[center][img=http://i.imgur.com/eSHR32V.png][/center] [b]Unknown Location[/b] Bantam specks of cerulean colored dust began to form and converge on each other at the edge of a precipice overlooking a vast valley of pine forests and jagged mountains. The effect intensified and within a moment, Samuel’s physical presence emerged from the sparkling effervescent residue created by the displacement device that brought him to the wilderness of Anatolia. He held in his hand a peculiar object, organic in nature, which he inspected with care, unbeknownst of the presence which observed him from a cascade nearby. The scenery from the precipice was overlooked by a playful cascade clad with spouts of stone and trees, moss and rock that parted the steaming water in a blanket of strings and strips, a falling spider web. Samuel was slightly startled at the presence by the flow, but calmed when he noticed who it was. The girl had a lithe body, a short, loose blue dress, and bright blonde hair falling in perfect waves around her head. She was sitting along the bank at the top of the cascade, leaning back on her hands and dangling her feet in the water. She was also humming; tuneless vocalizations that seemed to peak and fall as she kicked out her feet and pulled them back again. Samuel knew she was beautiful, or at least, this projection of her was, but he also knew it was no realer than he was. As he approached, she gave him a smile and a little wave. Samuel hastily slipped the object into his pocket again. “What are you doing here?” The woman shrugged: “I got bored, and I thought you'd come here. I was right!” She looked back at the water and frowned. “There were some birds here earlier. I don't know where they went.” “You got bored, huh?” Samuel smirked, “I remember the days when I shared those feelings, but that’s a long time ago. Besides, it’s difficult to be bored around someone like yourself,” he said and gazed towards the top of the cascade where the belle frolicked with her feet in the water. Samuel nodded his head slightly as a sign for her to come down. She grinned down at him, and vanished. He heard her voice behind him. “Maybe that's why I'm so exciting!" “Hah,” Samuel chuckled and turned around slowly. “Well, for once, I’m going to be the exciting one when I tell you the news,” he said; approached her and wrapped his arms around her body, connecting his hands at the arch of her lower back. Her scent was of smooth lavender and brisk ocean breeze, her lips pleasingly plump and voluptuous. “But, first, you have to give me a twirl,” he said and loosened his embrace of the girl. She giggled and stepped back, out of his embrace, twirling around. Her dress billowed up around her thighs, and settled back down as she stepped back towards him. "Tell me tell me tell me!" Samuel caught her hands as she approached and swirled her around to position himself behind the girl, her arms crossing her chest and stomach. He whispered in her ear: “I found a way home, a way to confront him.” "Really?" she said. "What do we have to do? How soon?" “Do you remember how father said that he created Phyrexia to unleash the kami upon each other in order to prevent our rebellious brothers and sisters from manipulating those feral beings into joining their cause? Well, that wasn’t true; he lied, just as he lies about everything else,” Samuel said. He turned the girl around to face him, tilting his head towards the stars. “Phyrexia was a relic into which the former Divine Etro poured all his hate when father struck him down, and it's the only thing that can destroy the Simulacrum. We can end the repetition, you and me, right now. And once father is on his knees before us, you can say whatever you want to him.” The blonde girl stared up at the stars with him, eyes wide. They were staring back - as they always had. "And then what?" she asked. “And then we shall take his place,” he said and gazed into her eyes. She stared back. Her eyes were big and blue, and though they were bright and loving, there was something in them Samuel could never quite place - determination? Obstinance? No, nothing so banal. More a drive, raw, mystic passion. For what, he was never quite sure. Nevertheless, she smiled wide, giggled again, and kissed him on the nose. He blinked, and she was gone, running off towards the forest, laughing. [center][img=http://i.imgur.com/qGY5muB.png][/center] [b]The Tree of Life[/b] “What happened back there was…” Olivia hesitated for a moment, again. Her thoughts were conducting a violent battle inside her mind, throwing arguments and counter arguments at each other with total disregard for what her heart attempted to manipulate the matter with. And in the midst of this pandemonium, she could feel a looming presence of absolute void growing stronger by the minute; it was the twirling of her newly found spirits, which silently observed Olivia’s personality and feelings towards matters of great importance to her, waiting to nudge her in a direction of their choosing. “I don’t know what happened, Kim, but I do know this: if anything of what Samuel said is true, we have got serious problems and we need to warn the academy. We have to take this directly to Cid; maybe he has a clue… I mean, he was in the army for years, a highly decorated general, he is bound to know a thing or two about these matters,” Olivia said, but unsure of what the right course of action actually was. She tilted her head downwards and away from the boy, and the rest of them, closing her eyes: “Or, I don’t know; we need to get away from this place, that’s for sure, so that’s what we’ll do,” she continued and faced them again. Her tread was light and doubtful. So many things had happened in such a short time that Olivia had barely had the chance to process it all. It was a delayed fuse, and it hit her all at once. The dark haired girl was not often prone to introspection or brooding, but it did happen from time to time. However, she always made sure that it happened in private, away from her friends. She was supposed to be the beacon of light; she was supposed to be the solid rock against which they could support in times of duress, not the other way around. Olivia halted at the touch of her newly found weapon. It had already become an icon of her personal sanctuary. “It’s difficult to believe that just two days ago we woke up in our beds, safely at the academy, from a long night of cheer and festivities…,” she folded her arms across her stomach. “…It seems as if so much has happened