Raineh Daze

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Fear might have been an appropriate reaction to some oversized… thing that had just torn through the eidolon and not-an-eidolon like they were made of paper, even with the benefit of the two having been engaged in trying to tear each other apart. But… hmm, had she actually been afraid at any point in this journey so far? Talking to people, yes, and social situations in general, but… even joining that first ambush back on the Ospreyan border, she hadn't really been… afraid. Or back before that, when she realised the gang had been using her and it was time to… pay it back.

… maybe now wasn't the time to wonder about her own mental state just because it was another giant enemy. Maybe it was just because this annoying woman had been an enemy… well, it couldn't have been that long ago, but it felt like it was over a year ago.

She was sure there were other reasons to care, but Miina was pretty sure the building anger was just her frustration at someone else who just wouldn't die and how they couldn't do anything in this country without fighting enemies tall enough to make your neck ache. She was sick of it.

But that didn't give her an answer to how to beat it. Well, there was "keep throwing attacks at it and it'd break eventually", but that was inefficient and everyone else had it covered. If Miina had the time to learn bigger spells to play with… she might as well wish that she could just teleport straight to her brother and get this journey over with, though. But Reisa had said that this was a weapon, right? Which meant that she was in there somewhere. So, who really cared about destroying the armour? They just needed to kill the nuisance piloting it.

And if she was nice enough to be in some sort of mostly-sealed spot to control it all, or even a suit of armour? She still had to breathe.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Miina started laughing. "C-C-Crack it open, I'm sure we c-c-can drown her."

"Libra," Of course, examining it couldn't hurt, wouldn't it help to know where Reisa was exactly? Probably in the torso or head, but where… she just had to be ready to dodge when it attacked back. Or throw up some sort of barrier, if it had magic on its side.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina

Miina looked at the onrushing swarm blankly, automatically throwing out a muttered Protect as she tried to work out what to do before being shot completely to pieces. Lightning…? No, nothing she had would really take them all down; they didn't have Eve with them right now and that sort of thing wasn't… well, she couldn't do it as a spell. Ever since Siren she'd been doing almost nothing but working with aether in a way that was far beyond her previous expectations. Still, none of it was anywhere near so formal as a spell, she didn't have the talent to just work those out and this city was the first place where there might conceivably have been some sort of tutor to learn from…

Except for the assassination, and the whole time limit thing, and even then, she needed to kill these. Not heal them.

Right, so… improvisation. Fire was still good, but really, to cut them off and fan the flames… wind and haste, huh? It always came back to storms. That still needed fire, there was no telling if those flying thingies that Valheim had could stand up to ruff weather. Rough weather and incineration? That was a better chance.

But fire… the bunny ninja had the materia for that, right? Miina turned to face her fellow small girl and–

…

What was her name again? They hadn't actually spoken yet. Miina was… herself, and the other girl was… also quiet. Ah, it wasn't important, there weren't any other Viera on the deck!

"B-Bunny, um… fire? Lots of it, please?" the red mage made vague fwooshing gestures with her hands, hoping that it would convey what she was after. It took a long and uncomfortable moment before the other girl nodded and – yes, fire. Fire that would be so easily caught up in steadily accelerating air. Round and round and round it goes and…

Now that she thought about it, surrounding this single vessel in a flaming vortex for as long as she could keep it up would keep things out, but… this wasn't going to mess up the airworthiness, was it?

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

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Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Oh, they were on the... wrong boat? It wasn't the one they had been aiming for, but the redhead wasn't sure what would make for the right one. Except that it had been what they were aiming for? The actual tactical considerations were a bit over her head. And this one had that... annoying chatty dragoon traitor?

"J-J-Just stand still and die. Hold," Miina glared at Valon. Get away once? Fine, they just had to make sure it didn't happen a second time. It was no big area gravitational bind... but this was the scale she was comfortable helping with. Now, hopefully nobody would waste it; those flying machines were...

