Time and Tides Archives

Pink skies weren't anything new to Setzer. Pink skies that lasted for more than a sunset or a sunrise, however, were. But he'd paid them little mind. Who knew what to expect from a strange new world? Besides, it did make for quite the enjoyable evenings, if only for the rarity of it all.

The flash of light, on the hand, was new. New and perhaps a little bit reminiscent of the Light of Judgment Kefka had once used, being seeing as how it didn't leave him rather unfortunately dead, he was simply going to take it as it came. What better way to find adventure, after all?

He could have done without the insistent siren from somewhere below them, though.

"Something not going as planned, I take it?"

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Rygdea looked around at the voice, blinking at the silver-haired stranger for a moment, an answer on his tongue before he realised that the comment hadn't been directed at him at all. He turned again, found another complete stranger, and frowned faintly in utter confusion. He'd been heading out to buy a couple of bottles of bourbon for his and Fang's little reunion, but...he wasn't where he had been five minutes ago, and for the second time in as many months. It was...preturbing.

"...Could say that," he finally replied, faintly, even though it wasn't his question to answer. "Uh, were are we?"

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Balthier frowned as he looked over his shoulder at the other new arrivals. He had never seen either of them before, though their manner of dress suggested that neither was from Ivalice, and he decided that they must have been what the Gaians called "Sky People" as well. He shook his head as he turned around fully, putting his back to the elevator and coming to face a familiar set of stairs.

"We're in Draklor Laboratory, pride of Archades," he said dryly, with more than a faint touch of bitterness. "The alarm indicates a security breach. As we've only just arrived, we can't be responsible, but that won't stop the soldiers from trying to cut us down should they happen upon us. You're both in tact, I assume? No glaring injuries?"

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Ha! Now there was something familiar. True, the labs of Vector had very little on what he could see of the place thus far, but still. A lab was a lab and if that bitterness he could hear was any indication it wasn't place this particular nameless stranger cared much for.

(Not, of course, that he could blame the man. He'd heard of less than savory things to come out a lab himself, but that wasn't particularly important to the task at hand.)

"Not a scratch, unless something drastic happening between here and there."

And he would have hoped that he'd have noticed something that out of place in the cards they'd been dealt for this little excursion.

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"Yeah, same," Rygdea replied, his frown smoothing out a little. At least someone knew where they were, and the prospect of a fight was barely enough to preturb him. Being Guardian Corps, fighting kind of went with the territory, and neither of his strange companions looked like a single punch would lay them out. "Archades? Is that in Gaia, or have we been dumped on another strange planet?"

New as he was to Gaia, and already having digested his way through the idea of a patchwork world, he found that neither answer would surprise him. The architecture was a far cry from Lindblum's rustic brickwork, but not quite the gleaming technological masterpiece that Eden boasted, and he'd never seen a sky quite that colour, before.

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"It's in Ivalice, the seat of the Archadian Empire," came the clipped response. Balthier was clearly distracted, taking a long look in either direction before taking a step towards the corridor towards their left -- then stopping again. The stairs drew his attention a second time, and though his first instinct had been to make their way to the nearest exit, his gut now told him to amend his plan of action.

"I'm afraid we've left Gaia behind for the time being. Ivalice is my home, though I wish we could have been dropped off somewhere a touch more picturesque. This way, if you will." He beckoned sharply for them to follow as he quickly took to the stairway, lightly running his beringed hand along the banister as he took the steps two at a time.

Familiar voices sounded from beyond the landing, and even without seeing the scene laid out before him, Balthier recalled the setup with perfect clarity, his stomach clenching as Reddas' deep voice cut through the faraway sound of the alarm.

"Cid! You know deifacted nethicite brought down the Leviathan! How can you persist in this folly?"

"And you've come here to stop me? I'd fain to see you try."

Without thinking, Balthier uttered the same words he had the first time he'd lived this scene. If fate had seen fit to return him to this place, this same day, he would do nothing differently -- only relieve his father of his madness sooner, if at all possible.

"Consider your bones, old man," he announced as he strode through the door, and there before him was the same tableau as before -- Cid standing above the rest of them, smug and self-satisfied. Reddas looking up at him in challenge, Ashe close behind him, Fran, Basch, Vaan and Penelo all fanned out behind their princess and prepared to defend themselves. "You're outmatched."

"Pirate scum of the skies! What brings you here?"

