Dreaming One

What Are You Listening To?

What Are You Listening To?

Gods, Angels, and Demons in New Haven

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Gods, Angels, Demons in New Haven Definitive HD Mix Edition

Once again the door swung open and once again a person entered the warehouse, progressively getting more and more drenched, humid air slipping inside and reaching through all the clothes to clutch at the bones and shiver along them. None was spared from that, Abigail included - she shivered, getting a deeper breath as she rubbed her hands together one against the other in an attempt to produce more heat close to her.

Marie took of little time to introduce herself and introduce the others with the details of the case on their hands - her words cutting akin to that raining wind slipping through the cracks in the wall, her behavior was just like that dark cloud hanging and looming over them all, pouring water and coating the entire city into the mist of murky gray. Abigail could not help but to feel deep scratching regret for the way things went down and the bitter empathy for the girl who had her life turned upside down in the course of a single night, in the course of a few hours, or minutes even; that empathy demanded Abigail to embrace the girl in the warm comfort, but the girl put the grief around her in shapes of spikes, making it difficult to reach out for her.

The priest put her hand on Marie’s shoulder nonetheless, trying to comfort her somewhat still, while the newcomers took their time to introduce themselves and inspect the papers Marie brought. Montag pulling the bottle out of Marie’s hands and putting it back on the table received a short nod from Abigail, before she turned her attention to other detectives once again.

“When ye put it tis way..yes. We’ve all been brought ‘ere together, by some chance some say. Or by something I’ve heard been called “fates”. But…”, Abigail responded to Robyn as the latter noted the amount of people involved in the agency’s life; the priest wanted to add something else to this, but feeling the shoulder of Marie under her hand, she put a soft pause and with a sigh just shrugged, “..We’re in tis together now, one way or another.”
Higher purpose she thought. Believed so at least.

Cathal introducing himself among all of them in a proper manner made Abigail to chuckle - for a second alas as the fellow irish mentioning the trenches of the civil war made priest’s eyes to go dim and covered in some veil once again - though she blinked it away, like an annoying fly who started to buzz somewhere on the back of her head, where silence rested just a moment prior to. It came to silence quick enough again and she raised her eyes up once again, as if nothing bothered her. Instead she reached for the papers and scanned through it.

“Tis’s not the information as we know it, tis are just fragments”, Abigail said, answering Robyn’s question and following along with what Montag said: “As miste’ Montag pointed out, tis are but the.. aftermaths.”. Abigail shifted her glance at Jane, shaking her head a little, “Tis doesn’t matter, yer lack of experience. As a matter of fact, police’re at the same position. Unknowing. None’s encountered anythin’ like tis. One would say tis’ just a beast lurking, but.. it has too much thinkin’ going on for a beast.”

While Robyn scanned through the one of the papers, Abigail offered her attention to Cathal once again, giving a few nods to the man as he explained his dreams: “Then we’ve nothing much to explain to ye. Things’re changing, and faster than we can see. As miste’ Montag said, the public prefers to ignore.. all of tis events. Police’re at halt, they don’t know how to handle it, nobody does.”
A deep sigh followed once again and the priest raised her eyes on everyone present, as she gathered the thoughts in her mind and the words that would fit for these thoughts: “I’m sure ye understand what I’m to say. We’ve to fill in. Ain’t nobody else going to. You know it, you’ve seen it. Ain’t gonna be an easy job, but that’s the job that.. that just must be done. To help us, ourselves, these people.”

After that short speech, Abigail once again looked at the detectives, a blank paper note put onto the table to put the information accordingly - one coming from Cathal specifically:

“No trouble ‘ere. I know of some people who tend to be the clients of folks like you mention, so that ain’t a surprise for me. What ye say though is very important.. we’d really need to check tis, his agenda, tis band of his.. I think it’d be a good way for ye to form a team and investigate the connections, meanwhile I an-”

Before she could finish speaking though, a loud knocking appeared on the front door of the warehouse - surprised clearly as she was not expecting anyone else, Abigail stood up and approached the door which opened wide before she even reached it: a giant man with as giant hands, drenched wet from the rain as the drops fell from his simple working clothes, eyebrows and ears perking slightly on the bald head, gave a somewhat clumsy bow to everyone present as he entered:

“Miss Abigail! Mister Montag! Bad, very bad thing happened!”
Kaspar, the dock worker, another immigrant who came from the country that lost its original shape on the maps of Europe after the conclusion of the Great war, spoke in a deeply low, but contrastfully gentle tone, panting heavily, as he pointed with his massive hand at the direction somewhere outside.
“You told me to tell you if something wicked happens. And it is very wicked! At the bar..! The man was… I think ripped apart, blood all around! And his guts! This is some devilry!”, the giant man said, crossing himself.

