Fie gets knocked back. Her anti-gravity generator seems to give out, and she lands on her feet, struggling to keep herself up. Her swords briefly rise up into the air, before drooping behind her back. Whether or not you go to deal the final blow, you hear Aifos before you get the chance.
"Stop.. Stop fighting.." He said, struggling to pull himself to his feet. He takes a few weak steps over to Fie. "Fie.. This isn't you.. You know this isn't you.. I don't know what they've done to you, but you don't have to be a weapon anymore--and I know you don't want to be... Please.. You have to try and come back to us.."
"Aif.... I..." Fie weakly said. "I.... Can't.... It's too late.... Just finish... Finish it!"
"I can't.. You don't deserve this, Fie! I can't just let you die! I brought you back, this is my fault, so I can't just give up!"
"You... Have to!" One of Fie's swords swipe at Aifos, though he catches it in between two of his own. His strength quickly gives out, and and he's thrown to the ground. Two of Fie's blades merge into a singlular larger one, and point at Aifos, ready for a stab.
Before it's able to lunge, Fie's struck with a kick to the back, and staggers forwards. A weakened Rho looks up at her, panting from her wounds from the fight before you arrived. Fie launches a trio of light blades, which Rho deftly rolls underneath, closing the distance between the two. Fie slashes down with a pair of blades, but Rho manages to slip out of the way, and get behind her. Before Fie has a chance to react, she has one of her own swords forced through her chest.
"R....Rho...." Fie says, as a single tear rolls down her face, and she falls lifelessly to the ground.
Aifos looks up at the corpse, and opened his mouth to say something, but Rho cuts him off before he gets the chance to speak.
"That wasn't Fie anymore." She said bluntly, before weakly making her way to the door.
[spoiler]Y'all can chat with everyone in the room if you'd like. Rho hasn't quite left, but is just about to. Tager and Theta are just outside the door. Kokonoe, Aifos, and Lambda are there, but all of them are pretty beat up, and of course, Fukua came in with you.
I've got a pretty busy week at work, so we'll see when I get the next part out. Earliest will be tomorrow, but I may have to wait until the weekend, as I need my laptop (which I don't take to work) to get it started.[/spoiler]
English
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[spoiler]What a lousy and uncliche way to end it.[/spoiler] Jack holsters his weapon. "There's nothing we can do?"
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[spoiler]I mean, at least it wasn’t Fie breaking through the possession with SHEER WILLPOWAH! :p[/spoiler] “I’ll look her over, and see.” Kokonoe said. “Chances are, though, probably not. She was already beyond healing before this, and I doubt whatever they did to her systems would have made it any easier.”
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"We can still try. Or are you afraid?" [spoiler]Yeah, but it would've been unlousy and cliche.[/spoiler]
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[spoiler]We can’t let everything be happy in the middle! We can save that for a happy ending! . . . Well, maybe. But the middle is for action! And tragedy! And jokes![/spoiler] “Afraid of what? Getting attacked by Fie? She got the drop on us, and that’s the only reason she overpowered us. Aubrey’s lost her element of surprise; if she tries that stunt again we’ll be ready for it.”
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"No, not her. Failure."
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Kokonoe scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Failure is a key step in the learning process. If I was afraid to fail, there’s no way I could have gotten to the position I’m at.”
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"Really? Because this place reeks of both. Neither of you have taken decisive action like a leader should." He reloads his weapon. "And if you won't, I will."
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“I’m not afraid of Aubrey, and your threats do little to faze me. She caught us off guard, and crippled our forces. The people are already afraid, the last thingwe want to do is send an army marching through the streets. We are going to handle things carefully, and with precision, not by going on a witch hunt for everyone involved. If you act out of line, and start causing problems for us, we won’t hesitate to stop you, too.”
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"I'd love to see you try, shortstuff." [spoiler]He's the type with no patience for incompetence. Aifos might want to interrupt. [/spoiler]
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A shadow suddenly falls over you, and you find Tager standing over you from behind. He cracks his knuckles on one of his gargantuan metal hands, and you get the feeling that even in his wounded state, he could snap you in half like a toothpick. “I’d urge you to think twice before threatening Kokonoe. You’re outnumbered, and outmatched.” “Knock it off, everyone!” Aifos said, leaning on the central table. “We’re all on the same side; the only person who benefits from us all fighting eachother is Aubrey! Jack, our number one priority is keeping the citizens safe, so that’s where we’re focusing our resources. We’re stretched thin, which is why we have you going after Aubrey instead of handling it ourselves. We might not be on the front lines, but we’re working just as hard as you are, you’ll just need to trust us to do our job, while we trust you to do yours.”
