Invasion of Figaro

[sonoffigaro]

Characters: Anyone in Figaro, Lufene, Kuja, random villains!
Progress: In progress
Summary: Lufene wants something. Figaro's got it. She's going to get her hands on it, whatever it takes.
Location: Figaro, castle and town.
Date: February 11, 1804
Warnings: Fights, craziness, possibly gore? We'll find out

Comments

Open! / town

[magitekrune]

Celes' morning had actually been going splendidly so far. It had been a quiet one and she liked that. Relm was safe, she'd seen to Ursula in Narshe, and now she was back, ready to take it easy. She was on her way for an early lunch when she heard the first cries. Pushing through the crowds of people, and wondering (not for the first time) why people always took so long to group and get ready in an emergency (and why in the goddess's names did they always block all the exits when they did it), Celes hurried up to the top to see for herself.

What she saw wasn't what she'd wanted.

Diving back into the castle, she started yelling out as many orders as she could as quickly as she could while she ran for the front gate. She needed to be outside where she could protect the town. The castle would be fine. It had its own defense.

"All able-bodied people assemble outside! We have to protect the town! Moogles!" A part of her hated to just call them by species, but she didn't have time to call them by name. "Submerge the castle! NowShe was

Open! / town

[heavenslament]

Terra was racing down the stairs as Celes' orders rang out to those in the immediate area. Of course, she had not intention other than to fight at her friend's side and defend those who needed it. Anything else would just have to wait.

"Celes!" She tried to get her attention, though in the chaos, it was likely Terra's cry wasn't heard. Nonetheless, the green-haired woman did her best to catch up to her friend. She would reach her before the swarm did, whatever it took.

Open! / town

[magitekrune]

Celes had just enough time to make sure a proper network post went out on the Sky Phones before Terra appeared and the swarm got within range. "Terra!" she called, thankful that her friend was outside, too. She figured Edgar would be protecting the castle, and for that she was glad. It meant she could focus on the town.

"Ready to help me test out my new abilities?"

Open! / town

[heavenslament]

Terra gave a curt nod. "Do what you must. I'll cover you." She concentrated and began pelting the nearest targets with large shards of ice. It was tempting to assume her Esper form, but Terra held off. If Lufene really was among the swarm, she had to hold off until then.

Open/Castle

[heavenslament]

Terra was taking in the view from the roof, thinking idly that she might see about lunch with the boy and/or Edgar, if he wasn't too busy. She turned and headed for the stairs, when a sudden urge to glance over at the horizon took hold. Shading her eyes, she did so...and froze. A swarm. An enormous swarm, at that.

She hoped that the periodic chaos that engulfed Gaia would somehow spare her home, but it appeared that there was no escape this time. Luck, if they had it to begin with, had just run out. Whether through Lufene's or Garland's or another's doing, it was Figaro's turn to be trapped in the maelstrom.

As the swarm approached, and Terra got a better view of just what was coming, she snapped into action. Racing down the stairs, her first priority was to warn her friends. Whatever was coming, she would be at their side.

Open/Castle

[alittletoosmart]

"Terra?"

The Onion Knight was already as armed as he could get away with in the castle without the guards becoming annoyed. He'd been heading up the stairs, knowing that Terra spent a lot of time up on the roof and planning to meet up with her there. He'd not quite expected her to come racing back down the stairs. "Terra! What's wrong?"

Open/Castle

[heavenslament]

Terra's words tumbled out in a rush, and she didn't pause in stride at all. The boy could keep up, she was certain. "There's a swarm, heading this way! We have to defend Figaro!"

She thought about just teleporting them outside, but figured that if they ran into any familiar faces along the way, that could only do them good.

Open/Castle

[alittletoosmart]

"Wh-what!?"

The Onion Knight kept up easily desbite his shock, drawing his sword as he ran. If the guards had a problem with him having a weapon on his person now of all times then their priorities were sorely skewed.

"Is it Garland? Kuja? That woman?"

Open!/Town

[intobrightness]

Relm's normal art materials lay forgotten on the path behind her, paper and brushes abandoned in favour of the quicker, more intuitive method of smearing paint on building walls with her hands. Quickly-drawn monsters, horribly misshapen, missing limbs and eyes and anything else not directly related to making the other monsters dead, swarmed out from the corner where she was hiding with her paints and her inks and her already red-raw hands. They screeched in pain, the ones that had mouths, their rushed and incomplete forms making their existence torturous but mercifully short, while doing all they could with their short lives to make a dent in the seemingly endless flow of real monsters.

Relm dipped her hands in a bucket of water to calm the stinging from the rough stone and dilute the paint to make it last longer before returning to the wall, water running down the image and coming away from the wall with the latest monster (a zu, or at least a featherless broken zu-like mess) as long strips of stretched skin.

Open!/Town

[wanderlusting]

Well, life certainly did have a way of keeping one on one's toes out here. Between his own arrival, the events at the Citadel of Trials and now this, Setzer would almost have said that fate itself was conspiring to keep him from what he'd meant to be doing by this point. But neither was he going to let Figaro fall to monsters. He'd never have been able to forgive himself if he had.

Like Relm's answer, his own was quick and brutal, as pillars - walls, really - of shimmering light rose up to neatly bisect the nearest batch of monsters while somehow just as neatly managing to avoid the half-formed things that Relm had made. True, it was one of the least of the effects of his Slots, but it was also the most reliable and for that, he'd be quite glad of it.

Open!/Town

[intobrightness]

Relm watched the walls of light rise up from the ground, recognizing the attack and turning to wave as her paint creatures used the last of their short lives to fend off the few monsters that were close enough to be an immediate danger.

