If R.D. felt anything of Lament's power, his face showed no sign of fear or worry. His eyes only narrowed further. "And now you want to do something that'll seal not only this Dark-link, but Lumiya's power as well?" he said, voice full of bitter sarcasm. "I'm beginning to see why Azaleas was able to pull off his mad grab for power. How many more unwise decisions are the lot of you going to make before you realize it's too late? Reinstate Kuro as the Dark Balance? Hope Ziatoch does the dirty job of killing one of your brethren for you?"

He shook his head and started the struggle against Serenade's power, to try and move. "The only Balance here that knows what needs to be done here is Kuro, God help you. The rest of you are too goddamn out of touch with the worlds to know what danger you're in. You don't even realize how close you were all to being erased! You don't even know what's now sleeping in this very tower, and you think any of you stand a chance against Azaleas and Ziatoch?"

R.D. began to laugh, and none of it held any mirth--just bitter resignation.

Edited by RisingDragon on April 8, 2013 at 23:56:42

If this is what we have protecting the balance of the Multiverse, it's little wonder the Omega Core planned to reset everything, was R.D.'s train of thought. They can't even take Ziatoch's threat seriously and refuse to act against the monster that's been killing them off one-by-one.

"Have you ever had amnesia before with your memories forcibly locked away by a superweapon?" R.D. shot back as he tested his motor control--how the bloody hell would he know if he's had a seal placed on him before? He knew Kuro wanted him to cool it and work with these fool Balances, but their constant underestimation was beginning to grate at his nerves. "You tell me. How long is this seal supposed to last? If I have to keep it on while I kill Azaleas, we might as well forget about it."

Edited by RisingDragon on April 8, 2013 at 21:17:28

Meta looked around after Lament disappeared until she found him again. "The Dark-link? Ts! That better not be some hogwash you're trying to sell, like my father!" She spat on the floor. "Whether it'll be by killing my mind or by mastering this 'dark-link' thing, I fully plan on getting to the top and bringing those f*<#ers down."

She took a sharp breath. Her next words would cost her. "Tell me how."

R.D. shook his head. "You're forgetting that my mind is blocked off, but if you say so," he muttered, still feeling doubtful. Too much was going on, that neither side knew about, but he knew it to be a wasted effort to continue fighting over it. "Let's just get this over with so I can see how well it holds."

He had a feeling that his own abilities were going to cause complications with this down the line.

R.D. approached the light, as Kaitlon had instructed him to, but stopped just before entering its terminus. He looked up, at the nigh-infinite floors of the Nexus. A light on each floor... except for several that had gone dark.

Distantly, he thought back to a battle against a titan in the chaotic, prismatic sky. Of the black rift that swallowed up everything, and the Avatar of Destruction that had torn it into being.

R.D. wondered just how many of those darkened floors were Ziatoch's work, and how many of them had been his and Dragon Drive FINAL's. Slowly, he shook his head and stepped into the beam of light with Lament and Gyro, soaring up after them on the ride.

R.D.'s eyes tightened from the pain as he was branded by Lament's flame, and his body flinched a bit, but otherwise it was nothing he wasn't able to bear. He'd felt worse pain--this was nothing compared to Dragon Drive FINAL slamming its claw through his chest, or the blinding pain that accompanied Re-Tuul's Meteor Breaker.

What bothered him more was the psychic and spiritual tightening he felt, like a second skin set over his body a size too small. He grimaced at the feel before putting his shirt and overshirt back on. "Feels like someone lit my chest on fire," he muttered dryly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a test to run."

He stepped back from the two of them, and seized Lumiya's energies. His eyes dilated and took on a deadened look, and at once, he channeled, causing a stunning array of violet bolts of light to scatter across his visible skin in a systematic array.

For an instant, R.D.'s body flared with a baleful, silver-blue light that would make Lament uncomfortable just to be near. It was only there for a split second, a brief sliver of Crystalis to test the seal placed on him.

R.D. was silent for several moments afterwards as he let go of Lumiya, causing his skin and eyes to return to normal. His expression was unreadable, but inside his fears were confirmed as he felt the reverberation on Lament's seal.

