Click This

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane had only just recovered from the ringing in her ears when she was forced to yet again dodge the guardian’s corrupted orbs. From the way Izayoi and Galahad reacted when they connected with their bodies, it was obvious that it wasn’t a hit that she wanted to take, as unarmored as she was. Thankfully, she wasn’t weighed down by the heavier weapons that she had so desired using, managing to slip between the various attacks with the occasional boost from her wind materia taking up some of the slack.

She could see Izayoi and Miina collaborate to keep up the underground storm. The pink-haired woman spared a few quick glances towards Esben as he called forth Ramuh. While the Eidolon didn’t grace the Kirins with his complete presence, just the aid from one felt enough to fully turn the tide of battle. Sensing the momentum shift, she joined Rudolf and Galahad in helping Esben. While she had been hastily dodging the guardian’s magic, she had swapped back to her gunblade. The quick footwork this stage of battle had developed meant that the rifle wasn’t nearly as useful, and she traded its piercing firepower for being able to slash at the attacks and for the way she could rapidly send six bullets straight into the corrupted being…

Which she very quickly did as she closed the distance, the bark of her gun snapping six times as she contributed her weight in pouring on the firepower onto the corrupted core.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

The retort of her gun as it shattered the gravity sphere made Éliane wince in pain. The firearms she wielded had already tended to be loud weapons, but reflected in the temporary bubble of Famfrit’s magic, the amplified sound was dreadfully painful against her eardrums.
Most of the dim of combat was replaced by loud, constant ringing sound, drowning out any of the shouts from her companions as she hastily dodged the follow up water spheres that came after the failed gravity orbs. Ironically, to her these would be more troublesome. Just like her battle with Leviathan, if she got overly wet then her guns would start misfiring.

Éliane could see Esben shouting something at her. Her hearing was slowly recovering, but it was still unintelligible. Whatever halfway useful bit of information he could shout wasn’t something she truly needed, though—she knew her kit and her own tactics well enough.

Rolling to dodge another barrage of high-pressure water, she returned fire with explosive shells in her rifle, letting the rounds explode against the golem.

That wasn’t nearly going to be enough.

She reached into her pouch, producing the remaining grenades she had. Instead of batting the explosives with her guns again, she opted for her wind materia.

She wasn’t going to be caught out like an idiot with a blast of water by trying to get into a batter’s stance, after all.

Lobbing two of them right into Famfrit, one after the other, she tapped into her materia and accelerated the metal objects straight into the corrupted guardian at high speed.

Once more, it was lit up in crimson and orange as it ate yet more high explosives.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane winced, making a chagrined face when she realized her mistake at Esben’s direction. She really was running on the last bit of fumes, wasn’t she? After correcting her mistake, she raised her eyebrows he pulled out a few chocolate-covered coffee beans. It wasn’t her favorite snack, but it was pretty high up in her rankings. “I didn’t know you still had some of these,” she replied, bobbing her head lethargically in thanks before immediately popping the bittersweet treats in her mouth. The caffeine was hardly going to be immediate, but hopefully she was going to have the energy a bit later when it mattered. “Thanks.”

At the rate they were going in this awful country, and with their luck, the guardian was going to be fully corrupted.

Yes, Éliane still was a bit excited for an interesting battle like that, but her energy was still low, you know?

It didn’t take long for them to reach the crystal in question. The moment she and the others put eyes to it, though, it was clear that corruption was involved.

The pink-haired Skaelan had a little more energy in her now at least.

She didn’t need to be told what to do; she already had her rifle out, keeping it in a low ready position. Without further prompting, the weapon immediately came up as she moved to a more advantageous position right behind some ancient stone rubble.

Instead of firing off rapid shots, she tested it for weak spots—with several paced bangs, she fired at its limbs, chest, and head, seeing where it would react the most while simultaneously trying to distract it.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane had only one conclusion to offer after seeing the trap gauntlet that awaited them. “I liked the fish creatures better.” Not that fighting such beasts wasn’t an entertaining pastime, but after an entire day up of ceaseless combat and awful things like actual spy craft, even someone as dedicated to the art of battle was wearing herself out for the day.

Most importantly, she had exhausted her on-demand supply of coffee long ago.