Abigail blinked a few times, gasping at yet another realization that some consequences were in fact too coincidental to be just some random chance. She could swear she got used to it, but it took her like that every time.

“Calm yeself down, Kaspar. Wha’ happened?”, Abigail asked, inviting the big man inside, for all the detectives to have a good look on him, as he awkwardly bowed again and sat down on a crate.

“Some devilry..! I don’t even know how to..!”, the big man took a deep breath. It seemed some more direct questions would work better.

Gods, Angels, Demons in New Haven Definitive HD Mix Edition

The dancing melody of rain emerged from out of nowhere and further echoed in a soft spoken tone across the warehouse in which the detectives - potential and whatnot - gathered; as the raindrops tapped at the rooftop of the place with a soothing mesmerizing rhythm, as if some higher being took a rest there on the roof and tapped on it with its fingers, leaving water marks to gather up and trail across the metallic shape where the small gaps were, to further find some entrance inside the building.

Abigail could only roll her eyes at it and shake her head, mumbling under her breath something about endless rains and docks; even though she could not deny the fact that this endless rain of a season reminded her of home some; making it all easier to think and feel through. After a moment of that thinking gap, as some nostalgia touched her heart with the shape of the rain, it soon after touched her again as she listened to everyone gathered, giving out a faint smile listening to Cathal’s all too similar shape of an accent. It was something else in his words that made her heart tingle, but she gave it no attention at the moment.

“Ay, the place’s… proved to be some of a home one day, but tis’s not a day yet.”, Abigail said with the same smile, responding to Cathal, “Ain’t no worry, miste’..”, she took a pause to rush through the papers, but the man gave his name himself, “Miste’ O’Molloy, yes.Excuse me, ye personally and all of ye in here before me, I haven’t got ye names memorized yet.. Water’s clean, cups are as well. And no, tis’s just water, no need to pay for it. A friend from the docks kindly offered us a hand with it. So at the matter of wate’ we’re well and fine.”, the redhead said to Jane, affirming that the water was indeed here to be drinken freely.

“So ye be… Jane, ay, miss Nace. Thanks, nice to meet ye, and ye too, miss, uhm…”, this time Abigail was fast enough to find the needed name in the paper first, “..Robyn”. Just Robyn, would be easy to remember then. The redhead looked over the people gathered once again, admiring the stern look of how Robyn held herself, as much as the enthusiastic energy of Jane, careful tones of Cathal’s voice.

“Oi, and in case ye need to warm yeself up, we’ve some liquor here. Is not much, so don’t think of it as a drink, more of a warming thing”, Abigail spoke with a light smile and put a bottle of whiskey on the table. It indeed looked cheap, and rather uninviting, clearly coming here by passing from hand to hand of docks workers, a bottle slipped out carefully from a shipment cargo, a bottle or two, shared by the outcasts fighting for their survival in the areas usually unseen by the eyes who wander in the city.

“Ay. Tis’ miste’ Montag. Welcome, welcome!”, Abigail stood up a little, only to sit back as quickly due to her almost dropping the piles of papers scattered right in front of her, ready to slip from her hands and lap onto the floor she quickly reached for them and stood for a second awkwardly as she pulled the papers back in her hands. None touched the floor thankfully. All while Montag entered just in time to not to get washed up by the rain building up in its strengths, another rain casted on the town by the waters crashing at the docks around.

“Seems like the weather just made it worse. Just as ye said, as usual, ay, miss Robyn?”, Abigail asked with a smile and greeted Montag with a nod as he made his way to greet everyone present and give his introduction. Abigail listening to him sorted the papers again and once Montag finished, offered it to him: “I’d say that we can skip through things of names and ages, as tis papers say tis well as they are”, blue eyes rose up from the filled out blanks which held the basic information that applicants themselves offered some time earlier, also giving an example of their handwriting.

“I’d say we rather talk on why we’re here, what d’ya think on this.. endeavor… How have you come to 'ere, what drives ye, maybe ye skills? What'ye good at, bad at, if ye did tis kind of job often before or ye're doing tis for the first time..”, Abigail shifted her jaw left and right as she was making sure that the words she was about to speak were not giving out a different taste of meaning compared to what she had in mind, “...And if ye’ve maybe felt or saw some things.. strange or out of place as well. Tis’s a weird question might appear to ye, but it’ll make sense soon enough, I promise. Tis case.. ain't an ordinary thing, it ain't a thing ye'd be used to, no matte' what ye've seen before.”

She carefully looked over the gathered in this room again, clear blue eyes seemed as focused as ever and the little shade of the past and present veiling over her suddenly fell off - the redhead in front of them was not cracking a joke with this answer and certainly meant what she just said; and more than that - it clearly made the very direct connection to whatever events and cases the Montag agency was ready to take.

