hugtopia_logs | [closed] i was hanging with you

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[closed] i was hanging with you

♥ Who: Noctis and Pyra
♥ Where: VR cafe, King's Knight
♥ When: early may
♥ What: cute surprises
♥ Rating: PG

[ Over the past couple of weeks they had resumed some of their usual routine. At his leisure they've trained together, this time both with his magic and her own fire, and they've also found time to play King's Knight. Already they've climbed the dungeons together to the point they've almost reached the end of the game.

It's towards the early afternoon where she leaves her work at the labs, and she sends him a text to meet her at the VR cafe-- today is the day where they finally beat the game. Their last joined saved point had been just as the final dungeon leading up to Ophion. Greeting him with a warm smile, her hand finds his as soon as he arrives. They take their usual spots in the cafe and, donning their helmets, enter the game.

Her hand is still in his as she blinks them open once the virtual reality assembles. Before them is the beginning of the dungeon: a series of crystalline staircases ascending a mountain, punctuated with levels of plateaus and terraces where more treasures and enemies await heroes on their gauntlet; behind them, their last chance to stock up on healing items and equipment before proceeding. The cooler wind-effect of this level gives away that they're already somewhere high-up, and her longer hair within the game flows behind her like ribbons upon a flag.

She turns to him, her head tilting. ]

Oh... New class?

[ And a new level, she sees. It seems he's been playing this on his own time, too! While it does make her question why the sudden change for the final area, perhaps he believes being a Dragoon may help them more against the superboss. ]

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[Immediately he's in motion, kicking off the ground in the opposite direction as Pyra and twisting his body away from the attack. He runs down the field towards Ophion, crouching down for a moment to power up his first jump before rocketing into the sky, lance out and pointed downwards to strike at the dragon's gleaming metallic scales. Ophion uncoils slightly, barely reacting, and Noct has to jerk away lest he be caught up against that twisting body. The attack barely makes a tiny dent in Ophion's HP, but that's about what he expected anyway, so it doesn't concern Noctis. His priority at the start of this fight is to learn the beast's attacks, what his tells are; that'll be important if they're going to survive long enough to tame him. There's a big difference between knowing them through code and understanding them in practice, something he's had to learn through playing up to this point.

Pyra is probably better at recognizing these signs than he is, having not only coded it but developed this from memory rather than imagination, but he's keeping an eye on her movement and health, staying distant to try and draw Ophion's attention to himself as he dodges around, though hopefully not too far that he can't run to her aid and heal her if need be. The nice thing about Dragoon and Archer - part of why he'd chosen this new class in the first place - is that they work well together even as a distant fighters.]

[ Thankfully the game has a reliable dodge-move, which she enacts to narrowly avoid the attack. The projectile tears up the field for meters behind her like thunder through concrete, tossing up soil and grass that subsequently rain down from the sky as heavy debris. The buff helps with turning damage from that into a negligible amount, and twirling into an attack stance, she lets loose her first arrow, a second, and then a third.

The first strikes against one of the metal platings just above the hinge of his left jaw, causing the beast to turn his attention to her. The second misses because of his movement, but the third? Strikes him right within his mouth, erupting into a flames. If this were reality, fire against his particular alloy of plating would have done very little. In this game, it does a hefty amount of damage-- and it also turns his attention to her instead of Noctis. Her head whips up when she's done with her attack, watching him from afar as she returns to prepare her next attack.

However, Ophion does as well. Whether Noctis manages to strike against his armor or not, he'll uncoil his tail further to thrash it about in the air, sending an salvo of homing missile against him. ]

[While Ophion reacts to the fire, Noctis of course takes advantage of his distraction, lunging forward and stabbing his lance with a boosted strike, piercing between the joints of those metal scales. He jumps back, wary of where the dragon's attention will fall; he'd expected Pyra based on the damage done, but his thrashing comes too close to where Noctis landed after his last attack. Whoops! He's the lucky one, then.

He has to rethink his first instinct to block, since he has no special shielding ability the way he does as the knight character, which means his dodge is a split-second too late to completely evade. Ophion is powerful enough that even a glancing blow from one of the missiles is enough to stagger him, taking off a chunk of his health- not devastating, but enough to teach him a lesson. Be more careful. They just have to survive long enough to wear him down, enough to get close.