"Hey! Scars! Over here!" She yelled, waving paint-covered hands around to get his attention. "You seen how many of them there are? It's like the Veldt here!"

Re: Open!/Town

[wanderlusting]

At the sound of Relm's voice, Setzer headed on over towards where she'd holed herself up - although he couldn't really say he approved of the impromptu nickname. Oh, he certainly couldn't deny that it suited him, but that didn't mean he was exactly going to like it.

But that was of a somewhat lesser concern at the moment. Nicknames could be argued over after the monsters had been dealt with.

"Then I think we'd best do what we can to see to it that as few of them get past us as we can manage."

Reserved - Lufene!

[sonoffigaro]

Both the guards' call over the Phone and Celes' successive calls had Edgar out of his office in less than three seconds. Thanking the goddesses for his habit of never entirely removing his armor, Edgar was fully dressed and ready to go in less than three minutes after reaching his bedroom. He could already feel the gears in the castle starting to turn as he closed and locked the windows of his room, then slung the autocrossbow across his back and ran up to the roof, sword in hand. Half-submerged as the castle was, it was incredibly easy for a dragoon to leap off the building and come down on an long, centipede-like Mistodon, causing the beast to cry in pain and shy sideways in search of less dangerous prey.

His Sky Phone was active, hooked to a specially built latch on his arm, and he was shouting into it only seconds after he landed. "Secure the town! Celes, organize the guards to guard the entrances! Ranged attackers, to the roofs, fire as soon as you have a clear target! Gather the civilians together-"

Reserved - Lufene!

[ultimategenome]

Lufene watched with a bland form of amusement as everyone scurried about on the ground as a countermeasure. She herself sat side-saddle on a silver dragon, idly petting the creature and twirling a long curl around her finger. There was an objective here for the Angel of Death, and she meant to get what she wanted. Rumors of pretty stones of power. She wanted them all.

Only by chance did she happen to look the direction of the castle as Edgar took a leap off its roof. A foolhardy move and yet daring. A feline smile grew on her face and she directed her mount to go closer. The man himself wasn't so bad on the eyes, a rare find in this annoying world. She couldn't help but giggle at his attempts to gather attackers. Just because she brought in monsters to do her dirty work, they were going to launch a full offensive? Really, all they ever seemed to do was her own work for her. Just how she preferred things to be.

Reserved - Lufene!

[sonoffigaro]

Edgar's spear sliced through a group of the creatures known as Movers before the shadow crossed over his head. All of the enemies brought to bear on Figaro were fierce, but none had been big enough to cast out the sun-

-until the dragon. The king cursed under his breath a little, then spoke into the Sky Phone again. "Celes, there's a silver dragon approaching the castle. Find a couple of good black mages to target it, I'm going to see if I can bring it down." He wasn't so foolhardy to think he could kill a silver dragon by himself - but hurt its wing, forcing it to land? That, he could do. Edgar whipped the autocrossbow out, firing all the bolts in one volley at the incoming dragon, then was in the air in another leap bare seconds later, spear aimed directly at the beast.

[ultimategenome]

The incoming bolts startled Lufene and she directed the dragon to dodge out of their way. So doing, it put the creature out of the direct line of Edgar's attempt to skewer her pet too, which was a good thing. She sighed and rolled her eyes, irritated that she was going to have to dirty her own hands after all.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, a nasty smirk lit on her face. Silly fool. By launching himself into the air, he made himself a far easier target for Lufene. She drew out her Blood Sword and executed a Crushing Blow. At the very least it would hurt the man for daring to target her pet. If she was fortunate, it would inflict Stop on him and then she could do as she wished with him.

Open/Town

[praygenius]

Less than a day. She'd managed to return to Mysidia for less than a day before another emergency dragged her away again.

"Your first priority is surviving." She reminded the white magic students around her. "Support anyone who's fighting and get any civilians to safety but above all please, please don't do anything stupid and get yourselves killed. It's not selfish to avoid fights you can't handle, you're more use alive than dead."

She stopped speaking to look out over the side of the airship. They were over the outer continent now, and close enough for teleport to work. "That includes you, Palom. We're heading out. Anyone willing to teleport there, gather around me."

Several of the students hung back as she cast Teleport, taking herself and those who'd gathered by her into South Figaro instantly. Still dizzy from the long teleport, she stumbled a little while taking in the surroundings and then got to work, casting protect on a nearby guard to take the bulk of the damage from an oncoming attack.

ooc: Anyone else who was off-

Open/Town

[stfuporom]

Palom rolled his eyes at his sister's speech. Don't get yourself killed, blah blah blah. Same as always. To humor her, he nodded his head. Porom would know at one point she was going to have to save him, and Palom knew vice versa.

Teleported down, Palom was immediately thrust into battle. A fire attack was immediate, sending the monsters back.

Open/Town

[praygenius]

In fairness, Porom wasn't all that good at following her own advice. It was only a matter of time before she got over confident or tried to do something suicidally stupid. They were alike in some ways.

But for now she hadn't done anything stupid yet and so she was more than happy to convince herself that she was the smart one and that Palom was the only twin who acted rashly and needed protection. She trusted his ability to deal with magic attacks on his own, for now, and focussed on making sure physical ones wouldn't hit him. Falling back out of the range of the monsters, she cast Blink on her brother.

Open/Town

[stfuporom]

Thank whoever she hadn't done anything stupid yet.

Lifting a hand to signal a thank you to his sister, Palom ducked under one monster's attack, then launched a thunder attack at the surrounding area. Yes, yes, he was careful about it, Porom. He's not going to hit you.