Balthier smirked, clucking his tongue softly. "Treasure, what else would a pirate want? I'd be happy to relieve you of the Dusk Shard, Doctor. I fear its power has gone right to your head."

"You've come all this way for that trinket? I thought you above this."

"I confess," Balthier told him, straying from the original dialogue. After all, what good was a leading man who couldn't think on his feet? "There is a more personal score I would settle with you, but I fear dressing it up with words and needless overtures would only cheapen the sentiment at the heart of the matter."

Dr. Cid paid him no heed; he now looked to the invisible being beside him, though Balthier now knew the face of Venat, and could vividly picture the creature's piercing eyes glowing as it whispered Cid all its secrets. "Hm. What's that?" the doctor asked his unseen companion, voice hushed and low. "Ah." His attention turned swiftly to Ashe, his son forgotten for the time being.

"The princess of Dalmasca come to visit." Dr. Cid smirked, a wicked glint in his eyes as he appraised her. "She is not without merit. A test of sorts for our princess?"

Edited Date: 2011-03-15 12:04 am (UTC)

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"You're a babbling fool!" came Ashe's vehement response, fists clenched.

"A trial for Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca!" Cid bellowed, ignoring her protests. "You lust for the stone's power, do you not?"

Reddas intervened. "Lend him not your ears, m'lady. He means to use you."

Balthier recalled the ensuing battle with painful clarity. That, he decided, he would not suffer again. Not if he had the power to avoid it. All it would achieve was borrowed time for the doctor himself, before he baited them with the hidden treasures of Giruvegan. "No need to show us just how far you've fallen, old man," the sky pirate cut in, his jaw set as he fixed his gaze upon Cid, commanding his father's attention. "What you've become, what you've made of yourself, is abomination. You are mad, and I will not see you further used by your friend Venat. Your intentions were noble, once. They have become twisted."

Cid looked only mildly affronted, as amused as he was surprised. "The reins of history back in the hands of man, my boy. Is that not a noble goal?"

"If that were all it was," Balthier conceded, tilting his head. "But it can be achieved without you. There is no need for you to play god, and I will not see your own lust for power consume you." I cannot bear to witness how far you've fallen, he thought to himself. I will not stand for you to suffer through to the end. A quick death would bring him peace; the princess would go to Giruvegan and obtain the treaty blade from the Occuria, and a swift end would be brought to this conflict, without Cid's use of the Sun Cryst. Surely such a turn of events could only change their future for the better.

"You speak of power as if you know it, Ffamran. Even your wildest dreams could never fathom the power within my grasp." The familiar mechanical whir of the Dr. Cid's rooks pierced the air, and Balthier was immediately on the alert, raising his gun to fire a series of bullets into the nearest offender -- except it was then that the scenery began to waver. The walls and wide, curved windows of Draklor Laboratory began to fade, and with them, all of the people who had been assembled there. The princess first, then Vaan, Basch, Penelo, even Fran dimmed from his view. Reddas followed, and with an uncharacteristically cruel smile turning up the corners of his lips, Cid was the last to fade.

Wide-eyed, Balthier repressed a snarl as he turned on his heel to see if the same effect had spread to the room behind him. "I tire of these games!"

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Empires. Why did it always have to be empires. But if he had to tangle with one yet again he supposed it might as well be one that he barely knew. They wouldn't know what his ship was and wasn't capable of when it came time to take to the skies once again and he certainly couldn't imagine that this little excursion would end any other way.

But as he knew little of this place he was quite content to follow Balthier for the time being. Whatever grudges he may have had against the place, he certainly a better idea of what to expect than Setzer himself did.

Still, Setzer could hardly say that he'd expected to find them walking into a room that was as devoid of people as the one they'd just left. It was stranger yet to find Balthier addressing thin air, and moreover addressing it familiarly. A trickery of the place perhaps? Or had he unknowingly stepped into the hands of yet another madman? Of course, that path had a madman calling his unseen ... foe? ... mad and there was certainly no small amount of irony in that. Yet for all that he wanted to believe that this man was no Kefka he couldn't help one of his hands from creeping into his pockets just in case he had to fight.

Before he could get much farther than that, however, the world around them begin to fade.

"No man enjoys a game forced upon him."

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Rygdea remained silent, his frown returning in earnest. He'd seen crazy people before, Eden had its fair share of mentally ill, but to watch someone go from coherent to raving to empty air in a split-second was...unnerving. It wasn't until he looked over at the silver-haired man that he realised that the room they were standing in...wasn't the room they had been in. Some sort of magic, then? Perhaps he wasn't crazy at all, maybe he'd just been seeing something they couldn't.

