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She had to admit, the talking was significantly less grating than the laughing had been. Still psycho, but easier on her sanity, at least. Bobbi could ignore mere words a lot easier than she could laughter, for some reason. However, the message sent with those words simply hardened her resolve, set her stubbornness to exponential levels.



"Not going to happen," Bobbi growled, gathering what mana she could. His near-silent plea to "make it stop" tugged on her heartstrings. Hearing that plea, part of her wept for him, though the rest was focused on the battle.

She couldn't help him if she was dead. Or mad. Or whatever state he was trying to send her into.


What little ice remained on the Station faded rapidly as the walls of her protective domes dissolved. The archer stood to her full height—all five feet and one and a half inches of it—with Shiva behind her like a guardian angel.

Aiming Taulmaril upwards, Bobbi fired off three Hailstorm bolts at once, blanketing the field in a flurry of piercing icicles aimed to take out the Shadow-Louises from above. Simultaneous with this attack was a barrage of erupting ice stalagmites, courtesy of Shiva. The spell centered in the midst of the conglomeration, as Bobbi and Shiva darted one to each side. Shiva held a Blizzara spell in her hands while Bobbi nocked a Bursting Arrow, both prepared to be unleashed at the first hint of movement from Louis.

Ignoring the melting apparitions, Bobbi loosed her Bursting Arrow, and Shiva threw her Blizzara. Both made impact, but seemed to do nothing—may have even been absorbed into the ball like the rose petals that had previously littered her Station. Bobbi's eyes burned with tears as she tried to force herself to ignore Louis' desperate pleas.

When the dark sphere exploded, Bobbi threw up a Mirror Wall before herself as Shiva did the same on her side, hunkering down behind the comforting wall of ice as the dark spears impaled anything and everything in their paths. Once the projectiles had ceased firing, Bobbi dismissed her shield and began running again, a Twisty-Turny sphere of ice hurtling before her and clearing her path of the protruding spears. She had no need to get closer; Taulmaril saw to that. But she needed to make a moving target of herself. Standing still would only give him an advantage.

Harder to hit a moving target.

As she ran, Bobbi kept her eyes trained on Louis, watching his expression and dodging the tendrils of darkness as they got too close. Part of her wanted to scream that she was trying to "make it stop," but she knew her words wouldn't be heard, or even heeded.

Her eyes widened when the kris appeared in Louis' hands. As he raised the blade and called out her name, she skidded to a halt and watched in horror as he plunged the blade into himself, over and over and over again.

"No!" she shrieked, horrified that he would do such a thing. Then, she doubled over in pain as she felt the blade enter his flesh as if it were her own. Her shriek was choked off as Taulmaril dropped to the ground, disappearing mere inches from the Station floor.

{ATE : Healing Bonds : 14}
{James : Disney Castle : Library -> Kyla's Station of Awakening}

Kyla turned towards Louis, someone she thought would be there during the procedure. He seemed distant, detached, his eyes looked so defeated and ti bothered her. More than bothered her-
“- but.. wait-? What about you?”
Kyla turned around, surveying the strange metaphysical landscape that was her own heart, or some semblance of it. Thanking Bobbi for the warning, Kyla turned around and took a good look at the strange flower structure floating in the space-barely half a foot-above the pristine surface of her station.
Coming closer, Kyla could see it was made of various layers, some semi-translucent while others more solid, and resembling sheets of ornate glass just like the platform itself.
These layers, she could see when observing, rotated in different directions, left and right starting from within. A haze of darkness hung in the air, and it wafted from the structure like a smoke.
“Actually…” she muttered in response to James’s observation-
“I’m not so sure- I mean… remembering how our previous drop went- this may mean something significant.” She turned back to the structure, before looking to Louis again.

“I wonder.. how much you remember but- you know those gates? Do you remember?” the gates Kyla was referring to were the gates which Ava Mat had to traverse. They were manifestations of the layers Ava Mat had to traverse to get deeper and deeper- what if this was the same?
Kyla walked a little closer, turning to one side and looking around it.
“It’s like my me spells. A shield.”

