The Final Loop

[eternitymods]

Who: Everyone
When: April 11th - Last Loop
Where: Curti Center, Sen Devadatta
What: Final Loop before the final confrontation against the Empress and Bahamut.
Warnings/Notes: ??????

Comments

[singerofspells]

"Let us see how well this works," S'reee said, throwing up a Disguise to mimic Finn (as the first summoner she saw starting to cast). She wasn't sure how well an Asterisk designed for a biped would cover her, but she hoped it would give Bahamut a pause in identifying where the summoners were.

[shinra_dog]

Reno was there, of course. He couldn't miss this day. Not after facing it for the last six months and dying each time. Reno was finished dying here.

He squeezed Johnny's hand. "We're not done here yet," he said simply with a smirk.

Activating Dragon Heart, he waited for the inevitable pain of Bahamut's attack. As long as he could survive, he'd be ready to throw his all at Ramaa.

[transect]

After going through this— how many times now?— Rutile was more than ready. The look in their eyes said as much, and raising their tome high above them, the light of Succor spiraled out from them extending over everyone close to them, a sparkling shield of protection.

[masqueraid]

Ren had discarded his glasses this time, ready to face Bahamut with the new power, and knowledge, that had been bestowed upon all of them. The butterfly-shaped crystal remained in his grasp as his long coat fluttered with help of all the magic in the air.

His gaze lowered, focusing on the great dragon, and he felt all too much like he had when he first called on his powers back home. Anticipation, uncertainty... and perhaps even a tinge of fear. But nothing in his expression betrayed any of that, as he tightened his grip on the sacred object he held.

He could feel it pulsating with energy the more he concentrated, the more he put those skills sensei had taught them to work, and then... Pitiful creature, why dost thou call my name? I am both light eternal and the deep sin of the darkness...

Wait, had he imagined that just now? ...Did it matter?

"That's right. I call upon your power—" his conviction, hearing that voice, was stronger than ever, "Alexander!"

[pidgeypidge]

While everyone else was giving their impassioned speeches, Pidge was just sort of... standing off to the side to wait for things to happen. She'd assumed, of course, that she'd be going into this with the other Paladins, but obviously she'd been wrong.

So here she was, Magitek Bracelet standing by on her wrist, Catmancer equipped. For something she'd picked up on a whim, she was actually enjoying it.

For the moment, Pidge decided to just wait and let the more qualified people handle things. She wasn't a summoner or a healer, so it'd probably be smarter to wait. There wasn't much she could do against a giant dragon, anyway.

[eternitymods]

As the Summoners summoned the four Legendary Eidolons, the ground started shaking. But before any Eidolon could answer their call, the King of Eidolons cast its fabled Teraflare attack upon them.

It happened within the blink of an eye. The gigantic ball of energy was unleashed upon the gathered Heroes of Light, ignoring all defenses they had prepared. The size of the impact was larger than the city itself: there was no escaping it.

All the Heroes of Light are dead.

2/2

[eternitymods]

> Flames of Rebirth

The Heroes of Light are revived. Indeed, mere seconds after their untimely death, the Heroes of Light find themselves standing, fully healed and with no scratch, as if nothing had happened. Their gear, items and pets are also all intact and well. To find the reasons for such a miracle, they wouldn't have to look far. Above them was flying a gigantic and majestic red bird, Phoenix.

And the ground was still shaking. Should they look at their feet where the crater resulting from the Teraflare impact should have been, they would instead find... Steel? They were standing upon a machine of some sort, a gigantic robot that was emerging from the ground. Even as it happened, Bahamut was already charging another Teralare and cast it toward the Heroes once moreù

> Divine Judgement

White wings sprouted from the machine, enveloping the area before the Heroes of Light. They would be able to hear the impact of Teraflare against the wings, only to see the energy resulting from the attack being absorbed and redirected as light of rays to attack Bahamut.

The Heroes of Light are protected from Bahamut's attacks.

[bleating_heart]

Asriel jolts upright, sitting up after being dead. Again. And then alive. Again. Again.

"hnNNNNGHHHH, NEVER GONNA GET USED TO THAT"

He says, hauling himself awkwardly up as he sends hasting time magic towards Uendo and the giant freaking firebird.