He takes off at a run, leaping and rolling over the broad expanse of Ophion's body and landing within the coils. He remembers this trick working on one of the enormous snake monsters back home, and is rewarded for experimenting; Ophion constricts, the coils drawing closer and closer as the beast's head looms overhead, jaws open- a perfect, albeit quite risky, target. At the last second his powered-up leap rockets him into the dragon's mouth, his lance stabbing up into the jaw with the tip on the other side, effectively securing his mouth open. The downside is now Noct is in there, so he braces his foot against the teeth to avoid being thrown out and yells over his shoulder.]

All yours!

[He's plenty distracted now...!]

[ Having fought alongside him this entire dungeon-crawling adventure, she has begun to feel as if she's more or less grown accustomed to how he tackles battles. Sometimes he does strategizes, but more often than not he leaps right into the fray. She adapts quickly, having been very much the let's-battle-not-plan fighter a fairly long time ago. They've been in sync before, and often times the battles with him have become fun despite the (virtual) dangers they've faced.

None of that prepares her for him leaping into the mouth of a giant robot dragon.

Were she mortal, she would probably have used the idiom of seeing him like this as wiping years, perhaps decades off her life. He's even encouraging her in a way that isn't beckoning her for assistance on his behalf, but to take action against the beast herself! ]

[ --But he's got this, and his recklessness-- er, courage has given them a window of opportunity. Ophion thrashes, meaning that this won't be for long.

Pyra leaps into action, sprinting up the length of Ophion's tail, equipping the Omega Fetter. With the chain rattling in her hands she turns it about her head and whips it towards the the dragon's neck. The tail end of the chain automatically links up to the extension she holds about the circumference, creating a leash.

Activating its special effect causes it to erupt in golden glow, sending a pulse of power towards the dragon he writhes. Noctis might want to leap out of there, because from within his throat he's beginning to gather a bright red energy. As for Pyra, she strains to grip the Fetter, pulling it tight enough that it burns against her hands. ] Rrgh-- [ Gritting her teeth, she's nearly thrown off as the dragon begins to lift from the ground as if he might flee to the skies. For a virtual reality game, this is taking a lot of work. ] Ophion-- hold...!

[ Oh, yay, it's become a quick time event. Should Noctis have leapt away by now, one of the prompts allows her to reach for him to bring him onboard so that he might join her for dragon-wrangling. ]

[Yep, that's his cue. He waits until the last second to avoid the jaws clamping down on him during his escape, kicking his lance inward and activating a sideways jump out of the dragon's gaping mouth just as the energy burst shoots out. Before his leap can take him too far, he hooks a hand on one of the spiky appendages of Ophion's head and swings his way over as Pyra's hand is outstretched towards him. He's caught from mid-air and pulled in, keeping a firm grasp on her hand with one of his own, while the other reaches out to grab the opposite side of the Fetter. Bracing his feet against the writhing body of the beast, he twists the chain around his arm for the best grip he can manage.]

Hang on...!

[And pulls, stubbornly fighting against the system and the defiant bucking of the superboss beneath their feet. Hold, Ophion, he wants to shout back, echoing her words, but she knows what she's doing, and the control is in her hands now. He's here to support her, and to hope for her. He wants this outcome for her sake.

Please, hold.]

[ With him lending his support, she's able to focus on responding to the prompts that appear only to her in which way to direct the chain in response to Ophion's thrashing. By now the dragon has taken flight, dragging them around the mountain they've ascended. One prompt has them curving with the dragon to the right, another has them diving at a near-ninety degree angle towards the ground, a third sends them in a corkscrew back up the mountain. Any time it seems they're about to be tossed off, in reality she's gripping his hand tighter within the cafe.

She shouts as if it would make a difference, as if the dragon actually belongs to her in this game-- ]

--Ophion!

[ It's one final prompt that allows her tame the mechanical dragon, forcefully heaving the Fetter backwards as a rein. The dragon roars and fires a laser that cuts through the sky before it plummets back down, and she leans back, bracing herself. With another tug, Pyra directs him to slow his descent, and they just barely make for a rocky landing atop the mountain, right where they started. ]

[ She's panting by the end of it, having depleted her in-game magic reserves. With one hand still upon the Omega Fetter, she raises her other to wipe at her brow, looking over the dragon as he rests against the mountain.

A fan fare plays at their victory... And she looks up in surprise.

Ah, they did it? They did it.

Pyra gazes back down to the chain she holds, and the dragon once more. This isn't... how it's probably going to go in her world. But here, here-- they tamed him. Under her control again, Ophion's metallic frame rises and falls as if he breathes, still alive and safe and unharmed or taken by any human hands. ] ....He's.... safe.