[[Cue: Growing Wings(Piano) from Drakengard 3 OST]]

As Bobbi watched the boy lay there lifeless in a pool of his own blood, she might have noticed another disturbing procession take place. From the moment his body touched the floor and stopped spitting blood form his various wounds, his body began a swift degredation, rotting in a matter of seconds.

It started with his eyes, burning from the center, the pitch black orbs that inhabited the sockets decitegrating into ash until black goo dribbled out of the empty pits down and over his face still frozen in that same disturbing smile. His skin on his arms and legs began to change tooo, melting like heated wax off the bones of an inhuman and distorted skeleton.

Bass. A heavy boom eminating from the massive black hole located just over the side of her Station, dirrectly behind her vision of Louis' body. Ripple. The shiny black surface warping slightly as something protruded from the pit. Claw. A sharp, spined, scarlet, skeletal hand reached out of the darkness, grasping weakly at the air before snapping to the side and gripping the outside of the sphere and digging in, bending the surface like sheets of cloth.

Bit by bit, a body emerged, a face, skull with a clean row of fanged teeth that bubbled on the surface like boiling water, a chest, collar bone, ribs, and sternum, caged within a heating heart... lungs formed like bloating tumors dripping from the air into place. After half of the body had emerged it slipped free, falling to the floor with a slap and splash. Red liquid flowed from the pit in space like a miniature waterfall for a second, engulfing the skeleton for but a moment before shutting off the flow.

When the downpour had cleared, Louis was there once more, form dyed crimson as he stood. At first naked, shadows swiftly danced around him and returned him to an outfit befitting a young man his age. He smiled as he glanced at the body that had been reduced to an empty husk of bone, "Did I win? Lose? Or was round 1 a draw?"

The boy tilted his head and grinned, sadistically, maniacly, angrilly, his glare locked on Bobbi, "Ne, Bo-bbi-nee-san? Shall we keep playing? We can do this as long as you like. Forever and ever."

She hadn't known that Kyla's Louis shard was there with them, and jumped a little when he spoke. She would have said something, but, well, she wasn't feeling charitable towards any form of Louis at the moment. Not after what hers had been doing… At least Kyla and Kuro were going to be keeping an eye out. That eased at least three tons of worry and a splash of angst.

Bobbi couldn't help but contrast the two Louises, though. She kept glancing at Kyla's, arms folded over her chest as she studied him. He seemed a lot more meek, less outgoing, and certainly a lot less loud. Also, apparently filled with self-doubt, something the archer was intimately familiar with. An interesting first impression, but as she well knew, first impressions could be extremely deceiving. Look at Seymour and Kuja…

Okay, getting off that train of thought before she pissed herself off.

She turned her attention to the conversation at hand, looking up at the lotus structure before them. It was beautiful, but she hadn't really expected less diving into Kyla's heart. She had yet to see a Station that was ugly in and of itself; the only ugly she'd seen had been from external sources. Like that damn rose-tumor…

Dammit, stop thinking about things that make you angry.

"Gates?" she asked, partially to get her mind off of things that pissed her off, but mostly because that sounded like information that could come in handy.

[[Cue: 神降 from Drakengard 3]]

Louis's gaze softened into a worried frown, "Oh? Is Bobbi-nee leaving already? But we only just started. We haven't finished. Oh well, you'll still play with me, won't you Shivas-nee?"

Louis giggled, a contrast innocent smile spreading across his face as he brought his wrist up to cover his mouth. His giggling settled as his eyes slowly opened to peer at Shiva with an unpleasant gleam, "Forever and ever."

"Let us begin anew," he spun in a circle of his heel and threw out his arms. His crazed grin was back, Louis eyes glowing along with an eerie shade flowing off his body as he spoke with a certain distorted presence, "Behold! The 2nd dam's collapse! Woe and regret, besiege the boundaries!" the boy waved his hands through the air, trailing arcane glyphs behind as a magic circle appeared on the surface of the large black sphere at his back, "Let thine heart be wary and cry out for mercy at its arrival! Let justice be swift and without mercy! Pray ignorance be sin! Breach the gates, Acheron!"