"YES. THANK YOU. GOOD GIANT BIRD PLEASE KEEP DOING THAT."

[mech_and_mutt]

That.

was hands-down.

The coolest thing Red had ever seen. Tempered only slightly by the fact that colossal mecha appearing at the apocalypse were, by his experiences, usually a bad thing.

But having them be on his side for a change? That was a very welcome change. And when Red recovered from the initial shock--

"...sapristi...!"

He was back to gripping the controls of the DAHAK Mk. III, a far more genuine and confident grin slowly spreading across his face. Maybe this time they actually had a chance. Following suit in his own way, the ports on his mech's arms burned bright with his •Magitek Lasers at the--

...as an afterthought, he turned back towards Ren. "Please tell me you get to pilot this eidolon?"

[acapriciousreaper]

Not for the first time, Kuja witnesses a fight between Eidolons.

Not for the first time, he watches the protective light of Alexander shrug off the Wyrmking's best with contemptuous ease.

It's his first time being on Alexander's side in that exchange, however. It's working. It's working. "Strike now! Defend the Summoners, Ramaa will interfere!"

He [Focus]es and waits for the attack he knows is coming, ready to [Reflect] any magic aimed at the Summoners back at Ramaa when she makes her appearance.

[einspine]

Nodding at Kuja's remark, Papyrus launches a Blue Attack. He's not sure if it'll work on such a powerful target, but if all works well, it should hopefully at least stun him momentarily.

His Robuddy follows this with a blast of bone-based projectiles, even if the small turret can't begin to compare to the mighty Eidolons.

[plagueofshadows]

Plague Knight reels for a moment from the experience of being so handily obliterated one moment, and then alive the next, but he doesn't dwell on it for long.

He dashes over to stand beside the summoners, very clearly the most important people to keep alive in this phase of things, and readies a Mega Potion in case they're targeted, as with the first time they'd done this fight, there's no sense being conservative with items in the supposed final battle.

"Now that's an impressive display of magic, hee!"

[bladeofconquest]

This is like nothing Corrin has ever seen before, but only heard of in ancient, epic legends dating back to before the founding of Nohr and Hoshido. And what survives of those are notably lacking in giant robots.

Shrugging off her very temporary death-she's frankly become far too used to that sort of thing by now-she makes a gesture with her free arm to summon the mystical flames of [Ragnarok], dealing powerful fire damage, reducing Bahamut's ability to critical by 15%, while reducing Corrin's Attack Power and Magical Potency by one rank each, recovering one rank per turn. The eruption of fire streaks upwards with the rest of the attacks to strike Bahamut. "For Vaikuntha!"

[topgun_textiles]

Summoner defense. He could do that.

With a roar he advanced between Teraflares, the greatsword cleaving great lines of ice magic-empowered air foils. He started with a channeled Helm Smash, lowering foe defense by 5%. It wasn't much, but anything to get through a scaly bastard's hide.

[poisonwish]

Snow White grinned. They were back -- and it wasn't three days earlier. He'd had just about enough of dying, considering he'd never had to fear it before. The air stirred around him as he activated the power of Manafication, ready to hurl some choice spells Ramaa's way.

He might not have the full force of his demon nature behind him yet, but he was still going to make sure every hit count.

[boomchucka]

This is fine, Selphie thought to herself sarcastically as she felt herself being revived again. It was a feeling that she was more than used to but still wasn't overly keen on dying constantly.

She thanked her lucky stars for the combination of Phoenix and Alexander as she looked up at Bahamut with a wicked grin on her face. It was time to put her new job to the test!

Knowing that her black magic had grown a bit in power, Selphie used Ice Mastery to fire an ice based attack toward Bahamut's left wing.

vOv

[songbird_slayer]

Dying was annoying. Losing your buffs was more annoying.

She re-applied Protect over the party and waited for more of the fireworks.

Re: vOv

[timecrash]

● ● ●

Dying hurt, but... he was used to that, by now. Kuja had a point though, Ramaa would appear shortly, and she'd have something to say about all this, no doubt.

Unlucky for her he's got a trick up his sleeve. Time twists for a moment as he charges in the direction of the descending dragon-

And then he vanishes, the faint emerald energy of an [Angelus Errare] the only visual cue left.