[He moves as she does, step by step, following through the prompts and remaining synchronized as her hand holds tightly to his. It's almost like a dance- back and forth, forward and away, moving against the thundering wind and the thrashing of the divine digital beast under their feet. When the last prompt is completed successfully and she calls his name one final time, at last defeating their foe, he exhales a breath he'd been holding too long, shoulders slumping, his hand squeezing hers before it is released. As the dragon flies them closer to the surface, he holds fast to the chain for balance and looks over at her with wide eyes.]

We did it... [He leans in closer, checking her expression. Is this... good? Is she happy? She doesn't look it.] Are you okay?

[ When he checks her expression, he'll see an amalgam of reflection, relief, and disbelief. Ophion lies quietly beneath them, having suffered very little from their attacks. The Fetter remain in her hands, no longer glowing with strain but quiet and loose about his neck. And the two of them, Noctis and Pyra, are standing upon one of the metal scales of his back without triggering another anguished thrash from the dragon...

She can't call this as them overcoming the impossible-- it is all programmed into the game, after all-- but with this he did give her an opportunity she'd never see in her own world. She's in shock. ]

[ --But in a way that that same shock shatters. In an instant, she throws her arms around him. It's different from her usual embraces, not in that it is any less meaningful or grateful, but that it has an added layer to it. It's celebratory. ]

--Noct!

[ C'mere for a hug, you, except it's not one that lasts too long, excited and happy as she is. She goes between hugging him to pulling away to look at him, then to hugging him once more, to dropping her arms around him to take both of his hands and hold them in hers for a series of excited squeezes, as if she can't exactly decide what to do with her arms and hands. She looks a mess from the battle, but her breathlessness comes not only from the fight but from joy. ]

[Oh! Hug! Okay, maybe she's happy after all. He returns it, draws back, hugs again- really he just lets her manhandle him as she pleases until she's satisfied, and he looks back at her a little breathless and pleased. The fight was much less of a gauntlet than it would have been without the Fetter, and while they might have survived it somehow, Ophion would not. Instead they stand together and victorious and Ophion lies peacefully beneath them. Even if it's just a digital rendition, the best they could manage in an alien world with no photo from which to copy... she looks so pleased, like this is something out of a dream for her.

Yeah, it definitely was all worth the trouble to get it.]

So? You've tamed a dragon and saved the world. How does it feel?

Edited 2020-05-10 19:18 (UTC)

[ How does she feel? She laughs giddily. ]

Like--.... like I'm someone like you. [ Someone who has already helped his world-- has gone around his kingdom and acquired the mark of an expert hunter, a champion More, too: like someone is set to save a world. Someone who's gone on an adventure and prevented catastrophe. Someone who won't cause the end of the world, instead overcoming all odds to save it.

This is a dream to her in her world, but here it's reality. ] A hero!

[ Holding her hands like this, it's as if they're both holding the chain. ]

[With her looking so happy about it, it's easy to share her grin, glancing around at their digital surroundings. This place might not be real, and it might just be randomized pixels and code, but it's still beautiful. And how they feel about is real enough.]

Feels pretty good, doesn't it.

[ And the best thing about this victory is there that is no collateral destruction, would would have very much been a thing with her actual Artifice. ]

...Yes! [ Yes, it feels great because it feels like she actually, truly did something good here... hypothetically. She didn't actually save anyone with this. However, she can imagine that she'll feel this good when everything is-- actually, no, she won't feel anything if she's gone. But she can pretend, just as she's pretending within this game that she saved a world alongside someone. ]

Yes. [ She repeats, and she pulls him in for a little, happy twirl. But she missteps forward, knocking into him with a small laugh. ] Sir Dragoon-Phoenix Knight, we... won.

[ The game is over, technically. They probably can log out, but she doesn't wish too (and besides, she has her own surprise to give). ] Where did you even find the Omega Fetter?

Hell yeah, we won.

[He catches and steadies her as she stumbles into him, tugging at her arms to keep her upright.]

I don't really remember where it was... I was grinding a bunch of higher levels looking for it- it all kind of blurred together. It's a really, really rare treasure drop, and it doesn't even say what it is in the item description, so it's meant to be a puzzle for people to figure out.

[He offers up a cheeky smile.]

I guess that means I kind of cheated, but you won't catch me apologizing for it.