Her grumpiness should be obvious given the fact.

She watched as her companions solved some of the traps. Rudolf had managed to sabotage some of the plates with Miina’s help, who also got the far more envious task of blowing up the magical mines.

Seeing things explode could never really get old, even if in this case it was an unjumped fireworks show underground.

The swinging halberds posed a little more of a problem, and as Éliane looked at them to see how she’d tackle them, Galahad and Esben had sorted out a gameplan that involved her.

“Eh. They’d be easier to jam in place if they were warped by explosives… it shouldn't be that robust,” she pointed out. Nonetheless, she tried out his suggestion first, carefully taking the butt o her rifle to poke at the mechanism in question—but in a way that was careful enough to not fully commit enough to damage her weapon or anybody else here.

If it didn’t work, then she still had a few unused grenades that she recovered from the battle.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Éliane had thought about staying above ground and remaining to help prepare for the impending Valheimian assault on the barbarian capital, but in the end she went along with the rest of the Kirins and entered the depths of the cathedral after she had finished setting up the gun and its ammunition in the best possible place to repel their airships. With how long the night had been, she shared in Esben’s energy—or more properly the lack thereof—and she didn’t speak much as they continued.

It didn’t take long for enemies to predictably turn up.

This time they were ugly sea creatures. Despite Izayoi’s warning, she decided to save her ammunition, drawing her gunblade but holding back from using it as a firearm. They were not constrained in a tight space but rather a gaping cavern with rivers and reservoirs, and she had the room to maneuver as she wished. Leaping forward, she joined the melee as she slashed out, ducking under a spear and net before hacking off a leg from a slimy lizardman.

She could see and feel their intelligence, but the gulf in skill between the tribal creatures and the elite paladins that the Kirins had just fought was immense. Compared to before, it was almost like child’s play to scythe through these creatures, made all the more obvious by the way Éliane kicked one aside before skewering it with the tip of her sword and immediately engaging another.

It wouldn’t be too long before they mopped this up. She’d keep the bullets for the increasingly likely chance they would have to fight a corrupted guardian further in.

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

<Snipped quote by Click This>
cliiiiick

Ive been at work for the past five daaaaays and had some stupid stuff happen when I was going to do it otherwise.

I'll get something up tomorrow night promiiiiise.

@Rune_Alchemist

Fair enough o7

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

oh, we started
I'll try and get a post up tonight

@Rune_Alchemist

Ruuune

Moonlight and Witch's Work: An anime and JRPG-inspired Witch RP

Talulah Fourier

& Trifoliata

---

In a past life, Talulah might have thought hunting criminals would itself have been a criminal misuse of her skills. Even now, it still twinged a minor annoyance in her, but she was able to recognize that it was a civic duty as a witch, especially one well-suited for tracking such as herself. Looking among her companions, she didn’t think the same of the others, though—the black-haired girl could only think what a motley group of girls this operation had thrown together.

She could see one of the other witches throwing glances towards the one in clanking full armor, and the other one dressed in full white.
Two beacons in the night.

This experience was definitely different than what she was used to abroad. Being back in Lumiere was almost a novel experience after being in the sandy deserts for so long, but being an entire ocean and them some between her and the nasty wind-swept curses that had sent her back home in the first place was a welcome respite. If she hadn’t been convalescing, she wouldn’t even have participated in an operation like this, but Trifoliata had insisted on it as a way to ease her back into the groove. Exploring and researching artifacts in the field was her raison d’etre.

Had it just been herself, Talulah would have insisted on diving straight into Notte’s Labyrinth. The ruins in particular wasn’t the brand of ancient empire that she was most interested in, but it was still remnants of an ancient empire, after all.

Trifoliata also said that doing things like this was a good way to rebuild her shattered reputation at home, but that was neither here no there. Either way, she was here, and Talulah was hardly going to disagree that hunting down criminal scum and putting them down if needed was necessary.

Talulah made a dramatic gallic shrug when the azure-haired witch finally commented on the composition of their little party. “I suppose it can’t be helped.” Her words were conciliatory, but it was clear that she was finding the silliness at least somewhat amusing.

She and Trifoliata had scouting covered, and she said as much. “Trifle’s in the air ahead of us. She’ll let us know if she sees anything.”