A sneaky poke of her elbow followed at Montag’s side as she whispered to him: “Don’t be so stiff.”

Gods, Angels, Demons in New Haven Definitive HD Mix Edition

Empathic priest

Name: Abigail McCarthy
Age: 27
Occupation: wandering doctor

Yet from the sorrows of his life
Builds ladders to be nearer God.

Biography

Born in 1904, in a small village near Dublin, Abigail was the middle sister, with two more kids in the family older than her; and having two more younger. Life was not luxurious to her, neither it was poor; despite the memory of Great Famine still lingering in the land - that is even in her own family the stories of great hunger were to be told by her grandmother - the country and the village they lived in specifically were coming through the recovery by that point of time, allowing the kids even if laborious but safe enough existence.

The name of God was praised highly in the family, and young Abigail could even imagine a different possibility of existing in the world - she, and her whole family was to be guarded in the presence of God and Abigaile was not feared by that, rather she found a deep calmness and assurance in it, as well as the way to express her deep passion for helping people. Attracted to the idea of helping and defending the week - in the age of early teen she, with the approval of her father, joined the organization of Sisters of Mercy - catholic religious institute for women, dedicated to helping the weak through the means of schooling, medicine and, of course, through the word of God.

Even though the time was difficult for the whole United Kingdom, as by the time Abigail joined the organisation, Europe had already deeply descended into the flames of the Great War, the girl was taken into the order, first as a mere pupil. Learning was difficult, but raised in a farming family Abigail was used to the hard labour and proved not only endurant in her studies, but also a fast learner.

Life seemed to go fine this way, as Abigail kept with her studying. Soon enough the Great War was over and the appearance of the Sisters who returned from the drenches only allowed Abigail to get more experience; even though she remained unaware in her youth naivety to the stories told by the survivors of the war. But this conflict only made another one to spur as her own country soon enough descended into the war itself.

The Ireland Independence war slowly transitioned into the Ireland Civil war, and Abigail was to join her sisters in helping the victims of the cruel battlefield. Guided by the motto “help everyone”, she was soon to find that her own compassion started to become dull, her empathy towards people to become numb; to witness her country being torn apart by ideologies, families shattering, consumed by flames; while her everyday routine became blood and death, it was in her own rational obliviousness as her faith in God started to appear transparent, mechanic and ill willed.

It was only a matter of time before the war would consume her own home and family, leaving nothing but shattered hearts and dead bodies.

Left alone, and feeling detached from the sisterhood after five years of the bloody conflict, her faith and compassionate views in life not yet broken, but heavily shattered, Abigail fled. She fled everything she was attached to, as there was nothing left there she could rely on anymore. So she fled, fled the country and arrived in the land of the promised new opportunities - America. Here she tried to find herself in a new place and a new life, as well as seek out peace in her mind; yet life was not to take the expected shape and the questions, doubts and dark souls kept swirling in her soul. She soon found herself travelling, moving from one place to another and against amidst poor and broken people.

Sooner or later, the fates brought her to meet Montag - a young private detective in search for means to make a living in the city of New Haven; in times of ages to break and worlds to clash. United by a common case when they both felt at the bottom, they have build a friendship and a common goal. That helped Abigail to find a solid ground under her feet, as well as allow her to meet the glimpses of the new world to come, face to face and in so manage to realize the eschatological events which are soon to crash onto the world they all know. And in this realization to discover the nature of her duties once again. It was a matter of putting all the efforts to help those in need and prepare them for what is to come.

Still haunted by the events of the past, Abigail does not seek to run away from them once again and instead face the incoming struggles directly, seeing now her past as yet another step in preparing her for her humble, yet noble mission.

Chosen God: Jesus Christ. Abigail's relationship with Christianity should be rather obvious.

Appearance

Gods, Angels, and Demons in New Haven: Definitive HD Mix edition

Empathic priest

Name: Abigail McCarthy
Age: 27
Occupation: wandering doctor

Yet from the sorrows of his life
Builds ladders to be nearer God.

Biography

Born in 1904, in a small village near Dublin, Abigail was the middle sister, with two more kids in the family older than her; and having two more younger. Life was not luxurious to her, neither it was poor; despite the memory of Great Famine still lingering in the land - that is even in her own family the stories of great hunger were to be told by her grandmother - the country and the village they lived in specifically were coming through the recovery by that point of time, allowing the kids even if laborious but safe enough existence.