Well... flammable, the mage hoped. At least some of them. "Fira."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe blinked once. Twice. Then…

"Did the pieces of this fucking sword wind up with everyone that shouldn't have them? Oh, they're just holes in the world, why not have them given to mages and fairies and cheesemongers," the vampire griped, "Now we have someone running around collecting them to do… something and no idea of where they're supposed to be!"

The one consolation was that nobody was going to be able to reforge the sword without some level of divine backing… she hoped, although that was less certain. On the other hand, if one was enough to be cause a bloodbath from some idiot touching it, what could you do with multiple in a single location?

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Ride sea serpent, try not to get her ribs broken again, go kill people. It was a nice simple plan from Miina's end; nobody was expecting her to make any sort of big decision making and she just had to not burn herself out early on before they got to the meat of the matter. It was bound to be less subtle than her last attempt to infiltrate while people were distracted, but…

Huh, would that woman be there? "I g-g-guess we should be c-c-careful of that Loki woman?"

Or maybe she'd go off and try infiltrating? Whatever spies did was annoying and complicated, this was why it was good there were other people to do it.

An hour… more than enough time to get something to eat, she'd go looking for that. Ah, but Rudolf…

She gave the Edreni man a tap on the shoulder. "D-D-Don't die. I have q-questions."

…

There ought to be fish around, right?

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

Miina waved off returning to the surface immediately – after all, she still had her Exit materia, so it would take almost no time at all. When? Well, they knew it was a few hours, she wasn't going to stay down here that long. It was fine, she just wanted to take in the atmosphere a bit longer…

Well, the Mystrel hadn't been lying. She did want to just take it in and look at it, but it wasn't… well, that didn't really encompass it? Even if she put aside the existence of the crystal for just a moment, all the attacks unleashed in such a short span of time, in such a confined space… the taste of it almost lingered on the air. It was fascinating to look at, all the slight ways the purity of the aether and the elements themselves had been twisted and touched, the almost unnoticeable lingering difference between the haste Izayoi's materia had created and her own…

Even now, the air was still slowly drifting, not yet reduced to its natural underground stillness.

What was particularly strange was the two flavours of something… unpleasant. One was both thick and almost burned away; that would be the Blight and the corruption on Famfrit and the crystal. There was nothing to be learned there, Miina might be reckless but she wasn't suicidal. The other… hmm, where had that come from? It didn't fit with the ninja, nor Esben's new penchant for summoning, and Galahad had just thrown his spear.

Ah, that was Rudolf, then? She hadn't really been of a mind to focus on it, the last few times they fought something big – never in a position to stick around after and just examine the battlefield. That explained some of the… stranger things he'd done, she had thought maybe they were sword techniques or materia. Would he answer if she asked? Whatever was going on, it was interesting… not something that she wanted to tangle with directly, but the knowledge would be nice. Conceptually, she knew the most extreme, most violent parts of black magic must touch on something similar and not pure elemental destruction, but…

She knew her limits. Rudolf might not know what's going on, too, not enough to answer her questions.

The red mage's attention drifted to the crystal. This… this was interesting, though, now that it was purified. Oh, what could she do if she was able to just manipulate it directly… but that would be wrong, possibly destroy the world or something, and get her in trouble. The best case scenario she could see was drowning an army in exchange for Brightlam, which…

Hmm, she cared more about killing Valheim than she did the city, but there were still those other things to think about.

But it was her best opportunity to study and, well, meditate on water alone. It was honestly a lot more fascinating than she gave it credit for, and now that Miina thought about it… why? Why did all her offensive and defensive spells revolve around ice? Defensively, it worked in a pinch, but they had been having water shot directly at them, so countering it with the pure element and not mixing it with a hint of air…

Offensively, ice had its benefits. It was more about piercing than violently smashing, and it jumped out as a somewhat more enduring way to enforce restraint. It was cleaner, you could get away with smaller amounts… but really, it was just habit. Zeke had encouraged her and taught her ice, because it was what he knew and it was just nice to have the skill on a hot day and make it a little more bearable.