[sassafrisk]

This was it. This was really, actually it. After six months of looping, a month of figuring out how to herd cats with maximum effectiveness, and two days of incredible fear, this was it.

As Bahamut approaches, Frisk LOADs their files with practiced ease, a forced half-smirk on their face. "You know, I feel like we should be singing some big musical number. You know, with a lot of dramatic strings, a huge chorus backing us... no? Just me?"

They LOAD [LOVE], [BRAVERY], [INTEGRITY],, and three [Blank Files], increasing their Attack Potency, Speed, and Skill Potency by 50% each and their HP by 30%, while decreasing their Healing Potency, Physical Defense, and Magical Defense by 50%, with their HP going down 5% each turn.

They throw down a smokescreen, and--

Oh. They're dead.

It was comforting, really, hearing Asgore's words for one last time as Frisk drifted off to nothingness. A good thing to

And they're not dead anymore. And standing on a giant mecha.

"Holy crap this is badass!" they whisper reverently, before vibrating out of sight thanks to [Smokescreen].

[tiredcharmer]

It was a lot easier to do her job when there was no future to focus on. When there was just the now, the disasters she had to fix, the supplies she had to run, the corpses she had to watch pile up higher and higher and higher--

But no. That was all over now. They'd fixed it. Vaikuntha was... well, not safe. A place overrun by monsters with a fuckoff huge dragon god infused with the power of a world-destroying monster couldn't be called safe. But they'd fixed it. They'd saved so, so many people.

Now it was just time to finish the job.

Tyzias doesn't even need to study Bahamut--she's read every scrap of information about him, watched the destruction he wreaked upon Vaikuntha dozens of times, saw the exact impact that the airships had. Used her [Expert Profiling] skills to get a massive panic attack over how invulnerable he is.

Still, Tyzias knows his exact geometry. Enough to fire off some of her skills, at any rate. She raises her gun to--

--ow. Tyzias trembles, mentally tumbling back to that day now so many months ago that the drone killed her. Atomic fire bathing her body, disintegrating her, murdering her in an instant. Except that brought her here. Where she could actually make a fucking difference.

Gritting her teeth, Tyzias activates [Sunslammer Gavel Technique] and [Moonsetter Scales Stance], doubling her critical and evasion chances but quartering her Physical Defense and Magical defense, then raises her gun to fire a [Judgment Piercer] at Bahamut, removing the Studied status and dealing strong physical damage that ignores defense and evasion. Time to end this.

[colzionetradingco]

Well, that was.. shocking, to say the least. Tressa was worried they'd be sent back, but thankfully that wasn't the case. Shakily letting out a sigh of relief, she use Camouflage on the entire party, increasing everyone's evade rate by 10%. She did not want to risk anyone taking another attack like that, so this seemed to be the smartest thing to do.

[old_stoneface]

Well, they'd all died again. It was alarming that Vimes was starting to become cavalier about that. But, as the Eidolons worked their magic, and he found himself standing again, he growled. What was there left to do, but spit defiance in the face of death?

They rise hands up, hands up, hands up,
They rise hands up, hands up high...

Vimes produced a cigar, lit it on one of the smoldering patches of flame, and slipped into the fury of [Vengeance]. Time to bring the law. "Bring that bloody dragon down! Knock it out of the sky!"

[littlemhigan]

All it takes is magic and faith.

Castor grins as she sees the cold metal beneath her, remembering the machine from her own world - embrace The Metal.

The grin fades to something more forelorn as she turns her gaze back to the sky, to the Phoenix. Inwardly, to the secret held safe in her heart. Her gaze narrows as she focuses, unleashing her own energy to the others around her in an act of Brotherhood, increasing all damage dealt by %10 for five turns. They wouldn't have long to end this; they'd have to make the time they did have count.

[koopacrusher]

Bowser reacted to dying with nonchalance. He merely said "Showtime." as a 1-UP Mushroom sound effect rang through the air, or perhaps only his mind. Death wasn't a stranger to him, he had gone through it around 50 times already in this world alone, and he'd sustained so, so many mortal injuries in his home world. Fortunately he'd come back each time, sometimes as a skeleton, but he never stayed down.

"How many times can that bird thing do that?" he asked, deciding that was all he could do. Bahamut was much farther than any of Bowser's attack could reach. So rather than take any additional action he simply observed the situation.