Despite the distance involved, mistress and familiar could still talk to each other. The falcon’s smooth voice was audible to others, although slightly distorted by distance. “…I’m gonna smack you. But no, I don’t see anything yet. From my perspective it’s obvious the neighborhood knows we’re around.”

The black-robed witch sighed, making her twintails sway as she shook her head. At least with a Lantern around, even if they bumbled around, she could still lock on to something.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

Galahad was not the only one who found the engagement dreadfully anticlimactic and frankly pathetic. For all of the paladins’ misplaced zealotry, they folded like wet paper the moment they had been subjected to a classic hammer and anvil attack. It almost made her wish that she hadn’t prepared the battlefield so thoroughly and saved some of her explosives, but that was a bad train of thought and Éliane nipped it in the bud.

The bolt of her rifle made a smooth clack as she ejected her last bullet casing, looking almost sour at being told by Zacharias to switch to detaining rather than killing. She was still thoroughly biased against him, but she knew enough when to stop.

Or knew enough that she would get hassled by Esben if she didn’t.

Slinging her weapon’s strap back across her shoulder, she hopped down from the roof, retrieving the remaining few explosives that she had laid once the battle had wound down. By then Miina and Rudolf had finally met up with them and she began to get a fuller picture of what had transpired this night. Her brow furrowed at the revelation of Loki’s involvement. She knew of the woman and her reputation in SEED, but the particulars of her profile weren’t something that she knew well. The betrayal was obvious enough, but she would have to ask Esben later.

Considering Rudolf’s words, she shook her head. “From what you described, it sounds like the only asset that could be considered Skaelan would be the traitor,” the pink-haired officer replied bitterly. “When we have the chance, I want to investigate their bodies.”

That too would have to wait. The intelligence that Valheim would be attacking in force in just a few hours took precedence. The mention of her trump card was being increasingly mentioned now, and she nodded. “I’ll go with you, Rudolf. We still have the original mount and the fire control director that goes with it. We’ll need that for the anti-aircraft role.”

She paused. “We’ll need to find a lot of ammunition for it too. Any suggestions for a gun shop we can raid for autocannon shells?”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

---

By now, Éliane’s direction was somewhat aimless, and the pink-haired woman was about to default to the fight that she could hear when some strange flickering lights in a window managed to catch her eye. It had been erratic for a moment, but it had quickly coalesced into two lights, pulsing in pattern that almost seemed like Skaelan telegraphic code…

“Well that’s interesting,” she muttered.

It took her another second to realize that was exactly what it was and it was spelling her name. It wasn’t very creative, but now she knew exactly where the spy she was looking for was. Pivoting on her feet as she landed on another route, she quickly diverted. It didn’t take long for her to be face to face with Esben and his resident fairies. “Lucky stroke there,” she commented, before standing a bit straighter at the mention of the incoming paladins. By the way he suggested setting up, it seemed they still had a little bit of time. Her eyes caught the forms of Zacharias and Cid coming out as they spoke, making her shoot a questioning glance at both them and Esben, but she quickly got to work, nodding at his offer to boost her up to the roof.

Éliane was completely out of the loop still, but she nonetheless had a firm target to take her frustrations out on in the form of zealous paladins. She would ask about the situation later.

On the roof, she quickly began preparing. The din in the distance of the chanting paladins was easy enough to tell which route they were about to take, and she immediately pre-sighted the stretch of road they would be coming down.

“If only I had the cannon with me,” she bemoaned, thinking of the carnage she could inflict with a rotary cannon straight down the length of the road the enemy was about to take. Unfortunately, carrying just the gun alone stretched her ability to travel across the roofs, let alone any of the ammunition she needed, so it had to be left behind temporarily at the safe house.

She made do with what she had though, finding just enough time to lay out some explosives on segments of the road. They weren’t exactly improvised explosives, but if she shot each grenade when the paladins were over them, they would work just as well.

Éliane glanced as one of the fairies greeted her on the roof. “Hey, Selene,” she greeted. “Give me some speed when I call for it. There’s enough targets, so why not try for the mad mad minute?”

With that, she took a prone position on the roof with her rifle pointed and sighted, waiting for the zealots to turn the corner. The moment the first knight came into her range and sight, she started blasting.