But did she really have a reason to stick to it? Yes, her most certain way to kill someone was basically to seed ice into their blood and tear them apart from the inside, but she could just as easily use that as a way into their bloodstream and tear everything out. Or maybe not just as easily, but Miina was pretty confident she could pick it up with practice. The advantages ice gave otherwise… if she wanted penetration, generally, lightning would be more beneficial. She could restrain and impede people in other ways. Water… well, Famfrit had shown one part of it: water could smash and crush, or it could flow around, or… hmm, if you could get it around their head, that was even better. Everyone needed to breathe.

But, for now, could she pull off anything adjacent to that? There was no better place to practice, nowhere that would ever come as close to being so effortless that even non-mages could do it. It probably wouldn't impede her fighting ability later, even. So, if she just picked an arbitrary part of distant wall as the target, then it would… probably be fine.

Even if she was trying to work this one out based entirely on guesswork and an assumption it should vaguely be like the golem's weird magic jar.

Naturally, there were a lot of failures. At first, that meant nothing. Then it meant that Miina, and everything around her, were unfortunately saturated by the water conjured up out of nothing… it really was a good thing that wet fur wasn't that annoying, so long as the water wasn't salty. Then a vaguely directed stream (maybe if she ever needed to put a fire out?), a more concentrated stream, and then…

The smack of water against stone was satisfying.

So she did it again. And again.

… hmm, she'd probably better get back to everyone, right?

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Tyaethe

"What's missing?" Tyaethe was the first one to ask, leaning forward curiously and… it wasn't that she wasn't aware that this could be misconstrued, or that the fey might take offence somehow; it was that she didn't care. Standing around in awkward silence wouldn't necessarily see them out of here faster – they might just be seen as common thieves, too, or suspects. Despite having all been rather busy while… whatever was taken was taken.

And she was curious. What had been taken from the Moonlit Queen while they had been out fighting Rozenalt that was so important that it couldn't wait until her visitors had left?

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

The dark orbs overwhelmed all thought of fighting back for a second, Miina doing her best to dodge and generally stay out of the way… although not in any way that left her open to retaliating. Dropping to all fours might get you out of the line of fire but it was hard to think of anything more restrictive to your ability to fight. Hands were useful. Including for scrambling out of the way, as it turned out, pushing herself closer to the action.

But Izayoi's instructions came through before she had chance to think of anything else. Maintain the storm, huh? That should be easy enough, the older Mystrel had already saturated their surroundings with air aether. To keep it going would only take more haste… but maybe she could add a little something else? As corrupted as it was, Famfrit was still water-aligned, and as Galahad had already shown, lightning was effective…

"On it."

So why not push that into the vortex? Maybe it would be useful leveraged to attack, or maybe it would just harass the construct. Best case scenario was that this would become a proper storm. Or maybe they'd all get shocked, that would be bad. But it was too late to second guess, and she was already committed, the redhead wanting to know what would happen. Wind and haste to whip the water into a hurricane, and a charge building…

Had anyone ever created a true thunderstorm underground?

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Miina Malina

"Dispel," the cat hissed, ears flat and glaring at the golem for a second. Eugh, how did someone like Isolde do it to an entire group? That would be so handy but… no, of course it could repurpose into something completely unrelated to water. Why expect the stupid guardian thingy composed almost entirely of water aether to stick to it?

At least this was fast enough to let her start dodging the spheres of water and not getting pummelled by them.

Well, Rudolf had had the right idea, and making it easier for everyone who wanted to stab Famfrit to not get shot was probably better than directly attacking herself, so… how about if she turned around one of her usual pieces of assistance? And gave this guardian a taste of its own medicine at the same time?

"Slow," Miina said. There… well, for however long this held, if it even worked at all. If it worked, this dodging would probably be easier. Hopefully.