"You an' Cid should talk," he muttered, in response to the other man's comment, then shook his head and brought his focus back to the matter at hand. "So...what the hell just happened?"

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"I can't be certain," Balthier responded, clearly on edge and more irritated than not by the scene he had just participated in. "If I had truly returned home, let us just say it was at an inopportune moment. However, considering the state of our surroundings, I think that an unlikely explanation at this point, or if I had, it was a particularly brief stay."

He crossed his arms, not bothering to be mindful of the wrinkles it might cause his good shirt, and looking up to survey their new environment. "Wherever we are, it's changing. We ought to move."

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"I'd be inclined to agree," Setzer answered, giving the new set of surrounding a rather critical eye. "I'd rather the hand stabilize before we set about seeking answers."

If there even were answers to be had, but that part of the hand could just as easily be discussed when they weren't interrupted be further spates of almost-madness. The sooner they were out, the better. Preferably without whatever that had been catching him in its nets as well.

Edited Date: 2011-03-17 02:19 am (UTC)

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"No arguments here," Rygdea agreed. Deeming now as good a moment as any for introductions, he offered, "I'm Rygdea, by the way."

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"Balthier," the pirate offered in return, omitting his last name. He had, more or less, given it up when he had initially fled Archades, after all. Looking in either direction, he quickly began to make his way through the only apparent exit, pressing his lips together into a thoughtful frown as their surroundings continued to shift.

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"Setzer," he answered, even as the surroundings began to take on a form that was all to familiar to him. The walls vanished, replaced by nothing more than a viewpoint that offered miles of wasted land. It was a tower. A tower built of what seemed to be nothing more than the rubble of a thousand buildings.

Oh, the floor underneath their feet was stable enough. But all around was bits and pieces of something else. Here a piece of what could have once been a roof. There, something that looked very much like it wouldn't have been out of place in a scientist's lab. A thousand, thousand pieces of rubble and ruin, held together by nothing more than sheer magic.

And with the height of the tower itself, getting back down was not really going to be the best of options. It was the last place Setzer had ever wanted to be yet again and he couldn't help but sigh at it all.

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"So...what exactly happened back there?" He looked over at Balthier as he spoke. "I mean, I'm not gettin' the crazy vibe from you, so.." He trailed off, catching a strange shifting out of the corner of his eye. Again, the scenery around them had changed, becoming a panorama that made his head spin. He was used to the laws of physics being flexible, Coccoon was a planet held up by fal'Cie will, after all, but...to see all of this, with no fal'Cie in sight, it made him feel distinctly uneasy.

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"Crazy?" Balthier questioned, curious. What had his conversation with Cid looked like to his companions, he wondered? He supposed that for those who were unaware of the context, he might have seemed a little needlessly irate, but certainly not insane. He would leave that to the higher branches of his family tree. "If you knew the full scope of the argument, I suppose it would make more sense, but what you saw was the result of a madman's thirst for power reaching its height." He paused. "Did you not see--" he began, but cut himself off as he fully realized that their surroundings had again shifted.

Rubble as far as the eye could see, fashioned into something larger than any town it might have as its components. "What is this place?"

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A madman's thirst for power? Now there was a damning statement and one that was more than a little familiar. One he could have done without really, given the current location. If they were set to revisit the various madmen in their lives this would certainly be the place for it.

"A tower erected by the local madman," he answered. "A monument to his own twisted genius."

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"Madmen, huh? Hope that's not becomin' a trend." One eye still on his surroundings, he continued, "We saw you talkin' to yourself. Or at least, that's what I saw. But I mean, like I say, you're not lookin' a whole lot of crazy. So, what did you see?"

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"A scene from my past," Balthier told him, sounding as though the words themselves tasted bitter. "But I assure you, I was not the only one there. The Princess Ashelia, Fran, Captain fon Ronsenburg, Penelo -- as well as other acquaintances I haven't come across in Gaia."

He glanced to Setzer. "This is a place from your past, then. Do you see anyone you know?"

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"Not a soul," Setzer answered. "Which rather leaves us without a way out."

He had brought his ship to the tower, that much he knew. But the way forward had been fraught with peril and he hadn't the slightest idea of which perils would have been dealt with already. Or even if anyone but them had been there, and almost unconsciously his feet began to take him forward, towards where he knew Kefka would be watching over the ruins of his world.

