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{ ATE : Drive in Atlantica : 7}
{ Noelle : Kyle's Heart : Station of Awakening }

The agromancer gave a troubled sigh, crossing her arms and glancing between the screens and dark swirling vortex above them. Realistically, if Kyle kept that thing around he would continue to be a danger to the team, especially considering his rash desire to right any wrongs that even slightly involved him. That meant, aside from the fact that he could pull another deluded and dangerous stunt like the ice spell and kill their own, he would continue his own self mutilation--possibly until death.

Noelle looked to Joe, "We need to convince Kyle to expel it, or use it, or whatever. It just needs to be gone." Then to Ultima, "He can hear us, right?"

Joe shrugged at Noelle. "I would hope so, considering we're in his head." Joe gave the platform a sharp rap with his foot. "Heart. Whatever. Kyle, it really should go. It's...not really safe to keep something like that so close to your heart. Especially considering what can come through it."

The male thought about how to word things. It was like walking on eggshells, at this point, and he didn't want to push things too far. "It'd be more of a hindrance than a help, so let Ultima have a little bit of freedom to blast it away.?" Yeah, that sounded good. Kinda. Maybe. He gave a look to the two ladies that seemed to ask if he did it right.

[[Cue: Eau de Vie by SHIKI]]

"Are you always this quick to destroy things you don't understand? Sad, I expected more, but I guess I shouldn't have," a distorted voice reverberated through the vortex, releasing a harmless but jarring pulse. From its core at the darkest point, two feet emerged and sank till a thin pitch black body appeared with bright yellow eyes, "Curious, have either of you considered the possibility this power wasn't meant to harm him?"

The creature sank down till its feet touched the surface of the platform below, darkness spreading out in a circle around it like smoke spreading from a fire. Its form was shifting, holding true to the shape of a human being, but constantly in flux, maintaining a sense of instability or pseudo-physical presence like flames, "Or better yet, did you think about the irreparable damage you'd cause forcefully removing it?"

Joe followed Noelle's suit, quickly going to his own portrait and staring at the pretty glyphs that seemed to protect them. And pretty they were, but of course, something had to come out of the vortex. And then speak. Dear god did it speak.

"I'm sorry, and we're to believe that nothing bad will happen? I mean, look what already happened, so that's pretty much nulled your argument, Mateus." Was it Mateus? Well, Ultima said it was a link between Kyle and the fish armor thing, so...well, it could have been more of a representative. "Besides, he's already decided he wants it gone himself, so get out of his house. Head. Heart. GAH whatever 'h' word it is."

"Your compliments are appreciated Ultima. I promise, Mateus will not longer be a... hindrance. He's a bit preoccupied as of late. I apologize for our previous encounter, it was never meant to be so violent," the figure rubbed above its eye as if to massage its temple, "That said, just HOW have I done any harm to him? Everything you've seen has been of his own doing. His heart called out to me, and I simply replied with some assistance of my own. I've had no part in his actions or his condition... that was there before I got here."

The figure looked at Noelle, then Joe, then finally up at the vortex, "You seem to be under the impression I hope to harm Kyle. Quite the opposite, unlike my Esper who so desperately wishes to bring harm to Ultima through her avatar, I, have no such desire. I despise pain and Kyle is not the type to cause it. I wish to protect Kyle, nothing more. And, as much as you'd like it to be as simple as flipping a switch on or off, the connection is deeper than that. Imagine two trees side by side, the vortex, is one tree, Kyle's darkness is the other. These two trees were planted side by side, their roots sewn together under the earth. The soil, is Kyle as whole, both physically, and metaphysically," his arms gently expanded outward to reference where they stood.

"Should you do as you propose, which is, to BLAST this vortex out forcefully. You'd be essentially putting dynamite underneath the root system of these two trees, expending large amounts of precious gunpowder, aka: your combined mana, and detonating it. This would not only obliterate the earth beneath these two trees, but rip the ground asunder as BOTH root systems come up with the one tree. The ground would not only be decimated, but you could never put it back together the same... in fact, the soil could be ruined permanently. You could KILL HIM."

The figure took what seemed to be a very deep breath before continuing, "Now, I've answered your question, now I have a single question for all of you. While you two were busy interrupting Kyle's plan that he spent all night attempting to execute with Kyla's help... can either of you tell me, just where is Kyla right now?"

~~{ ATE: The Dark Visitor and the Opened Door }~~

[Kyla: Inside Kyla's Heart -Sanctuary of Heart: The Shores]

“ It is said one’s body is a temple, enshrining what is most sacred within. The torri shrine represents the boarder onto holy ground, the transition from the profane to the sacred. It is also an indicator of the passing from one spectrum of being into another, the more you cross the closer you are the most pure of spaces within the shrine. As for the rock- it is bound by a rope called a Shimenawa- it is similar to the torri gate in its significance but it is most specifically used as a ward against evil spirits.”
Kyla pushed herself off the beam to the last torri gate and approached the water. The foam swept over her bare feet.
She walked till she was ankle deep and just a meter or two from the dark spirit.