"Well, let's hope it lasts long enough for me to get used to this... Dark-link," he finally said. Lament's power was unfathomable, he was sure, but it still had that one fatal flaw to it. "It's not going to last long if I have to generate more Crystalis."

= Nexus Past =


"A couple hundred years?" Meta grimaced. "That better not be the only thing you're gonna teach me if it'll take that long. I've got much more time than that, ten times as much! But I don't want to be meditating on some psychic weirdness all day and night."

She paused, seeming hesitant for a bit, but then something flared up in her eyes. "Let's do it. Teach me all you can." Another pause. Was saying that too demanding? "Well, at least starting with everything about being a Dark Balance." She added with a bit of a smile.

Edited by Morphman on April 24, 2013 at 10:38:33

"Well, dimensional portals throwing me into trouble is hardly anything new," he remarked. He ignored Lament's remark on the conservation of energy--there really was no avoiding that with what he was going to begin. He began to follow Gyro onto the Ventre floor, looking about at this level of the dark tower.

= Nexus Past =

Meta pondered as she watched Lament leave. Relax? It would be hard for her to do so, with all the things on her mind, all the goals she left so far in the future. She went to clean herself up and get ready nonetheless, for she wouldn't miss this for the world.

Well, maybe not the world...

Within 90 minutes, the training she believed would teach her all she needed to know to defeat her father and his Beasts and set the world right would begin. She arrived right on time.


(Considering we probably won't be RPing out the entire thousands of years of training and Meta will stay in the Nexus until the time Hydro sent her back arrives, timeskip? She'd prolly be present at, or at the very least nearby, where R.D. is right now. IIRC, R.D. could pick up personal power signals, so he could sense her, as she wouldn't be hiding it while in the Nexus.)

Edited by Morphman on April 25, 2013 at 13:57:39

(OOC: Alrighty, sounds like a plan. Figured that'd be done, yes. Good luck with rehearsal!)


When Meta came in, greeting Lament, and found in reply a desk, chair and black board in front of her, her mouth dropped. "Oh no." Was he kidding? She figured she did have a lot to learn, but actually getting taught like lowborn peasants in their schools?

She sat down hesitantly and, not having any on her, searched the desk's drawers for pen and paper. Finding it, she hastened to get at least the key words and definitions of Lament's lecture down. It wasn't easy. She hadn't ever done this before, or remotely anything like it. Memories that resembled it leaked into her mind, but she knew they weren't hers and couldn't recognize whom they belonged to. Was this the same as what happened before, or was it the dark-link subtly at work?

When Lament finished, she pondered on questions, her mind flooded with information, but she didn't wait long. "Yes, what if two people are equally strong and adept at using the dark-link? And could you use certain kinds of magic in combination with the dark-link, like enchantment to make it easier to control them, and perhaps make up for lack of control of the dark-link itself, or boost its power?"


(OOC: Took a liberty with the desk for practicality.)

Edited by Morphman on April 26, 2013 at 13:45:21

(OOC: It's a reference to the Dark Tower series, how the Dark Tower holds up all dimensions and is the center of the universe. Also because R.D. saw it as a dark tower on the outside given his environment prior to entry.)

"Ventre's version of Earth," R.D. told him. "Specifically, a city on it that holds a way to communicate with the entire world at once. I have a proclamation to make."

R.D. looked around, frowning. While he had been distracted before, the resonance occurring in Lumiya was getting stronger and more insistent. "What the hell is causing that?" he muttered, mostly to himself.

= Nexus Past, Thousands of Years Later, Making it the Present =

It felt almost like she had been sitting in a serene stasis for many years when she was brought out of it by Lament. Her eyes snapped open with a crackle of lightning, and her eyes were briefly washed over by a golden glow before settling to their normal reds. Her mind felt different now, after all these years. Honed. Ready. Dark. Every movement she could feel the synapses in her body firing with an awareness that had come with so many years of training and meditation on use of powers she had had, but not mastered. If she were to face the same Electra as before, she didn't doubt that she might even be stronger than her in the magics of wind and lightning.

