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Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Éliane smirked in smug satisfaction as she watched her shot connect. It didn’t take long for her satisfaction to morph into a frown when she saw Valon was still alive and in fact more than combat capable, seeing how he blocked both Galahad and Izayoi and pushed them back, despite the rest of the Kirins following her personal example and going for the decapitation strike on the traitor. They had great momentum, but it felt like the pendulum was about to swing back.

At least the false dragoons were still being dealt with.

After making her quick snap shot, Éliane changed positions. It wasn’t as fast as she liked, but juggling multiple guns, including the big one generally used for static purposes meant that she didn’t have the mobility that she preferred.

Nonetheless, she’d managed to make her way onto the aetherskimmer Esben had hijacked. Leaving Valon to be dealt with by the rest for the time being, she shifted her fire to the pursuing craft around them. A rapid burst of fire sent one enemy flaming to the ground behind them, but Esben’s attempt at flying was making it very difficult for her.

“Esben! Fly better!” She screamed out between bursts of gunfire.

She sighted on another vessel, only to quickly lose it again as her own craft tumbled away, doing some ridiculous maneuver that was making even her lose her meal.

“Stick to the original plan! Get us a bigger ship!”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Éliane shot the sole remaining grovemaster a sharp look at his comment. “I still don’t like you, but that was before you presented yourself as a halfway reasonable head of state. I can still show concern for a city being sieged by Valheim.”

Nonetheless, she nodded at his explanation.

On Loki, the information Esben confirmed was grim. On the other hand, if she got a chance to play with one of Valheim’s flying ships…
Well, she was looking forward to that.

-

The airborne assault came quickly and ruthlessly. Although it was never intended as the main line, the first line of defense fell quickly as enemy airships began to land.

The position that Éliane had chosen to site the gun, now in its anti-aircraft emplacement configuration was slightly exposed, but the pink-haired officer wouldn’t be who she was without at least taking a medium-level of risk in whatever decisions she made in combat. She was in a very good enfilading position to shoot at the ships bearing down on the city.

Although she still had to nurse her ammunition, she had already made good on her position. There were already a couple small frigates in flames as they spiraled out of control in the sky.

…

Then a certain somehow decided to show up again, his aggravating, irritating voice clearly heard over the din of battle. Was that man vain enough to use a loudspeaker in battle?

Of course, it was that annoying Edrenian traitor from before, standing atop a particular Valheimian cruiser. She swiveled the gun to fire at the ship, but as his stupid speech continued despite his own words, she switched to something that would be far better at swiping the smug grin he no doubt had on his face.

A moment later, she had her rifle in her hand, a scope attached atop it. It only took her another brief moment to properly sight in for the man cackling on the ship. Calculating the distance, drop, and the wind—helped a little by a push from her wind materia, she sniped at Valon mid speech just as Miina made her own attack.

“Piss off! I’m first, motherfucker!”

With a crack, a materia-boosted shot snapped right for Valon as he continued to gloat.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Éliane held a cup of inferior coffee. The others had their own, too, if they had needed it. So far, the plans made and the issues presented all seemed sensible to her. As low of her opinion of Zacharias still was, he was playing to the Kirins’ strength by using them as the spearhead of a counterattack. She frowned at the mention of Loki, and then Valon. What was it with Valheim and turncoats?

She still hadn’t fully processed Loki’s betrayal, in truth, and to her, there had been no good reason for the spy to turn traitor. She had briefly wondered if the barbarians possessed some kind of mind control magic, but Éliane had dismissed it as unrealistic.

The pink-haired Skaelan nodded along at Rudolf’s questions, finding them sensible along with Galahad’s own points.

“I’ll defer to Esben on Loki. He knows her better than I ever did. I still have a few points of my own to add,” she finally spoke up.
“We’re going to be in a bad way for communications. We’ll have to assume any codes, procedure words, and semaphore signals for both Drana and Skael are thoroughly compromised. We don’t have time to create and disseminate new ones. We can only do so much but minimize sensitive communication. Challenge and response phrases are better than nothing right now.”

She took a slow sip of her coffee. The next point wasn’t her strong spot –in the field that is—but it was still something that Éliane always had to be concerned about in the back of her mind.

“I didn’t hear any mention of how the fire brigades will be deployed, and that concerns me. Civilian, military, whichever. Your city is very flammable. The Valheimans are going to be throwing around a lot more high explosives and flammable ordinance than I will, and you are going to have fires in the treetops and houses. Do you have a firefighting strategy?”

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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It was over.

Only the battle with Famfrit, at least. Éliane slumped down briefly on a piece of debris, getting a bit of very sorely needed rest at this point. They had all been going for nearly a full day now, and there was still the impending invasion by Valheimian scum to contend with on the surface. She was flagging once again; letting out a tired sigh, she knew she would have to prod Esben again for another pick-me-up.
Almost like a backstreet dealer in Solitude, she reflected with tired amusement.

She took the time to reassess her kit once more, first reloading everything before finally rising again after producing her crystal at Izayoi’s prompting.

The pink-haired officer was very much not a practitioner of magic at all, but she still knew how to utilize her materia. The crystals acted similarly enough that Éliane didn’t have too much of a problem joining the others as she helped purify the larger corrupted crystal, marveling as the corrupted essence withered and faded away to be replaced by a brilliant diamond.

Éliane passed by Esben on the way out. “Going to… need more caffeine.”

Thankfully, returning to Brightlam gave her access to real caffeine. After a sharing a short nap with the rest of the Kirins, she had quite literally raided Zacharias for both tea and coffee; the beans in Drana Asnaeu were decidedly very subpar, which she expected for such a nation, but it worked. She was still going to feel very miserable after this was all over, though.

Which sucked, because she was truly looking forward to ventilating more Valheimians, and she couldn’t truly enjoy this even while hopped up on stimulants.

She wasn’t directly involved on account of being knocked out at the time, but Éliane was glad that Rudolf was properly able to negotiate for the proper ammunition. After inspecting the weapon again and its resupply, it would go a very long way for this invasion.

The garrison available to Brightlam was never something that truly impressed Éliane, and a good portion of its elite forces had been scythed down by her team and hers truly. The entirety of their military planning and tactics being compromised by traitors did little to help as well. She knew Zacharias had plans, but she didn’t give it very good odds of success barring further intervention.

Then again, that intervention was here. She’d briefly been able to say hello to Eve after she woke up, but she had since joined Cid in setting up defenses.

Well, she’d talk more about the plans when everyone else woke up.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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