“This is the boarder to my hearts structure, the gates upon a shore is a fitting manifestation. The rock itself would represent a corner stone of the structure- this is only the first layer. As I have let you come in, I suspected this is where I would find you.”
She looked between it-him, whatever this entity was and the rock.
“Does it hold you at bay? These are only figments- of course, but I suppose they can be as real as I believe them to be. This has been my world for a long time. Still, I did not intend for it to keep you out so I’ve come to meet you here.”
She waded in the water till she reached the rock and by then the water was up to her waist. She leaned into it looking at the figure passively.
“Is it unusual to see a heart look like this? I do not doubt the motifs you are used to are here somewhere- most likely further in.”

{ Cue : Erase This - Evanescence }

As the figure vanished in a flash of light, he was replaced once more by the rotted, faceless entity, still unclothed and genderless. It stood there, passively watching the scene

"He's going to need you, you know."

The familiar tenor was all around them, but distant, as the colors inverted throughout the Station--yet the entity remained the same, a pale white with black cracks encompassing its form, as it fell to its knees in agony. The station itself began to mirror what was going on above, the all-too-memorable black rot (white with the inversion) spreading like wildfire from where the entity fell to its knees. Simultaneously, the 'status' screen began flashing crazily, with every inch of Kyle's body being wracked with pain.

.:No... no, not yet...:.

Within moments, the black (white) specters rose from the corruption on the Station once more, shouting their chorus of degradation at the entity in the center, who held its head in its hands as though it had a terrible headache. Their shouts mixed in with the explosion and the chaotic screeching from above as another screen appeared, covering all the others, revealing a slideshow of Kyle's worst memories. They flashed by in blurs, like subliminal messages, making it impossible to really see any detail--

--until it stopped on a picture of a younger man with curly hair, staring back at the screen with a mixture of feelings

The image was blurry--it looked as though they were in the hallway of a house, with pictures hanging on the walls, but everything was blurry and unfocused except for the boy in the center. He looked no older than his mid-teens, with a hurt Boston Terrier at his side as the two of them struggled against the Shadow Heartless that surrounded them. The frame of the image showed the countless Shadows all jumping on the two of them simultaneously, with the young man, scared out of his mind, glancing to the screen--to Kyle--with what appeared to be both fear and hope.

.:I haven't fixed it yet.:.

"He doesn't give up--he just gets desperate."

All the screaming stopped--all the specters seemed unable to speak as suddenly, the entire station was surrounded by dozens and dozens of screens, all showing the same image. The entity slowly rose to its feet, only for the specters to begin shouting and wailing again, though their cacophony had become somewhat organized--failure, slowness, weakness, always his fault.

As it rose and the colors reverted, the entity held out its rotted arms, staring up at the sky, as if in a welcome embrace. Then, without warning, the specters pounced, launching themselves at it with impatient ferocity--only to be absorbed into it, deepening the cracks, spreading the corruption so much that by the time it was alone, it appeared as though it more darkness than pale.

.:I can fix it, I swear, I can fix it--:.

That's when the Station began to break.

Simultaneously, There was an odd sound near them, like a metallic latch opening. If they weren't too busy being distracted by the scene in front of them, they might have looked to the source and noticed that the shackle on Ultima's left hand had disappeared.

"Desperate enough not to care about me."

One by one, massive sections began to fracture, tilting at angles and slowly drifting away and down. The entity, however, threw out its arms toward two of the fractures, sending tendrils of Darkness to grab them and holding them from going any farther. When others began to drift off, similar tendrils extended from its body, catching them and keeping them in place.

Still, despite holding them in place, the pieces didn't come together. They didn't heal.

"I see you, Kyle. And I don't see anything different between you, me, and Noelle."

Without warning, Joe's portrait flashed with light under the protective dome of energy, releasing a pulse of Light--which quickly enveloped the entity, causing bright white cracks to appear within the rotted black. At first, there was a slight breeze--and then, tornado-like winds roared into existence, surrounding the Station's fractures, sliding through the cracks with a flicker of light as a barrier of air enveloped the entire circumference of the station and helped pushed the pieces back into place. The twister even caught the falling shards of black glass and caused them to spin like a vortex high above the Station, just under the holes in the ceiling. They weren't repaired, but the pieces were there.

"You're as strong as any and all of us. Why else do you suppose you're here, or made it this far?"

At that moment, Noelle's portrait released a similar pulse of Light which spread and enveloped the entity again, causing the white cracks to broaden and grow within the dark corruption. Then, starting from the points where they came from its body, the entity's tendrils of Darkness became thick vines, wrapping around the fragments and causing small, fiber-like roots to spread from the lower portions into the other fragments, literally rooting the Station together again.

The two portraits would have given one more synchronized flash, causing the nature and wind magic to pulse and swirl, coming together on the entity and vanishing into it, as if it were also absorbed. Light spread slowly from their positions on the ground, once more filling in the cracks that had appeared, though leaving the scars untouched. The broken ceiling glass remained hovering in the air, still letting the blinding emptiness of beyond flash through, but the Station itself was healed.

The entity, now equal parts white and black, let its shoulders sag as it vanished, and before Noelle or Joe could say anything to it or Ultima, their vision was blinded by whiteness, and they could feel themselves leaving the heartscape.