The glyph at his back shattered, and at first there was nothing, but deep within the pitch black surface, one could spot glittering like stars. Soon it expanded behind the confines of the ebony sphere and spread out swirling and traveling through the air like multiple, separate rivers of sparkling lights and mist, weaving, twisting, spinning and slowly encroaching aimlessly in all directions. It wouldn't be long until the snake like, glamorous procession of arora-esk light reached them, but by the looks of it, it certainly didn't seem as ominous as his summoning words might have implied, "Sleep peacefully Bobbi-nee, the cold won't last forever."

Bobbi and Shiva exchanged a glance, Bobbi's one of worry mingled with determination, Shiva's with what looked like exasperation, and a little anger. They both looked back to Louis as he giggled—again, and Bobbi was pretty sure she was going to hate all giggles thanks to this jerk—and Shiva stepped forward. Bobbi nocked an arrow shrouded with her Piercing Icicle spell.

Then he spoke again, and the glyph appeared behind him. His voice seemed… odd. The phrasing was completely different from anything he'd said up until this point, and it sent an atavistic chill down the archer's spine. Her hands tightened on her weapons, and Shiva's entire body tensed as the two prepared for whatever was coming. When the glyph shattered, Bobbi brought her bow up and prepared to fire, and Shiva lunged—and suddenly Bobbi found a hand gripping her shirt at the back of her neck, and a sharp yank backwards as Shiva flung her away.

"Go! I can handle this!"

Caught completely by surprise, Bobbi stumbled backwards, and fell through—something—back to reality. The last thing she saw before she awoke was Shiva, a slight smile intending to be comforting on her face before she turned towards Louis, her hands gesturing gracefully as she erected a Mirror Wall to ward off the tendrils of… was that light?

With a gasp, Bobbi's eyes flew open, her heart pounding a thousand miles a minute, only to find herself leaning against the back wall of Xabier's stall, the jewel-toned chocobo's head nestled in her lap.


"But what about you?" she whispered, choking back tears. As usual, it didn't work, and they spilled down her cheeks before she angrily wiped them away.

No, stop that. Shiva can handle it, she said so. You have to trust her. Just go get—

A loud, insistent rumble and dull pain in her lower abdomen told Bobbi she had quite a few things she needed to take care of before going back in. Food was definitely high on the priorities list. She started to get up, but Xabier's head in her lap held her pinned. It was so calm out here that she really didn't want to go back except to make sure Shiva was okay, and, well, apparently chocobos snore, and somehow the noise was soothing. Her stomach complained again, and Bobbi shot a quick, "be quiet, no one loves you" to it before she tried (and failed) once again to stand.

"Dammit, Xabier, I have s**t to do," the Archer groaned, pushing at the chocobo's head. He warked and stirred a little, but didn't move. Right about then was when Bobbi noticed the tingly feeling that meant she was losing feeling in her legs.

"Son of a bucket, Xabi, you have a heavy head," she grumbled, pushing at his noggin again in a vain attempt to lift it from her lap without waking him. Xabier churred and scooted more of his bulk into her lap. "Ack! No, Xabi, you're not a lap dog, or even a dog, and anyway I don't have enough lap for you, now get off!"

Well, luckily her hunger tended to go away if she ignored it, since it appeared she was stuck here until her enormous, rideable, jewel-toned, ******** chicken decided his nap was over. Besides, she needed to calm herself down before she sought the company of people again.

[ATE : Liberation From Fate : 37]

Ell stared at Rumplestiltskin in contemplation. He sure knew how to play to their desires. Or her's, at least. She was still reeling from the change in her . . . composition, as it were, but Rumple's offer rang clear. It wasn't one she would pass up.

"Well, I've come this far." She stated, lightly taking the vial from his hands, "I'll take your offer."