since then, and so fast, that I…,” she choked on the tears the she could feel were plotting behind her eyes. “…I don’t really know what to think or feel,” she finally continued. “We’ve been through a lot together, and I’ve always been there for all of you, but this is different. I don’t know why they chose me over any one of you, I really don’t, but I think all of that is irrelevant now. What this is, what we have to do, involves all of us equally, and in that realization, I think that I’ll be able to do what you expect of me, what the academy expects of me,” Olivia spoke. The girl made sure to make eye contact with everyone before she concluded. “Let’s go; we have a long hike in front of us.” [b]The Anatolian Wilderness[/b] The friends defeated terrain and rocky obstacles for what felt an eternity, for nine times the space that measured day and night. Their journey had taken them through pinewood valleys and over frozen, jagged mountains, and into the heart of a blizzard. For all Olivia knew, they were completely lost. She could barely hold on to her sword, as frozen as she was; and she had clung to some of her friends for body heat, and heat generated by certain spirits, for the past few miles. They were already exhausted from fighting the high altitudes and deep snow. It was at this moment, when they could barely see or hear past their own feet, that she appeared to them. Not even Kimberly had heard her coming, if she had come at all. For all they knew, she was there all along. Olivia was startled when she suddenly saw a pair of unknown feet not a meter before her. They were barely visible in the thick flurry of storm carried snowflakes all around them. The dark haired girl was just about to let loose her massive blade upon the presence when she noticed who it was: Elizabeth Ashford. They had not seen her because she did not want to be seen. Even her imposing long-range rifle was clad in appropriate, white camouflage. She was a ghost; one among the illustrious Scout Snipers of the Special Warfare and Reconnaissance Group. Olivia had gotten to know her when she was still at the academy, through various festivities and casual cups of coffee together. But, Elizabeth graduated two years before her and the rest of them, so Olivia had not seen her since. It was peculiar, though, that they would run into her here, of all places. “Liz, is that you?” Olivia finally uttered. However, as wise as the battle hardened girl was, Elizabeth knew that the middle of a blizzard was not the ideal place for explanations or idle chatter. Thus, she urged the friends to follow her out of the storm. At the very top of some unknown height, Elizabeth halted their pace. They stood face to face with a crystal lake that reflected the world around it, perfectly. It was completely undisturbed until the friends tasted its fresh water. Olivia rooted her blade into the ice and embraced Elizabeth: “I never thought I could be surprised again, not after today’s events, but I guess I was wrong — what are you doing here?” She said, displaying her long lost, iconic fluorescent smile. [center][img=http://i.imgur.com/o4001Ad.jpg][/center] [i]Later...[/i] By now it was hardly a surprise that something did not appreciate their presence at the lake, around the bantam glacier at the base of Twin Mountains. Whenever they tried to rest, they were interrupted by things that wanted to kill them. There were eldritch things lurking in the rocky and icy crevices nearby. Kimberly uttered a sharp, but moderately silent whistle to catch Olivia’s and everyone else’s attention, as he had heard the creatures floundering about. Olivia, frozen to the core in her skimpy t-shirt, interrupted her water-drinking break and grabbed her titanic sword that was rooted in the ice close by. They were all silent, and they observed. Kimberly pinpointed a direction from which the attack would come, and he was correct. From the depths of the mountain came a vast horde of blob-like, boneless, creatures without any noticeable pigment. They were jagged, with a maw that contained a single, molten eye. It was nearly impossible to tell if the creatures had once been something else, or if they were xenomorphs mutated by the darkness below ground. Whatever they were, they were detestable. Luckily, they were not particularly sized, nor were they particularly fast moving, but they were many; and there appeared to be larger variations of them, whom directed the smaller ones. Olivia instantly reached for her tagger gun, but in the same instant, she noticed that it was gone. The Nautilus Guards had probably confiscated it, or perhaps she had lost it during the teleportation to the Tree of Life; who knew where it was. The girl cursed beneath her breath. It was an inconvenience that could quickly turn into a disaster. “My tagger gun is gone!” Olivia shouted. The blobs spewed forth from every possible fissure and cleft that they could see; it was almost overwhelming. “Okay, the big ones are probably influencing the little ones somehow, try to take them out!” the girl continued. [i]Notes: (1) This timeline, “The Anatolian Wilderness,” will be a continuous timeline in which there will always be a battle between our characters and monsters. There will, of course, be battles in other timelines, but I’ve decided to keep one of these constants for various reasons. Also, with this timeline, you can never say: “I have nothing to write.” When you want to post, warm up with a battle scene. (2) There are maybe hundreds of these tiny-blob creatures, but they are not bound to the stagger system, so you can kill them freely. However, the ‘bigger’, leader-type versions are bound to the stagger system.[/i] [hider=Combat Enemies: "Blob" Leaders] [img=http://i.imgur.com/hi5LE7S.jpg] [b]Blob Leader[/b] x8 ???. [i]Stagger Meter[/i]: 0/???? [i]Attack Damage[/i]: ??? [i]Retaliation[/i]: ?? [i]Abilities[/i] ???. [i]Resistances[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/VFRZN8P.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/OY5CglP.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/gDnDZes.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/aJbPh2T.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/KLbzqrA.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/r5dIMZR.png] [i]???[/i] [img=http://i.imgur.com/MjF7Uxp.png] [i]???[/i] [/hider] [hider=Combat: Players] Olivia: 0/4250 Sofia: 0/4250 Emily: 0/3000 Royce: 0/3500 Aaron: 0/5250 Kimberly: 0/5000 Magdalena: 0/4250 Remiel: 0/4750 Elizabeth: 0/6750 [/hider]