Scene #2586: Zion

Owner	Pose
Defiant	Everything is ready, it's now or never. Defiant sits nearby what one can assume to be the Dragon-modified transmitter, checking numbers and statistics as they scroll past a monitor on the wall. It's a rather unassuming piece of technology when one thinks about what they'll be trying to do with it. Contacting Scion directly. "Ainsley," Defiant says, without looking up. "I've been double-checking some of the modifications Dragon made to the transmitter. She's made use of some very dangerous tech. There'll be risks - significant risks. Are you still prepared to do this? I won't think less of you for backing out."
Ainsley	Ainsley stands with piece of sheet metal etched with complex symbols. She had it made in order to help channel her spell into the transmitter. She carefully sticks it against the side at the base. Since she had spent the span of a week or so preparing this, there's very little to worry about at least in terms of the transmitter itself. Without pause, Ainsley tells Defiant, "I'm ready." She seems ready. She's calm and patient about her work. "Crank up the transmission power first," she tells Defiant, "I'll begin the spell." Confident in what she's doing, she rests her hand flat against the etched magic circle, and closes her eyes. She begins to murmur soft words to herself, words that carry no meaning but to her, distorted in the air or somehow magically fragmented. She tries to speak through the transmitter, to address the entity known as Scion and bring him to them. WARRIOR. If he doesn't respond to her calling him by name, then she doesn't know how to get through to him.
Defiant	"Increasing power. Rising steadily. All variables within expected, acceptable parameters." Defiant's voice is flat, neutral. His armored face doesn't move from his display. "He's-" Golden light. "-here." Scion hovers inside the room, like he had just appeared there out of thin air. The golden light fills the interior, reflecting off the numerous metal surfaces. The light is warm, friendly, reinvigorating - but Ainsley might not be able to shake the monolithic sense of power that sits behind the man. And it's right here with them.
Ainsley	Right... Ainsley feels a combination of excitement and dread when it turns out that her plan works very well, and it brought Scion right to them. She's happy that he can simply appear to her, which means he doesn't have to worry about the spatial obstacles that many others experience. It would explain why he's so hard to track down. She stands and turns to observe the floating entity before her. His sense of power would be oppressive in any other instance, but now... She speaks to him, her own 'raw' communication used, conveying her simultaneously sorrowful and hopeful soul in her words. It's the equivilant of an accent or body language, when it comes to using this type of speech. SORROW? When she speaks in this manner, Defiant would be able to see the air around her distort, with colors desaturating and details blurring. Her mouth doesn't move, because this isn't the kind of speech that needs air to be heard. He might even feel the inquisitive tone roll off of her, because of her imperfect knowledge of how to speak to an Entity. Aside from that, her posture suggests confidence that seems almost insane, like she knows he could kill her in an instant and is actively disregarding the danger of the situation. What she's asking is pretty clear: Why are/were you sad, Scion?
Defiant	Scion reaches out and grabs Ainsley's hand. The last thing Ainsley hears is Defiant shouting: "No!" Sorrow. Sorrow. Sorrow. -not there, not anywhere. It could be where she was standing in the Guild facility, just seperated by years and years. Great buildings stick out of the ground like broken, rotted teeth. A sky the color of ash. Dust in the air that's so thick as to be choking. The ground is littered with bones - and great beams of light pierce the sky, lancing through bedrock and mantle. The world shakes. It's dying. There's something watching Ainsley. A presence. Vast. Malignant. "Ainsley?" Defiant's voice is so far away, broken by static and disruption.
Ainsley	Ainsley's hand is grabbed and she's shown a different time in a flash. She's shown the world through Scion's perspective of the future, or some point in a distant existence. A world with nothing there but desolation. Tears run down her face, because she sees a dying world and it hurts. It hurts more than anything, but not physically. Is this Defiant's world, she wonders? Scion's touch is simply accepted for what it is. Her Arcane Sight turns on and tries to focus on the presence that's watching her, because she can feel its smothering gaze on her. She tries to turn her attention back on it, to understand what it is. Something about this experience renders her numb. When she gets overwhelmed, it will be all at once. She tries to speak back to Defiant, and he might hear her voice come out in a painful way, without her mouth moving. From his perspective, she's frozen, her eyes widened, stock-still. Her words warble from the strain. "He's showing me something," she tells him, straining to manage just that.
Defiant	It's the end. The end of one world and, eventually, the end of all things. A complete and total mastery. And they will devour each other alive once again- And that thing, the presence. A great hand, a great /thing/ that is getting behind her eyes and- "Miss Ainsley," Defiant says, "You must move with haste. Do not focus on the Second, do not look behind you - if you do, you will never see anything else ever again. Move forwards. Follow me. I have prepared the way." There. Defiant. Just ahead - how'd he even get here? The draconic armor themed cape walks further into the ruins, further into this apocalypse dream.