Edited Date: 2011-03-31 04:40 am (UTC)

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"If it's anythin' like what happened with Balthier, can't we just wait it out?" He was still unsure of what, exactly, was happening. Some sort of hallucination? Vision? Either was a possibility, really. This place had a nasty penchant for pulling the rug from under him, just when he thought he'd gotten it weighed off.

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Balthier gave an easy shrug as he fell into step behind Setzer, watching the path ahead of them with some measure of caution as they moved forward. "It seems our friend here is not the waiting type," he told Rygdea as they progressed. Not that he could fault Setzer for pressing onward -- when the scene had been Draklor Labs, he had vaulted up those stairs almost against his own will, a sense of urgency had pushed him to come upon that unpleasant scene.

"I take it this particular madman was not a licensed architect," he mused aloud as he continued to appraise their surroundings.

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Unfortunately for Balthier, his question fell on deaf ears as the memory chose that moment to engulf Setzer fully, his stance shifting as he fell into step with the rest who'd been there that day. Silence fell then, until the odd group came across the end of the line.

Kefka, of course, was waiting for them, with a painted smile on his lips. "Welcome, friends!" he began, in a tone that bore absolutely nothing of sanity or welcome. "I knew you'd come, so I've been practicing my greeting!"

Celes was the one to answer him, immediate and angry, speaking the question they all wished to hear the answer. "How much do you have to destroy before you'll have had your fill, Kefka!?" Unfortunately for them, the only answer was the high-pitched cackle that they all knew and hated, as Kefka quite simply... ignored the question at hand.

"I've acquired the ultimate power. Observe!" He made an offhand sort of gesture and Cyan rose into the air, helpless against the power that held him aloft. "Such magnificent power!" he continued, thoroughly drunk on his own power. "You're all nothing more than fleas compared to me now!" Again he gestured and this time it was Shadow who rose into the air, no more able to fight against the power than Cyan. "Embrace your destruction! It's the fate of all things!"

On the last word he gestured yet again and Shadow and Cyan can tumbling to the ground even as Terra stepped forth to speak.

"Because," she began slowly, "it's not the end that matters! It's knowing that you have something to live for right now, at this moment! Something you've worked for... something that's worth protecting! As long as you have that...that's enough!" Yet for all her words, Kefka remained unmoved, in the way that only a madmen could.

"And did you all find your 'somethings' in this broken world that just won't die?"

The answer was unanimous, as the entire group raised their voices in a single 'yes' before continuing on to explain what they manage to find in the ruins of this world.

"Love!" Terra answered.

"A person worth protecting," chimed in Locke.

"A life and child who live on within me," added Cyan, thinking of the family he'd lost to one of Kefka's earlier attacked.

"Friends... and family," offered Shadow, neglecting to comment on just who he'd meant.

"A peaceful kingdom," was the addition of Figaro's young king, Edgar.

His brother was the next to answer. "A loving brother who always looks out for me!"

"Someone willing to accept me for who I am," Celes offered, glancing over in Locke's direction.

Strago followed close on Celes' heels, chiming in with his own offering. "An adorable little granddaughter."

"An obnoxious grandpa," added in said granddaughter "...who I couldn't live without!"

And then it was Setzer's turn to speak. "Wings from a dear old friend!" he added, and oh, would that he knew where said wings actually were, but he knew better than to say such things in front of Kefka. The man would only use it against them, or worse against his ship, and he wasn't about to give him a reason to ruin his wings twice.

He needn't have worried, as Kefka simply made at face at the positively blistering array of optimism rising against him. "Bleh!" he commented, pulling a face to match. "You people make me sick! You sound like lines from a self-help book! If that's how it's going to be... I'll snuff them all out! Every last one of your sickening, happy little reasons for living!"

At those words, Setzer's hand went to the pocket where he kept his cards, drawing them out in one smooth motion... only to find that like before, the world was beginning to fade around them, beginning with Kefka himself.

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"See?" Rygdea nodded in the direction of the silver-haired man, largely unsurprised. "That's what happened with you. Same sort of thing." As the world started to fade, he turned his attention back to Setzer and cocked his head. "You doin' alright?"

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"I see," Balthier mused aloud, thinking back to the scene he had relived just moments before and considering what it must have looked like to Rygdea and Setzer, if it were indeed the same as what Setzer was experiencing at this very moment. He made no comment while Setzer seemed to speak to no one, to look at people who simply were not there -- and occasionally, he thought he saw a glimpse of what looked like... a harlequin?

