Endgame: This is the Way the World Ends - MACHINE ROOM

[animusmods]

Characters: open to those staying in the machine room
Setting: machine room
Format: any
Summary: The time has come to make decisions about what will happen after everything is over.
Warnings: psychological horror (eventually)

Comments

[neverbeamemory]

[He hardly feels so omnipotent, with said small and irrelevant human who had managed to regain a real body for herself. Something which was impossible for him to do. It tastes very bitter to him.]

Hmph. But for now there is only one way to go. It has to be forward, before the path crumbles from underneath us.

[culbutiri]

[She nodded] Going backwards do be being stupid even when there do no be being any crumbling paths.

[neverbeamemory]

[He shrugs, one-sided and cants his head towards that shoulder as well. Nano-film that should be hair falling into the gesture and then away from it again, threaded with violet.]

Sometimes you have to backtrack to find the right way around.

[culbutiri]

Only if you do be going the wrong way, which do be being stupid anyways.

[neverbeamemory]

You know just as well, how every path needs to be considered carefully. Sometimes 'going the wrong way'- [He tilts his head to the other side and then back to the other shoulder.]

-is necessary to learn how to go forwards.

[Philosophy, even now. Sephiroth is feeling more like himself than he has in a long time, despite the fact that his soul is still caged.]

[culbutiri]

I do be guessing so, but if you do be being careful you will be finding the right way quickly. It do be being less painful that way.

[neverbeamemory]

Of course. But there is no gain without pain, either.

[A pause. He looks over Nesir's whole frame again, resisting the urge to stare for so long but at the same time it's difficult not to be jealous of her now-real form.]

I'm curious. Does it feel so much different to be restored to your original vessel?

[culbutiri]

That do be being true [She smirked but it was bitter.

She blinked at the question, looking at her arms] My hand do be hurting, I did be forgetting how painful it did be being when it did first be happening. [Pain had been part of her for so long that she had barely noticed when it had faded over time as she got stronger.] But apart from that it do no be feeling any different, except I know it do be being real and not glamour.

[neverbeamemory]

[Naturally his attention is drawn to Nesir's hand as she explains. Of course he knew that her Glamoured form had missing fingers, but he had never known how long they had been missing before she had been brought to the Tower. It never has been important to know.]

Hmm. [A small noise of acknowledgment accompanies the smallest twist of a smile.]

It will be interesting to find out what difference it might make.

[culbutiri]

It will be being. [She grinned back, trying to hide that she was worrying. She had done a lot of work to get stronger, and she could about hit things with a bow now. She wondered if all of that progress would be lost just when she needed it most.] I would be hoping that Ruana can no be controlling real bodies. [Which would leave some of them able to fight even if she tried to stop the others]

[neverbeamemory]

[He probably wouldn't be too impressed at being reset to how he was when he last had a real body either. Kinda made all the intense training of body and mind that he's kept up with pretty pointless in the end.

But Sephiroth had released his last physical vessel in the moments before being brought to the Tower. Better to be a soul in a frame-cage than a ghost? But then when he had been a ghost he had been so charged with power.]

Real bodies are outside of the constraints of the Tower, in theory. It probably wouldn't lessen her glee at tearing it apart though I think.

[That smile is very much transformed into a scowl as thoughts are drawn into considering that issue of control.]

[culbutiri]

Yes you do be being right about that. Real or no she will be killing us all just as happily.

[neverbeamemory]

[He doesn't have anything further to say to that, only a deeper and deeper scowl which grows unmistakably across the lower part of his wireframe face. He sits back some, bangs of what should be his hair falling over his face as if it might go someway into hiding it.

What if she takes him out of his control again, it would be a fight for her life after all. Can't expect Ruana not to take all the stops out. Sephiroth is logically going into certain death, and he hates that he's logically came to that conclusion. He needs to come out of it the other side, somehow.]

I hope that my real powers count for something, or there will be no point to it at all.

[culbutiri]

I do be hoping so too, enough people should be having their real powers... All that research hopefully did be counting for something. [Not that she had done any research, but she knew it had taken a long time.]

[neverbeamemory]

[Ah yes, all those months he had spent dabbling in knowledge and methods that he hadn't been the sharpest in. All that reading, testing and dealing with a whole swath of others he'd rather not. That shaky truce with Waver that had been doomed from the start-

But without him, he's willing to bet they'd never had the chance. It's something that instantly props up his sense of ego. He did sometimes wonder where the remains of his tank of violet collar fluid had even gone when Ganondorf had left the Tower. Not that it had been important anymore.

Despite how sour a taste it had all left, it's likely he'd have never learned all that he had about the Glamour either. Whatever a salve that thought was supposed to be.]

There is no doubting it's worth, for one reason or another.

[culbutiri]

[She nodded and frowned] Well it will no be being long before we do be knowing, when we will be stopping wondering.

[neverbeamemory]

At the very least, some closure to all of this is required.

[-even if that meant it'd be the last think he learned? Sephiroth isn't so sure about that.]

[culbutiri]

Exactly... [She looks over to the group around Zo] It do be seeming that time do be being now. [People were beginning to move]

[neverbeamemory]

[He is aware that people off towards the admin are starting to move more in a way that suggests something may be about to happen but stirred thoughts, it seems, grant Sephiroth a pause in his keenness to end this. He does however follow Nesir's glance over to them, flicking it over the various other residents gathered. Some are wireframe still, like him and still others are like Nesir; their real forms restored.

He can't shake the fact that this puts him at a severe disadvantage from from the get go. He did never convince himself that opposing Ruana was the only way out, but second thoughts aren't going to assist him winning this showdown.]

Right.

[He stands up straight, stretching his arms out in front and then down, warming up the unreal musculature that he does have. Nano-film hair shot with bright violet threads falls down around him back into it's place.]

It's time to learn the truth.

[culbutiri]

[Nesir nodded and stood up as well, following him to where the others were. It was time. Finally.]