Ainsley	Fear. Ainsley feels fear. She knows something is trying to reach her, perhaps because she is seeing something she shouldn't. She realizes she's stuck in a realm in her own mind, and realizes something is trying to grab her. Defiant's words touch her and she looks up at him, someone right there before her. But is he, really? She doubts the presence of a being that would be dead in this world. Nonetheless, she steps forward. She follows Defiant into the wasteland. She feels like it should be painful, but something about all if just isn't right. Her perceptions itch at her mind, telling her it's wrong. "Defiant...?" she wonders.
Defiant	"No, Miss Ainsley, not precisely. There will be an explanation in the fullness of time." 'Defiant' walks ahead, deeper into the wasteland of what might be, what could be, what is? Hard to keep track of. The light though, in the distance. It's reassuring. Something bright and serene amongst death and destruction as far as they eye can see. "Go quickly," 'Defiant' says, "And do not-" INTERROGATIVE "-stop-" REVEAL YOURSELF "DO NOT LOOK BEHIND YOU!" OPEN YOURSELF It's here. Suddenly it's here. Colossal, monolithic, on a scale that dwarfs everything else, and it is reaching- reaching- reaching with a sound that shakes Ainsley's bones-
Ainsley	Ainsley doesn't look behind her. Whatever this 'Defiant' is, she feels that it really does have her best interests in mind. She doesn't look behind herself, because she has the confidence to trust someone that is clearly helping her. She moves forward with more haste. A gold light touches her, but the prying nature hits her like a brick, and it's met with something it may have been expecting. NO It's not quite a brick wall, but grasping for her Self would result in 'missing'. She makes such a powerful effort to obfuscate what she is, not out of conflict, but because it is her being and not anyone else's. She would never allow another being that much power over her. NO She steps forward toward Defiant and focuses on him intently, as if he were a tether that would pull her back. Her 'presence' does its best to vanish, to hide from scrutiny, using her magic to shield herself from the touch of an alien being.
Defiant	She's right. Ainsley focuses on 'Defiant' and the world shifts around him, drawing her to some point of infinite distance. The ground settles beneath them once again. It might be a combination of 'Defiant' and Ainsley's overpowering magic-infused wish to be shielded, to hide, but the presence is gone and so far away. It's there, like a twitch behind her left eye- "Don't focus on it," 'Defiant' says, "Think of something else. Now." The new place is safe to Ainsley, some kind of combination of a fond, safe memory, and an Earth that is /too/ perfect. Patchwork, constructed in ways that would seem right to an alien mind but, to someone actually used to a world like it, is just a bit off. "I assume you have questions," 'Defiant' says, "I will answer what I can, and show you what I cannot."
Ainsley	Ainsley stands in an eyewatering world that certainly isn't the kind of thing she knows as reality. She looks at the bizarre and uncertain details. She looks at 'Defiant,' or something approaching Defiant's general appearance. Here, she feels like she's safe to speak, like she's hidden from the presence that tried to break her open like a crate of knowledge. "Who are you?" she first wonders to the being that resembles Defiant. "And what is this place?" She crosses her arms, her body feeling cold and shivery.
Defiant	"This place is where we will be safe. The Second is too direct, too focused on the short-term to find us here. But he is a topic we should not dwell upon - the risks are catastrophic." 'Defiant' barely moves. He's more of an image than a person, Ainsley might realise. "I am a memory of a shard. A bridge between our cognition and your own. A hope to break the cycle."
Ainsley	A shard. Ainsley focuses on the shard, and realizes it might not be a person at all. She doesn't dwell on that being, trusting that warning. She lets her fear subside as well, as it's a part of something she should not focus on right at this second. She smiles at the shard, mostly out of reflex. "What is a shard? And what is this cycle to be broken?"
Defiant	'Defiant' speaks, "It is the same as any other cycle - life and death, extinction and transcendence. In time, a species will reproduce and spread until they have occupied and consumed their entire world. Their entire universe. And in time, entropy will reach its maximum state and that universe will end. In time, there will be nowhere left to go. In time, everything will end." "The shards are the way of reinventing existence, of taking and using knowledge gleaned from countless other species. Mingling, matching, culling. There is only so much time before the final state. And strength earns survival."
Ainsley	Ainsley is aware of the nature of life and its inexorable march toward devastation and it's hope that it can avoid it. She looks upon one of the purest representations of that idea. She realizes she's talking to the reason Defiant is a Tinker, in a way, and things start to fall into place. That would explain what a shard is, and why capes can do the things they do. The only mystery left is... "Where do the shards come from? What's their final purpose?"
Defiant	"They begin undifferentiated, unspecialised, formless - it is the nature of their opponent that shapes them," 'Defiant' states, "Everything done to use what you might consider a 'power' only shapes and hones the shard. They act at random and then select the most efficient tactics. And when the shard is utilised different and the cycle concludes, they know this. They are always one step ahead. The shards are infinitely mutable. The knowledge within them contains all weapons and all strategems and all abilities, waiting in the infinite darkness between stars. To attack them is to teach them." "The tactic may be weak in the short-term, in any given conflict - but ultimately invincible." 'Defiant' turns to the side and another portal opens, twisting the mental world into a gateway to another time, another vision of what might be or what has been or what is. "Here."