No. Trick of the light.

"Is it over?" Balthier questioned, folding his arms over his chest. "You looked distressed."

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Well. He wasn't pleased, that much was certain, and he was rather glad that the hand that had reached for his cards was still buried in his pocket, so no one could see the way it was almost refusing to let go of them just yet. But he wasn't actually harmed any. Irritated with the place for even bothering to call things up, yes. But not (physically) harmed.

"I'd rather we left the madmen behind," he answered. "But I doubt the fates are done with us just yet."

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"Guessin' it's my turn, next," Rygdea surmised with a slight, dry grin. He wasn't looking forward to it, it wasn't going to be fun judging by the other two's experiences thus far, but on the other hand... "Well, there's no lunatics in my closet, at least, not that I know of, so I think we're done with nutbags."

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"Assuming this is, indeed, done in turns," Balthier mused aloud. It certainly seemed to be thus far, but there was no way to be certain unless something from Rygdea's past indeed turned up next. "That's fortunate, at least. Nothing horribly scarring in your past, I hope? So far, this place seems to choose the most unpleasant memories for us to relive."

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"I see little reason why it wouldn't be," Setzer answered. True, there wasn't any certainty to the hand but Setzer was used to seeing patterns. If two had gone through a replay of their worst memories then it stood to good reason that the third would also do so.

"Unless you have more luck than either of us can manage, of course."

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"No, I..." He trailed off, noticing the now-familiar shift of his surroundings, curious to see what this bizarre turn of events had in store for him. After a few moments, the scenery morphed completely, and he found himself...on the Lindblum. Anticlimatic, but he wasn't complaining.

He was sat down - hadn't he been stood a moment ago? - Fang opposite him, both of them nursing glasses of bourbon as the small hours ticked by.
"So, I've told you my life story," she drawled in that lilting Oerban accent of hers. "Turnabout's fair play. What are you doin' here?"
He turned the glass in his hands, smiling slightly. "This place...it's all messed up. The Fal'Cie, Dysley, all of 'em, they run Coccoon with an iron fist, and anyone who doesn't agree...well, let's just say that a lot of people were on that Purge train who shouldn't have been."
"No-one should have been." A frown furrowed her brow, and he nodded, conceding the point. Then he took a swig. "My point is..there's this whole scent of rot, underneath the shine and sophistication. Cid..wants to change that."
She said nothing, just gave him a look that said 'go on', and he shrugged. "He wants to give Coccoon back to the people. No more Purges, no more Fal'Cie breathin' down our necks." He knew there was pride in his voice as he talked, and he didn't bother to hide it. He was proud, proud to be working for such a great goal.
"So, you're fightin' for 'the people'?" The corner of her lip quirked up subtly. "Doesn't that sound a little trite to you?"
He snorted. "You make me sound like I'm tryin' to make myself out as some storybook hero."
"Aren't you?"
"No," he waved a hand at the thought. "I just...wanna be part of somethin' bigger than me. Somethin' that'll last after I've gone. I don't wanna be thought of a s a hero, just..thought of."
"An' the fact that Cid Raines is at the helm of this little world-changin' ship means nothing at all to you?" Her eyes glittered knowingly.
"Aw, shut up," he laughed, and she did. Then she faded, like a watercolour painting in reverse, the blue of her sari and the green of her eyes lingering for a moment. He stood up, forgetting the bourbon that he was holding, the glass fading out before it hit the ground, and raked a hand through his hair. "Shoulda figured as much," he muttered. "Well...guess that's over an' done with.."

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"That makes three," Balthier mused aloud, though his voice had become a low murmur. Arms folded, he lightly tapped against his chin with his index finger before turning his head towards the nearest corridor. "Best to keep moving. No telling what this place has in store for us, but if we stand still, we're sure to get nowhere quickly."

He began walk, though he disliked having to do so without a strong heading. Well, they would have to make due with what they had. They could always turn around and go the other way if need be, he supposed.

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Over and done with with surprisingly little fuss, even, not that Setzer was about to complain about that. The less bother there was in the whole mess, the sooner they could deal into what would hopefully be a better hand overall. He'd had quite enough of stepping into the past.

"Nothing for it but to fly as the winds leads then," he answered with a shrug. Anywhere was better than here, after all.

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