The name of God was praised highly in the family, and young Abigail could even imagine a different possibility of existing in the world - she, and her whole family was to be guarded in the presence of God and Abigaile was not feared by that, rather she found a deep calmness and assurance in it, as well as the way to express her deep passion for helping people. Attracted to the idea of helping and defending the week - in the age of early teen she, with the approval of her father, joined the organization of Sisters of Mercy - catholic religious institute for women, dedicated to helping the weak through the means of schooling, medicine and, of course, through the word of God.

Even though the time was difficult for the whole United Kingdom, as by the time Abigail joined the organisation, Europe had already deeply descended into the flames of the Great War, the girl was taken into the order, first as a mere pupil. Learning was difficult, but raised in a farming family Abigail was used to the hard labour and proved not only endurant in her studies, but also a fast learner.

Life seemed to go fine this way, as Abigail kept with her studying. Soon enough the Great War was over and the appearance of the Sisters who returned from the drenches only allowed Abigail to get more experience; even though she remained unaware in her youth naivety to the stories told by the survivors of the war. But this conflict only made another one to spur as her own country soon enough descended into the war itself.

The Ireland Independence war slowly transitioned into the Ireland Civil war, and Abigail was to join her sisters in helping the victims of the cruel battlefield. Guided by the motto “help everyone”, she was soon to find that her own compassion started to become dull, her empathy towards people to become numb; to witness her country being torn apart by ideologies, families shattering, consumed by flames; while her everyday routine became blood and death, it was in her own rational obliviousness as her faith in God started to appear transparent, mechanic and ill willed.

It was only a matter of time before the war would consume her own home and family, leaving nothing but shattered hearts and dead bodies.

Left alone, and feeling detached from the sisterhood after five years of the bloody conflict, her faith and compassionate views in life not yet broken, but heavily shattered, Abigail fled. She fled everything she was attached to, as there was nothing left there she could rely on anymore. So she fled, fled the country and arrived in the land of the promised new opportunities - America. Here she tried to find herself in a new place and a new life, as well as seek out peace in her mind; yet life was not to take the expected shape and the questions, doubts and dark souls kept swirling in her soul. She soon found herself travelling, moving from one place to another and against amidst poor and broken people.

Sooner or later, the fates brought her to meet Montag - a young private detective in search for means to make a living in the city of New Haven; in times of ages to break and worlds to clash. United by a common case when they both felt at the bottom, they have build a friendship and a common goal. That helped Abigail to find a solid ground under her feet, as well as allow her to meet the glimpses of the new world to come, face to face and in so manage to realize the eschatological events which are soon to crash onto the world they all know. And in this realization to discover the nature of her duties once again. It was a matter of putting all the efforts to help those in need and prepare them for what is to come.

Still haunted by the events of the past, Abigail does not seek to run away from them once again and instead face the incoming struggles directly, seeing now her past as yet another step in preparing her for her humble, yet noble mission.

Chosen God: Jesus Christ. Abigail's relationship with Christianity should be rather obvious.

Appearance

Tower of Fable

---

The whiteness shined through. And consumed everything. It left nothing around, it left nothing to be seen, nothing to touch, nothing to breathe. Whiteness pierced through and shined over everything. It hurt eyes for a moment with its merciless shining, before the whiteness pierced through the pain itself and consumed it too into itself. Whiteness was everything and nothing both at the same time.

Runa felt the whiteness to shine and coat over her, and furthermore to take the world away from her completely and herself from the world itself. She felt the ground to disappear underneath her feet as she fell down, on her back, but her back never met any ground to catch her - and so she flew down further and further down into the endless, borderless nothing of the white.

Even though the whiteness was overly extensive and floating all over and through her, it did not stop Runa from feeling and seeing herself at the least of it. And she felt herself more than ever before, despite the fact that she was thrown out of the world of any consistent matter at all, completely. There was just her and the limitless nothing, and in so there was nothing but her and that exclusivity accentuated her senses to turn onto herself and understand herself better than ever before.

It came to a stop as quickly as it came. The sensations felt paused and out of time, out of sync in correlation to Runa's thoughts and body. This was nothing new for the demon of time no doubt, but it was of a force not her own. The endless void that was the Tower's central configuration distorted and grafted upon itself. Light peaked through the endless cracks, reshaped and renewed, the all encompassing light of endless benediction. Then Runa's visage dispersed, replaced with the grandess of an endless sky. The void mixed itself with color and other strange new sensations as if the demon was freefalling in a sky outside of the Tower. Grand celestial objects and other caractures of space floated by, suns and stars dancing as they came. But nothing was as bright as the golden light from which its origin point drew Runa's attention.

"I was wondering who would dare make a mess in my precious Tower," came the compelling voice out of the light. Emanated on the golden throne of the Godhead was a woman. She stared down at Runa with an unreadable expression and a vaguer smirk. "And look what I find. A fragile piece of data desperately clinging to be real and whole. You've done all this just to catch my attention. Hello again demon."