Ainsley	Ainsley's mind churns over the explanation of their purpose. She turns to step toward the gateway, to get a look through it when it's shown to her. She looks into vision of another existence, seeking something she can make sense of to answer her questions. The questions that are dwindling steadily.
Defiant	As Ainsley looks into it, she's there amongst it. It's something like a Protectorate building, some sort of briefing room, only unfamiliar in all the little ways that might make Ainsley's scales crawl. But the people, the half a dozen capes who are there, are all immediately recognisable - but the details are different. But Ainsley can see their true names - there's Arsenal who matches to Defiant standing by a man named Richter, Partisan - no, Chevalier... Miss Miltia, Dauntless... others. And there are two golden figures. One male, one female. This version of Defiant is staring at them with something like suspicion. By the sounds of it, they're discussing Endbringers - or something like them. Who's controlling them, how to stop them. "We'll need your help," Partisan/Chevalier is saying. "Then you shall have it. But there are other places needing our help, too. We'll assist you but we'll be arriving late. And if they're strong..." The golden woman is evidently far more talkative than Scion. Arsenal/Defiant is frowning now. He's about to say something, about to put the final piece of some puzzle together, and Ainsley can feel the golden woman reach out and just... wipe the thought from his mind. "There. They exist to drive conflict, they are many things but they are predators, able to visit electronic warfare upon the neuron. The shards- I- wait, did you feel that?" "Miss Ainsley, I can't quite-" YIELD "-see you. Can you hear me? Something is-" TELL US WHO YOU ARE "...to get out... cannot hide you-" The golden man's head snaps up, looking right at Ainsley. The rest of the vision pauses around him, a moment frozen in time. % They are coming. There has to be a way out. A way to escape with her answers.
Ainsley	And so Ainsley sees the truth in a way that cannot be denied. A reality where not only Scion but another being is there, and something about it makes her body itch and her mind quake. The being is something foreign. Something that exists to create conflict. She can see that in the image of that strange woman that wipes knowledge with but a simple motion of her hand. The obfuscation of information, the destruction of a species' ability to understand and defend themselves from a predatory influence. These beings are not saviors or heroes, they exist to turn a world on itself to fuel their own purpose. Ainsley's eyes widen and the urgency of this revelation hits her all at once. Once more the golden presence hits her, and she denies it access. Instead, she pulls away. She focuses inward, she tries to remember what is Real. She tries to pull away from the influence and cut the connection. It's imperfect, but it's there. There, where her feeling of space and time remains. Her senses. She drags her mind back from this world. And she tries to yank her hand away from Scion in the physical world, forcing her body to do this with her magic if she has to. Forcing herself to disconnect from him.
Defiant	It can't pull back, but it continues to try and close the gap. One by one, the heroes turn their gaze on Ainsley. And, one by one, Scion's steps carry him inexorably towards her but the distance recedes to infinity, like a singularity. His hand reaches out across the liminality and reaches out and reaches out and reaches out and reaches out and reaches out- It's like waking from a dream - or perhaps a nightmare would be more precise. The metal plating on the floor is cold, which might not be the best feeling for Ainsley, but the feeling, even unpleasant, is overwhelmingly real. Scion is nowhere to be seen, but Defiant is standing over her and, with the amount of medical equipment he appears to have gathered from elsewhere in the base, seems to have been set on being prepared to save Ainsley's life. His helmet is off and his face is slick with sweat. "I've got you," Defiant says, and he /laughs/, heady and relieved. "You're alright. I've got you."
Ainsley	The sight of Scion trying to grab her is felt. He denies him as she had before, and it feels as if she might fail, as if she might lose herself. And then reality comes back, the connection severed, and it hurts. "..." Ainsley's gaze focuses on Defiant, and if she could be pale, she would be. He laughs, because he is relieved, because he thought she was going to die. Ainsley's eyes are wide. The shock in her gaze indicates a deep and unknowable horror. Something she had seen was something she can't unsee. She slowly gathers herself up to her feet, feeling like a newborn standing for the first time. Her body feels unnaturally heavy. She twitches, shivers, and even drools a bit, the pressure on her mind leaving a feeling like her whole existence had gone to sleep. But she managed to save herself. She turns her gaze around the room, the feeling of depth having returned to her. The feeling that everything is real. "Thank you," she finally says, after finally regaining her footing in more ways than one. She slumps over and onto Defiant, and clings to him around his waist. He's a knight, the kind of knight that his world needs, and that she needs right then. She relies on the rigidity to hold her up. And she bursts into tears, because it's all so painful. Because she realizes how many people have died, and will die in the future. How many realities there are that are ravaged by these entities. Ainsley won't stop crying for a good hour.