[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Shilage[/color][/h3][/center]

Oh, [i]hell[/i]. They were a step too slow.

The faint wisps of rosy cloud overhead, filaments of ice and little more, sublimated as the creeping purple of night was washed away by the furious blaze of a second sun, brought forth by the dying gasps of their titanic foe. Even through the cold of the early night air, even through the steel that hid the awestruck horror writ large across his features, Rudolf's skin seemed to [i]burn[/i] beneath the wave of heat descending from overhead—fiercest, naturally, around the eyes.[sup]1[/sup] Through his visor, casting his gaze up revealed naught but a field of heat and light. An apocalypse. The thousand scars upon the earth, said to be the source of each new lake in southern Edren— the ace in the hole for any Behemoth that judged themselves wroth: Comet.

Comet was falling upon them, and they had but seconds to act. Rudolf's mind raced, even as he dimly felt the winds whip into a spiral around them, beckoned by Izayoi's blade— slowly. Too slowly. Her gambit was obvious enough— shatter the stone as it fell, and pray pebbles falling upon you were more manageable than a boulder. As good an idea as any under the circumstances, but her labored breathing told the tale— even one of her hidden hews couldn't possibly be mustered at full strength. Not without help. Not without more time. They needed more, and in a hurry!

He planted the cursed sword into the earth, barely coaxing the frozen soil apart enough for it to stand and watch. Useless. [i]Useless![/i] Just thinking about it made him want to scream— having felt the one time its shell seemed to lift and allow it to strike true, he would almost wager that [i]godsent[/i] edge against even this falling calamity. But he had grown no closer to breaking it, even after all this time— the damn thing was little more than a leaden weight. The Crane Wings, too, were of no help— fine for dispatching problems of flesh and bone up to a point, but he had mastered no part of them so mighty as to not snap in two the moment he brought them to bear against the wrath of the heavens.

What, then. Svalinn? Could the shield hold, or had he been too liberal with his employment of the profaned flames already?

A snarl on his lips, he held a hand aloft, as if his palm could bear the impact for this little village, before a cold voice clicked a tongue that may well have been his own. A bit callow, it implied, thinking it could ever be so straightforward at this point in his life.

[i]It's a moot point anyway[/i], the explanation came quick, as if each concept had been said ahead of time and was being stamped upon his mind like moving type.[sup]2[/sup] [i]The rebound would be liable to kill us if it shatters. If it holds, the surrounding landscape still won't be so lucky as the eight meters you might save.[/i]

The demon was right— Even to guarantee the safety of the Warriors, he couldn't necessarily muster the same for the militia. And then, maybe a mile or two a way if they were lucky in this terrain, the civilians, the birds, and Goug. They'd be likely clear of the crater itself, but the heat? The light? The wall of force, a hundred of Dhinas's hammers, sweeping in one long thunderclap across the ice? There was no chance.

He couldn't rely on a shield. He didn't have one big enough, even if it could block the sun. No weapons, no shield, not even the strongest of the dark magic his pact granted him. What was left that he could do? Even his materia was spent, with one torn apart at the seams for all the power it could muster, and the other inert... until...

The winds' velocity redoubled as Miina lent her innate talent to the vortex, desperately trying to bring it up to speed, to turn their dervish into a proper maelstrom. They began to howl. The others who still could were moving about. If he couldn't do anything about it, he had to at least stack the deck for those who could. It was the only way, right? This was the best course of action he had available. Right?

[i]Couple things. First, remember where we are for a moment. The place they make these things by the bushel. Second, since I've already touched essences with it[sup]3[/sup], I'm not gonna need those extra seconds to figure out your favorite magic bean the way I did with Shield, either, so if that's what's stopping you—[/i]

The dull purple of the spent orb seemed to shine in his hands, as if basking in the fire that fell upon the township. He hadn't realized he had grabbed it from the pouch, but instead glanced to the shock of blond a little off to the side, astride his chocobo with journal in hand.

[quote][color=#b3ccff]”I [i]did[/i] tell you that you had good instincts, after all.”[/color][/quote]

A pulse of aether, as the purple glow ringed itself with a stark blaze of black, furious ink burning towards the stone's core. Rudolf focused his will upward, into catching, into pushing away and back into the falling star, as if bearing and deadening its weight wholesale. In hasted time, the purple-black sparks danced high above once more, even as the steam began to leak through the twin slits of his visor as heat burned at the ground below—

[color=c0392b][i]Then there's no time to waste. The only time any of us have... is what I buy, here and now![/i][/color]

And as one, they coalesced beneath the epicenter of the blaze, and the comet seemed to hang in the air, like so many of its smaller preludes. If this would hold, for even [i]one[/i] crucial second, there was a chance that they could arrest its momentum or shatter it wholesale— and at least take this down from a calamity to a disaster!

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[*][sub]1. Your fault, not mine. [/sub]
[*][sub]2. Think of it kind of like I have no unnecessary downtime that would be filled by breathing, or cadence modulation, or some other corporeal stuff of that nature. You're getting me in soundbytes. And? You're getting them quick. It's like an orchestra. Only I'm every instrument.[/sub]
[*][sub]3. No homo. We didn't make eye contact, he and I— but I'm still going to miss him. He's been here from the start, taken part in every battle with us. For my vessel, it's good to think of it as a replaceable, compressed aether tool. Millions in circulation like it. But for me— A compressed aether friend, a warm, comforting presence just a little close to the sacrum. Only he and I have been on this ride the whole way through, pinch hit for this idiot time after time. Go now, warrior. Go into the great welcoming Dark. I'll take it from here.[/sub]
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