The whiteness collapsed into itself with the same sense of momentum as when it presented itself in the first place. The limitless void spun and twisted, fusing into itself in shapes of waves looking like the density of the white ocean finally broke from underneath of it and started to press into the fabric of the real itself. It froze and then it shattered into a visage of a sky, as it seemed like the sky itself broke through the void and clashed with the white dull light.

It was the Tower itself. In its full presence the massive construction that held into the sky, reaching through it and disappearing into the distance as it also disappeared into the distance underneath herself. The height of the tower was overwhelmingly massive - or would be for a person with no access to the mechanisms of reality. To Runa it was a point of interest and amusement, something that picked up her curiosity.

“Hm..?”, she hummed to herself in her free fall, when the light was cast in the distance again, this time of a different kind. Not a cold whiteness, but a burning golden rays to surround the figure to approach with a greeting, a smirk on her lips. Runa replied with a same kind of a smirk, there was some kind of ironic connection between the two due to that gesture.

“I bid you well. I must apologize for causing disturbance in your creation, but such were demands of the things to be done”, Runa replied in her usual tone.

"So that's what you see. How interesting," the woman mused, noting Runa saw the full compasition that was her Tower. Curious indeed. "Oh I'm sure you did. Spare me your excuses and justifications, however thin and flimsy they may be. You simply wanted out. Talking around the matter only reveals your selfish heart Runa," the woman continued. She rested the side of her cheek against her fist, crimson eyes looking through the demon. "You've become whole. There's no distinction between what you were and what you are, what you will become," she confirmed with more amusement than anything else. "A shame you won't even give me a greeting after all this time. Or maybe you've forgotten your own dreamwalking...well, that doesn't matter. I just want to know what you plan to do next."

The woman waited in expectation as if she already knew Runa's calculated answer.

Runa only kept her smirk painted over her lips as there was little to hide and little to cover at Demyx’s gaze. And in so it was also little to express as well, paradoxically enough. They knew both, here in this moment that the moment to which they came to be and talk here and now was building up for them both to see.

Such was the nature of things they were entangled in.
“Ah yes, the dream… in the land of sleep we did indeed meet each other for the first time. Was something to remember. I apologize for not recalling it.”, Runa said with the same usual tone of hers, “Hello to you as well. Even though my heart is warped in its design of desire, but such was my fate from the start, and to grow in that desire is only natural to overcome it and overcome the matters of what I was in the Tower. To become what I am now.”

She kept on freefalling, her blue hair flapping and twisting in the air, looking like ocean waves in the storm, “To align with the direction leading me where things lay I did not see, and were denied me. Such is my course of action.”

"So you do remember. Most wonderful indeed," Demyx responded. It saved her any trouble of complications or introductions. "That's good. That's very good. We can get right to business. The only reason I'm not locking you back up as data for an existenstial crisis is because you've caught my curiosity. I saw what you did back there." Of course she did. All things were under her observation under her gaze and if not her, then by her...other half. What she referred to of course was Nephuna, a power both forbidden and unthinkable in its fusion and one that remained as Runa's only bargaining chip as far as the Demiurge was concerned.

"You haven't given me an answer, not really. So allow me to make one for you demon. You can feel it already, can't you? Your time is in place, lined up with the you outside the Tower. One and the same, data becoming real; such is your nature. I see you have no path ahead of you so why not spend your time in my company," Demyx said with a crimson glint in her eye. Runa fell and fell but either she wasn't really moving anywhere or the vast sky was just that expansive. All the same, a great, overbearing golden structure and shape silhouetted itself behind Demyx's throne. It was grotesque and painful to look at with lines and dimensions that made no sense and yet blended in with the clouds and "skyline". It looked vaguely familiar to the thing that so lovingly walked Runa's dreams.

"I'm willing to overlook this incident and offer you a job. The Abyss Floor has already been repaired, copied data restored. I have use for your particular nature."

“Of course you did”, Runa said - there was not a hint of surprise in her voice, or confusion or anything else. That phrase was more of a specific nod to Demyx, a point of giving a “I understand you” message. Implying they were on the same wave, that indeed, Runa realized that she was observed like so. Maybe she was doing a show, there was no clear answer to that.

The freefalling of hers never stopped and yet the vision and landscape around her never moved, they stood as still as they were, even though the motion continued, the demoness could make some of it just by moving her limbs or rolling in the air. Though the paradoxical scale of the things to comprehend were only making her think through it, applying her abilities and understanding of the reality around her to study and learn. Curiosity was still lingering bright in her heart. She listened to Demyx’s words carefully as well.