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[spoiler]I get the idea Jack could have kicked them both to Kingdom come with as bad as they've been, though.[/spoiler] "You asked me to fix this mess, and that's what I'll do." He brushes past Kokonoe a little roughly. "If you need me, you'll probably find me after an hour or so."
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[spoiler]He could’ve probably beaten Kokonoe, and Aifos. Lambda could put up a pretty good fight normally, but she’s too wounded to do much. Tager on the other hand, not so much. He’s designed to be borderline unbeatable, at least in a fair fight; he could’ve easily beaten Fie by himself if she hadn’t taken him out with a sneak attack. Even wounded as he is, he would’ve beaten the tar out of you; if there’s ever a fight against Tager, it’ll have to be a team fight like it was for Fie. And that’s not to mention if you attacked Kokonoe, you’d be fighting Tager, Lambda, Aifos, Kokonoe, and probably Rho all at once.[/spoiler] Before you leave Kokonoe snapped her fingers, and a gravity generator appeared behind you, holding you in place. She walked over to you, and looked you in the eye with a soul-piercing stare. “What I hired you to do is follow orders. Let me make myself perfectly clear when I say that I will [i]not[/i] tolerate insubordination. You either listen to me, go back to your room and stay out of the way, or spend the rest of your vacation in a gravity-cell.” Kokonoe walked back to her computers, snapping her fingers again to make the gravity generator vanish, letting you continue on your way out of the room.
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[i]Alignment kneels next to Fie and inspects her body to see if he can spot any abnormalities.[/i]
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It’s hard to get too good a look at her, as the armor she’s wearing seems to be locked on pretty tightly. You hear footsteps, and soon find Kokonoe standing over you—as best she can anyway. “This doesn’t make any sense. I doubt Aubrey has a technician who’s trained in handling seithr technology, and it should be out of the Trinity’s reach. In top of that, they managed to keep her personality intact to any degree after puncturing through her personality core, which shouldn’t be possible.”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “Perhaps it wasn’t all of that technology mumbo-jumbo. They could have altered her very form in some way. Though, this technology stuff isn’t my expertise.”
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“That’s just it. The seithr should have prevented them from altering her form with magic. I’ll have to analyze her body to figure this out. Whatever loophole they’ve found, I need to prevent it from happening again.”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “Something doesn’t seem right here, but I’ll leave that to you. In the meantime, we should prepare for another wave. Something tells me Aubrey isn’t finished with that beanstalks she grew.”
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“I’ll see what I can do to get rid of them, without doing too much damage to the garden. Easier said than done, though. I’m sure you’re right, though. Seems like a lot of effort just for a distraction.”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “Say, what can you tell me about the Trinity?”
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“I haven’t known them for that long, but I’ll answer what questions I can. What kind of things are you looking to know?”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “Been with them? What do you mean by that?”
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“I think you misheard me. I’ve never been [i]with[/i] them. If you’re asking how I know them, though, then we’ll start with that. Aifos used to have a magic necklace. It got stolen from him, and the thief used it to gain an incalculable amount of power. One of Aifos’ friends made a deal with the Trinity to fight him. She was an idiot, but she realized the longer they had a hold on her, the more she’d lose herself, and so she sacrificed herself to kill the thief. I had began studying them after that, in case I’d need to fight them again, and sure enough Aifos wound up possessed. My research found a loophole, and I had Blaze kill him while I caught his soul before they dragged it off. Placed it in a PFD, and that was that. Now it looks like they’re after Aifos since he survived their possession. They made the mistake of not coming after me, though, and if they want to underestimate me twice they’ll get what’s coming to them.”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “And what about this Venus person she mentioned? Know anything about them?”
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“She’s one of the Trinity. Along with her sister, Aeon, she was murdered a few thousand years ago. As murdered as they can get, anyway; from what I understand she’s still able to interact with our world, and her soul’s still intact. She just can’t take a physical form anymore. Venus is the most impulsive of the three. Quick to anger, and quick to lash out when she’s angry. She has spatial manipulation powers, and her blessings involve transforming the physical form of things, often into monsters. She’s not clever enough to plan much on her own, so if she’s in the picture she’s probably just taking orders from her mother or sister.”
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[b]Alignment:[/b] “She sounds formidable. You’re sure that this seithr is supposed to be immune to that sort of power?”