[ She doesn't seem to mind at all! In fact, she shakes her head while giggling again. ]

And, ah, you designed it too, didn't you? I don't recognize these markings...

[ It's probably best to step off of Ophion now. So if he's willing to follow her, she'll lead him by the hand off of the dragon. She wishes to walk around to the Aritfice's front anyway, to see if the game has reset his design to be uninjured. ]

Yeah... I kind of had to guess at it. Like I said, I didn't want to ask, because it'd ruin the surprise.

[He follows along of course, offering up a slightly sheepish smile; still no apology, but he does wish it could have looked a bit like what it should.]

[ They walk around to Ophion's head, and he appears to be slumbering... as much as any robot might be able to appear sleeping in a state like this.

He really needn't be concerned with how it looks. That he's did this for her at all means a lot. ]

I love it. This gift, Noct. It's... wonderful. [ ...If that wasn't clear enough. Pyra looks over Ophion again, thoughtful as if debating something.

Something like should she tell him about the actual Fetter? If if she does, what will he conclude after it about how she happens to know? That she knew of its existence at all should have given away that she knows more than she should. But, ah...

After a moment in silence, she says: ]

...This chain is much, um, 'cooler' than the real Omega Fetter.

[He'd wanted to ask - more for his curiosity than anything else, since it's not as if he can or would change his own design now - but wasn't sure if it would be prying too much. Now, with her offering up the information freely, he feels a bit safer in asking.]

What's the real thing like?

It's, ah...

[ How does she even begin to describe it?

Well, first, she wants to sit down in this field, on this mountain, and with Ophion. So she'll do that, finding a spot for them to rest as the ambiance of the game turns over the colors in the sky. With Ophion's defeat, the clouds have parted and the mist has dispersed. It shouldn't be long until they might be able to see stars....

She brings up her hand as if to depict a square of something in front of her. ] It's a crystal cube of energy in its dormant state. In its active state, [ She pauses, then splays her fingers as if they could depict rays pulsating from a core. ] it's an... [ Hm. ] It's easiest to think of it as a mass of energy [ Energy, mass? The terms clash, but this is the best she can come up with. ] that's also a computer.

[ Operating it, one can control both Ophion and the Titans. She doesn't quite remember why she made it as such. Only that for some reason she did, and that's what the Fetter is. ]

[He sits down with her, settling comfortably in the grass with one leg tucked up close to his chest. Since the battle is over - technically the game as well, for this particular round - he opens the menu to switch his equipment to a less-pointy armor set, dismissing his lance as well. If they're just going to lounge before they log out, may as well be comfortable about it.]

Oh wow, I was way off, then. I thought fetter as in chain...

[Obviously, since a chain is what they'd just used.]

Guess it makes more sense your way, though. A chain that can stop a dragon is like magic, but a computer would be able to stop a robo dragon.

[ A literal chain is indeed cooler, as she’s said. Especially for a battle. ]

W-well, it’s said that one can also control the very Titans with this Fetter, too. [ A chain would have to be leagues long to encircle a continent. ] ...And the continents are ground, not robotic, so, ah.

It’s a mystery! How it works.

[ Probably has something to do with it being a divine artifact.

She knows how it works. It also seems to have slipped her mind of how much he does know at this point. Chalk it up to her being very much effected by the nostalgia of being in Ophion’s presence. She’s still in this dream. ]

[Yeah, speaking of.]

Doesn't seem like much of a mystery to you. Isn't Ophion yours?

[He leans over, lightly bumping his shoulder against hers. He hasn't forgotten that memory on the mountain. It makes a lot of sense, in retrospect, how happy she is to see Ophion safe and healthy and saved, even in just a video game. He'd been wounded in that memory, and she'd worried for him; he wonders what his fate back then must have been, but she's so pleased now that he doesn't want to ruin it by asking the wrong question.]

[ She tenses against his shoulder, looking at the dragon.

This is the flaw of having emotions and being sentimental, because she forgets herself with letting secrets slip that she wouldn’t have otherwise. Telling him about her world would have been far easier for her to bear, but thinking back on their previous conversations, she marvels at how lowered her guard has been around him. He know Ophion is divine— she told him. He knows that he is hers— she also told him. Putting these two together, what sort of conclusion might he draw?

She feels that a closely guarded secret of hers, one that she fears to give anyone here because of what she’s heard of others and how they regard gods and the like, is being torn away from her. A familiar feeling washes over her: fear. Fear makes her shirk.

Her gaze lowers. ]

....Yes.

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