Endgame: This is the Way the World Ends - RUANA

[animusmods]

Characters: open to those who want to fight Ruana
Setting: the lower administrative levels
Format: action, please!
Summary: It's time to take control of the Tower.
Warnings: physical and psychological horror, violence

When everyone is assembled, Zo opens up a portal--rather, he rips into space violently, as if doing anything less will cause it to snap back shut again. The way the portal quivers and shakes at the edges, it really might. He'll hurry everyone through--and they'll all step into a bedroom. The bed in the center is decorated in pink, with a large canopy and curtains surrounding the bed itself. The curtains are closed. It's silent, but the pressure is so thick in the air it's a living thing all its own. It's completely silent.

Comments

Team Swords and Sorcery

[sageprincess]

This place...

[Zelda isn't certain where she had expected to go when she stepped through Zo's portal, but it wasn't here. The room is just the same as it was all those months ago - psychic pressure that makes her grit her teeth and all - and idly she wonders if she were to look under the bedskirts if she would still find a heart shaped button that would open the way to the processing room.

There's not much good to be found in mentally rehashing the past at this point, however. Her eyes locked on the curtains surrounding the bed, she takes a moment to steel herself before speaking, though her words remain somewhat breathless due to the pressure regardless of what she does.]

Try not to touch the bed for too long if you can help it.

[A likely worthless warning, given what they're up against, but they can use all the help they can get.]

GO TEAM GO!

[no_longer_a_king]

And be wary of hands dropping from the ceiling.

[Because she remembers those hands well enough. If they hadn't acted so quickly, who knows what would have happened to them back then. Arturia braces herself. There would be no running this time. Where could they even run to at this point? Outside? Where they would surely be killed no matter how one looked at it?

Caliburn appears in her hand and she looks around warily for anything that might pop up. Given how much power Ruana has now, Arturia expects literaly anything will happen at this point.]

[animusnpcs]

[The room is ominous, to be sure, but it's also silent except for the words they speak. It doesn't seem as if anything is coming out to meet them.]

[prayerless]

[Aqua tries to take in her surroundings while there's still time. She's never been down in the administrative levels before, but if they're facing Ruana, she can take an educated guess at where they are right now.

She summons Stormfall to her hand. The pressure in the air is worse than uncomfortable, suffocating in a way that even the realm of darkness hadn't been. She can't be sure of what it is; not that it matters. They'll have to fight in these conditions no matter what. Aqua just hopes that whatever it is, it can't kill them faster than Ruana can.

It doesn't seem like anything is forthcoming yet, but she isn't naive enough to think that will remain the case. Watch out for the bed, and the hands.] ...is there anything else?

[bloodyashes]

[Curtains and quiet. It doesn't seem like a good sign - Asch keeps a hand on the real weapon at his belt, ready to draw it on a hair trigger. He positions himself so that he's loosely flanking Zelda with Arturia, scanning the room with his eyes frequently but paying the bed extra attention.]

There's no way she didn't know we were going to come.

[He doesn't bother telling them to stay on guard - that should go without saying.]

[ambassadorasshat]

Hands from the ceiling?

[He's not really expecting an answer to that question, mostly just thinking aloud. The silence unnerves him, and everything seems suspicious because of it--especially the ceiling, which he glances up at as if the mentioned hands might be visible. He's on the opposite side of the group as Asch is, also ready to draw his weapon.]

...Is she here?

[forceless]

[Ven remained to the outside of the overall formation, his keyblade materializing into his hand-- not with Lost Memory like he usually used, but the black steel of Oblivion instead. He'd hardly used it since Roxas had given it to him so long ago-- and now, maybe he needed the extra luck. The blade stuck out backwards behind his grasp, and he moved his left arm in front of him and those to his side, stepping defensively for now.

In a way, he's kind of glad he's not the only one who feels stifled by the silence-- and despite the serious expression on his face, is more than welcome to indulge the conversation. At least until the tension finally broke and something happened.]

She's always watching, isn't she? [That sounded kind of cliche when he said it out loud...] Maybe not totally here, but....

[sageprincess]

With her powers as they are now, there is little telling what she can and cannot do.

[But they can't fail here, and so they won't. That's all there is to it. Zelda continues to glare at the curtains surrounding the bed as though to will whatever hides behind them to become visible, her fingers flexing as they sparkle with magic. The scimitar she took from Luke's Auldrant rests at her hip, but it's more of an emergency weapon should she be without her own power if anything.

Asch is right - there is no way she didn't know they were going to come for her, but... the air remains stagnant, oppressive, silent. She doesn't like it.]

... She wants us to make the first move.

[animusnpcs]

[The tension in the air grows ever more oppressive. The curtains of the bed flutter slightly, though there is no wind.]