She rose slowly, deliberately, and looked at her teacher. "I'm ready," she told Lament, regarding him as her master the way a student does his teacher, rather than a worker does his boss, though she had always refused herself to call him that out loud. The title of Dark Balance did come with an added sense of pride.

She felt the Hand of Chaos that covered her left hand vibrate and send off a mental hum towards her, which caused her light disturbance. She gave it a frown, but pondered it no more briefly than a second or two. This moment she had waited for for ages, trained for for ages, and she would not let the damn thing distract her from glory.

She took a deep breath. This wouldn't be easy. Lament was a formidable opponent, she knew that. This time the assignment was to last, however, and the defensive was usually the easier side to be on. Still, she wouldn't allow herself to cut herself a little slack. If she would have to retake the last four years of training, she would be too late. The long time spent in the Nexus had been disorienting versus the Beta realm, but it had been made clear to her that around this time was when the Dark Apocalypse was happening, the time she originally came from. She might not have another four years, and getting the Sword of Time afterwards and reversing time to travel back to this point and setting everything right before everything would be destroyed would just make things worse, cause a time paradox, and who knows what horrible world-destroyer could end up showing up because of it. Lament was bound to know that, but did he know something she didn't pertaining to this very moment? Did he have a measure of foresight, knowing that she wouldn't fail, and thus wouldn't have to undergo teaching for those four more years, and thus would be in time to prevent everything from going to Hell even further? He just had to, she decided, as she finalized readying her mind against his assault, fortifying it even as the thoughts within had gone this way and that in the meantime. She had been taught well. She was going to prove it, and the ambitious side of her dared even add a glimmer of the thought that she might one day surpass Lament.

After all that training and gaining power, she figured she could best most Dark Balances already, and her father topped her list.

R.D. was silent for a moment, his mouth pulled back in a thoughtful frown. He shook his head, clearing his mind and putting away the resonance. "It's nothing. Just Lumiya acting up."

He could've sworn he'd felt that resonance several times before, though. Never mind that.

"So, the Palace of Fallen Heroes?" he spoke up. "How fitting. Sounds like the perfect place to make such an announcement."

He looked back over at Gyro Balance. "Anything in particular I should know about the region surrounding it?" he asked. "Any demon viceroy or something?"

"Not a whole lot, I suppose," R.D. admitted. "He's the de-facto leader of the remaining Five Beasts underneath Kuro, and that he excels in power."

Once more Lumiya's resonance swept through him, as if encouraging him towards something. Or encouraging something or someone else--there had to be something around here affecting it.

He made an aside glance, as if thinking. "I'm guessing with Azaleas over in my world, he's filling in for him," he continued. "I'm more concerned with regional commanders, whatever cronies he and the other Beasts send my way before they realize what they're up against."

As Gyro would make his answer, another thought came to him, his experience bringing up other bits of knowledge that he could find useful. He waited on the response before asking, "I don't suppose you know what the terrain around this Palace is like, do you? A city with some high-rises or a really tall tower or two?"

"Fighting Dragon Drive FINAL is a suicide mission," R.D. corrected. "Fighting Azaleas without the full might of Lumiya is a suicide mission."

He glanced at Gyro. "So far I've done both and lived, so I can't let Carnax or this Wrath woman scare me into submission. This has to be done, Gyro. Azaleas is out of the Council's control and everyone but the Supreme Balances seem to know it," he told him. He looked forward once more, his expression set. "I'm the only one he's afraid of. I'm the only one who can stop him now and not leave the world a cinder."

"The defensive is the easier option," Meta replied through the link, "but you know what they say about defense." She then began with a quick assault launched at the back of Lament's mind, trying to sabotage his subconscious first, and then immediately follow up with distractions both left and right, quickly, to just plant the seed and get out of the way again. With a few more such strikes, she felt more certain of the tactic that was pure to her: she tried to read Lament's mind and launch at him a full-frontal assault at a weaker point, surrounded by imagery of what little she knew of things Lament liked or desired, or at least once did.

Edited by Morphman on April 30, 2013 at 15:46:44