The massive golden rays on the closer study were more of a grander massive of a construction, twisting and shaping the reality around it in a way it managed, the fabric of the real barely holding its presence and cracked at times, amusing the falling demoness with its grotesque shapes and some familiar resemblances.

“Oh? And of what kind that job would be?”

"Nothing too complicated. You just have to enforce my law. Maybe hunt down a few dissenters. Above all else, it should no doubt keep you amused for all of Time to come," Demyx answered. "You may find yourself encountering that party once again, especially when some of them are....less than favorable in my view. There's also the matter of that wolf you've so clung to like a parasite. She too needs to be observed; at least, a part of her. Surely you can handle all that, no? It's not like you have anything better to do," Demyx said knowingly.

“That does not sound very complicated indeed. Just exactly something that would align me with the direction I spoke of.”, Runa said, her deep blue of the eyes locked on Demyx’s redness of a gaze as she spoke back, falling through the endless height still, only slightly twisting in the air to keep herself afloat in one position against the dragging force of the gravity and the turbulence of the falling both.

“So be it. I accept your proposal. Your company surely will guide me to places where I intend to be at, one way or another.”

Demyx's smirk widened by an inch at the corner. There was a change of gavity in the air that wasn't entirely evident in the immediate moment. "So be it then. Reject all that you've known and all bonds that you've forged. You serve a higher purpose now in exchange for your freedom. Become my Demifiend and enact my will."

The presence grew larger and large until a shrieking terror gripped Runa's core from the sheer size of it. The great constructy behind Demyx's throne moved subtly, two gargatuan pressures that rended the clouds coming on either side of the demon's body. Like great hands they slammed into Runa completely, molding and changing not just her, but all of the demon throughout her dislocated times. Demyx watched as her newest follower was forged, leaning back on her throne in satisfaction she possessed one piece of the impossible fusion.

“So be it indeed.”, Runa replied once again, as an echo to an echo to an echo, her voice ringing through the space as the deal was sealed and the words rang with the weight of the agreement confirmed. It was no moment later from that when the sky moved in great weight and the weight of the massive golden machina to come from either side of the falling demoness. The great mass of the realm itself shrugged and moved as Demyx spoke to them, and in the momentum it crushed on Runa with all its greatest density.

Her blue eyes remained as cold and motionless in its bottomless deep, reflecting nothing but the reality around and how it spun around her, as the pressure flew through her and across her, into the web of her connections with an electric charge that sparked and exploded through the demoness and all of her presences around and throughout.

That electricity was colored gold.

Tower of Fable

---

"How do you like those eyes I have given you? You wear them well, you should use them more."

Runa's voice coldly announced Thomas and Marianne's arrival as they prepared their attack. Nephy's control would make Nephuna lick her lips, anticipating a great battle and a chance at revenge for the boy that annoyed her. Unfortunately for the lot of them, this encounter would never take place. Ferris had arrived with her mighty shield, stopping Thomas's blow and forcing him back as his power reflected off its surface. Nephuna had half a mind to attack the intruder who had ruined their fight before being distracted by the other ongoing matters.

"So much convoluted bullshit here! So many people! So much disorder! Ugly and disgusting! You people have no control of yourselves!" Nephy's unmistakable acidic tone was heard as she grit her teeth and pulled away. There'd be no revenge for her today, it was their time to escape and they must take their chance.

The remains of the reality around all of them shook and as if twitched under the humming noise appearing from deep below and only growing louder as something that brought this hum onward got closer. In her actions Kanbaru summoned the watter massive which bursted out all around them guided by the force she carried and Nephuna looked over this gargantuan towering of element with a barely noticeable glint in her eyes. The water rocked against the ground and circled around, like a rabid beast chasing itself it aimed to form a closing circle to squeeze out its main enemy out of the world of living - Nephuna and all of her copies and all of the summoned creatures under her control. The explosive pressure of water crumbling on the area molded and crushed stones and rocks, folded mountain ridges like paper figures and made the ground to acquire a shape of seams and cracks in an intricate web through which the water seeped still, feeding into the ragous wave of pure natural force.

"Finally. Finally you have stopped playing around".
Nephuna said with the voice of two as the glint in her eyes reflected the water circle forming around her - and the glint looked back at her with a massive wall of blue terror ready to crush on her any second. Her copies swooped away into the sweeping wave, together with the spectral wolves: all lost in the endless rage of blue. The copies of Nephy's memories return to their spectral forms and abandon the battlefield, returning to Nekuromata's blade.

Just as the spirits returned to their home and Nephuna looked over her shoulder to tackle the incoming wave, her preparations were out at halt with a sudden rush of pain, shaking through her entire being. A blurring motion is all Katie appeared as before Nephuna as Katie's summoned arm pushed through Nephuna's stomach with another one clasping at the head. The piercing strike reached through the flesh right into the data of both, causing the growling rage of Nephy to come out in a howling shriek, infused by pain. The applied pressure sought out to find a seam between the two and with a clasp on it to enlarge this gap - Katie's aim was clear - to separate the two from one another.

