? God, I thought the end of the world wouldn't be this slow."

The woman frowns at him, but her body language betrays no hesitation or fear. Serge - the one in this vision - looks between them and stands up.

"Hey, hey, let's not get into another fight, alright? We might finally get some answers, and we really need to focus. Got it?" He aims that question specifically at the blond man.

The woman speaks up. "The party sent to kill Garland has not yet moved into position, but they will fight him soon. We don't have much time for this."

Serge watches, frowning. Who's Garland? He glances up at Sephiroth, searching perhaps for a hint that the older man knows something, maybe some recognition...

Garland

That name...rings somewhere in Sephiroth's memory as significant in some way, but for all of the mental concentration in keeping it together through various loops thus far, the connection is frustrated. Did he read that, somewhere? Perhaps. Those notes he's kept from Takeshi concerning Crystallis? Possibly. Not immediately coming to the forefront, however.

As a result, while Sephiroth doesn't make eye contact firstly, the deepening crease to the skin between his eyebrows is enough of a tell; the silver-haired warrior is trying to rack his brain at the same time as keeping his present-attention at what is presented before them.

After a few moments, Sephiroth blinks and catches Serges' glance only briefly, before proceeding to cast his awareness wider around them rather than specifically to those parties talking, trying to pin down something in the throne room that might give a clue as to the when, but more crucially which world they're bearing witness to.

Anniversary Event: Defying Fate

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