The growing ripping motion made the spiritual connections to snap one after another, while Nephuna grit her teeth and stomped into the ground to acquire a better footing. The rage of Nephy's eyes coming through the otherwise numb gaze of Runa pierced through that angry glare of Kaite's. And then with a sudden move following the ripping pull, Nephuna's body split into two from her stomach and further up, making their heads to separate from the fusion. Still standing though on the same jointed pair of legs, the split image of the two reminded the two petals of a flower growing from the same root.

Nephy met Katie's eyes with cheeky rage, Runa greeted the raven with her usual smirk.

"You wish~" Nephy's voice cackled, enjoying how frustrated and angry Katie was. She had no idea she had already lost.
"You don't even know the whale's attack is about to decimate you all. What a fool."

"I've slightly reassembled the data and look - what an awkward position we ended up in"
Siam twins coming from the same jointed waist cackled and chuckled in amusement as the little seams of their spirit danged up from the sides of theirs. Still seeking the contact with their counterpart - barely seen white threads reaching for their opposite. Two halves shook slightly like a grass on the wind, their hairs entangled still as they felt the torrent of water coming down to crush on them any moment.

"So close.", Runa's voice echoed.
The pair suddenly pushed from one another to make a wider gap - right when Kanbaru's collar attack was aimed to land at a neck - a single neck of one Nephuna, but there were two heads now with a gap between them; and through that gap the collar and chains flew into, missing their target completely and causing a disrupt to Katie's hold on the both.
It was a mere second. It was a second enough for Nephuna to slip away from the grip and evade the incoming waves.

After being split apart so easily, the two would regroup together after Kanbaru and Katie's attacks clashed and disoriented the pair. It is a simple task to reform together with their speed and agility, coming together in an embrace and quickly changing back into their powered up self, the white threads quickly finding the ripped knots where they were separated and quickly fused over them once again, almost slapping the two together into one. Now back together, Nephy was able to continue feeding energy into her blade where Runa's entropic powers of time warping and Nephy's static undeath clashed together in a nuclear fission. Rushing into the hump right above the exposed core of the Abyss, the fusion smirked lightly to Erika who lifted the shield protection of the kernel. There was a thought that this was indeed Valkyria’s help to be gifted for Runa and Nephy both in such an intricate manner. And Nephuna indeed gave a thanking nod to her, before the the nuclear forces met in the vessel of the fusion's blade, the forces that simply could not be contained. Nephuna pulled the blade out and an explosion of grand power echoed throughout the broken down level. Time came to a complete crawl, and Nephuna appeared to blink out of existence. Like a great lightning storm, she appears as lightning and rapidly strikes the exposed heart of the abyss repeatedly with millions of strikes per millisecond. The force of her power destroys the sound barrier, making it almost inaudible until the sword is taken back to its sheathe from which time begins to flow once again. Immediately, the heart of the abyss is obliterated by a thousand cuts, crumbling into a heap of shards and breaking apart the prison forever.

And then everything went to white.

Tower of Fable

---

The heart of the abyss crackled and heaved under the weight of constant pressure by the small army of Nephunas around it. Akiko would intervene by using the data to create a shield around the heart to protect it from attack, stalling the apparitions for the moment.

Kanbaru as well was manipulating the code of the Tower with the aid of the JSTR. Using it to dismantle the thousands of spears sent her way. Nephuna's main avatar was mixed on this. Nephy showing annoyance and Runa more bemused.

"You are not the only one that can play this game." Stabbing her sword into the deteriorating levelscape, Runa's glitchy nature would interact and corrupt with the larger system. Her code was not so much rewriting but distorting and disfiguring the system to make it unresponsive and volatile just as Runa was herself. Every Runa is Runa and a copy, but always stuck in a dissonant existence, a flickering paradox stretched across space and time and which held no clear consistency, yet she persisted. The objects bound to her in code, even though were rewritten for Kanbaru to have control over, did not lose the main attributes of theirs - their inconsistency, and without its holding will similarly spread over time and space with no weight to hold down, the spears in Kanbaru's hands started to resist and attempting to slip away from the grasp of her fingers. A float of time would leak out of its vessel of direction of space; a flickering shape of each spear distorting in Kanbaru's hold and going awry and attacking in random directions or simply exploding out corrupted data. The spears become glitchy and distorted, flickering just as Runa did.

Nephuna herself standing amidst all the chaos, motionless and calm still, only executed another data manipulation: controlling the data banks of the Abyss - and herself for that matter - sliding through the bits of data with an erosion of entrhopy and throwing bits of the Abyss data itself into the void of mismatched numbers. She started to look for the connection nodes and sever them one after another, feeding on the final bits of the data taken and stolen from the Tower's main data array - using them as empty cells to fill with duped duplicates of the copies to further manifest herself around the space. After feeding enough on this re-written data, she started to separate the connection nodes one after another, slipping into each one of their protocols and simply overloading them with the assault of dummy data, until they were overfilled and open for the attack. Runa seized this chance to separate the Abyss from the Tower, isolating it in the emptiness.

Thomas too, did not hesitate to attack - his shape and form driven by the possessive spirit rushed and dashed through the guarding assemble of Nephunas, aiming to reach the one standing in the center, coming in shadow shapes and forms, twisting away from being seen and directing his glaive at Nephuna's neck once getting close enough. The sharp edge of the weapon moved in perfect trajectory and would've reached its target if not for the sudden - and previously unseen obstacle forming in its way, successfully deflecting Thomas's strike. He'd discover what blocked his attack very soon.

As Nephy tore into herself, the memories that held her hollow being together were released from her vessel. They would take form and shape as Nephy remembered them, memories turning into pale imitations of flesh. The large armored warrior wore many layers of iron armor in the samurai design, brandishing a large naginata that was as thick and large as a tree trunk. The mammoth being towered over Thomas and swatted him down like he was a fly. It is Nephy's father, restorted to life through the digital realm merging with Nephy's mind and who had stopped Thomas's original attack. His faceless specter is able to tank Thomas's golden eye powered attacks and able to dish punishment and swiftly too with fast strikes that leave deep impacts into the remaining earth below.

A throng of black arrows would impact Marianne before she could perform her attack. She is forced back as another faceless wolf avatar emerged, clad in a priestess's garment. The wolf would fire an endless volley of arrows, multiples at once and from many directions at her target. Each tip of every arrow was shaped out of the sharpened reflection or the real - even with the reality falling apart and glitching out, its image in a reflection still served a deadly material for a deadly weapon, capable of piercing through anything and anyone. It was capable to pierce through the appearance of the real itself, and the barrage of the arrows would come as a terror rain. Jumping high into the air with great strength in her legs she is able to attack from above as much as below and move rapidly to find new angles to fire from. Her black bolts siphon the life from its victim, corrupting and drawing from the same necromantic energies that Nephy often used herself.

"My mother and father, back here to be with me again. It fills me with such passion...I could almost cry."

Nephuna took a moment to compose herself, wiping her eyes. "I will honor them with your deaths. A more worthy fate than any of you deserve.", she said before turning away from the display of power Nephy's ancestors brought to be looked at and faced Katie now. A floating pieces of broken electonics, speakers and player both ruined by the impact of Katie's attack flew around the flickering shape of the Abyss - and yet it did not stop the music from playing: the data file of the song itself was taken away from the storages of the Tower and fused into one of the stable nodes of the Abyss under the control of Nephuna. The song kept on playing as if nothing happened per se, and will play on until the floor is still here.

"You do really tend to speak from the position of your insignificance and incompetence.", Nephuna replied to Katie seeing one of the copies sent flying away into the digital mess, which completely consumed the space past the edge of the single left block of the ground on which the fight was taking place, "Implying that your words are in the position across to influence anything or anyone to bend to your whims." The fusion was not amused at Katie's words either only holding the all familiar traited smirk of Runa's on the lips before her hand rose up and she summoned another spear - but that one held no resemblance to the spear Runa had before and which Kanbaru tried to override. This one was something new, a flickering shape of the handle was crowned with the blade of pure seeping darkness, a shape of which was all too familiar with the blade of Nekuromata. A weapon, which was merged from the data of both, fused and stored and now summoned - summoned to be thrown directly at Katie.

Evaded or not - upon landing the spear was to inject itself into the ground itself and push the twitching darkness to run through it and the shape of dark to emerge was to take a form of a emerging and further collapsing sphere, sphere which would open a gravity well to pull in everything which was to come in the area of its effect - to pull in and grind in the massive gravity well of a black hole which was taking into itself not only projectiles. objects or living beings, but also the data and information it held itself.

With that done, Nephuna'd clutch tightly to her precious Nekuromata and begin to channel her power. A large rim of energy began to emit from her and cover up an increasing portion of the battlefield. This shield would expand as she charged her blade to a bright glowing azure light that crackled and sparked with explosive energy just waiting to be unleashed. Nephuna crouched low and turned her body sideways, humming to herself as she felt incredible force flowing through her veins and pumping her with fiery passion.

"You will all. Die. Here."

Once this attack was unleashed onto the Heart, the floor would be destroyed.