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[Kyla: Narnia: Moat shore]


It hurt. And these would be the last words he ever said to her. How she was a bother to everyone and her memory was s**t.
“Axel w-“ He shoved her back, and she nearly stumbled, But Nanaki apparently needed to help but head butting her sharply, and now Kyla fell over, not expecting him to do that. Her back jolted against the snow, and Axel burst into flames behind them finishing off more heartless. She bit a hiss, and scrambled to get to her feet again-

His growl was matched with hers- as she opened her book again he and shoved- again pushing her away further. While the sentiment was understood it was ill timed, and Kyla screamed in frustration-

“Cut it out -and let me act- DAMNIT!” she slashed violently across her page and a solider was cleaved in half before it was even a few meters closer- “Stop knocking me over!” she spat with all the anguish and rage bubbling in her chest like a heartburn , while simultaneously throwing a birn strike lvl 2, at an oncoming horde of heartless. The stream of phantasmal birds blasted them like a line of missiles.

She felt the creature's interuption was over kill. Axel's own reaction was enough to get her going, she didn’t need a giant cat twice her size pushing her around and getting in the way! To her it felt like he was just rubbing it in, and turing away now not even bothering to look back she took off to center herself in the middle of the group. she needed to get a clear view again to cast her buffs.
Kyla's book was blazing as she took off into the air to regain her vantage point. The sky revealed the next terrifying storm of enemies. She could hear Bobbi during this scream something about Ni- NICK?! That mother**Ker was here?!! Oh no, she did NOT feel in the mood to see any more decapitated heads!

She summoned her flight of blades next to protect herself while she prepared a range of buffs for everyone else. Her eyes rose to the sky seeing the massive heartless fly overhead.
How many more were going to die?

[Amy : Narnia : Moat Shore / Near Bridge]

Nick didn't get far along the bridge before he had to jump, landing on the ground instead of the ice covered lake. It was still quite a fall, but he didn't appear to be injured by it. He wasn't attacking them, so she assumed he wasn't a threat. They were all surrounded by heartless at the moment. Who knew what he'd be like when they had a bit more cover, and a bit more safety. That was assuming their conditions would improve, instead of just getting more difficult.

The lady in red was another odd-ball thing that Amy didn't quite expect, but she was somewhat fitting for this world. Narnia had dryads, talking animals, stars in human form; why not this? But what did she want, and why was she so happy? There were so many questions without answers.

The group was well buffed, and Amy went on the offensive. She refrained from using any special abilities, and spent her bullets helping out the tanks in combat.

She heard Kyla calling for help, saw her sketching furiously. Sayrike's analysis was grim, and Amy confirmed it with a quick Scan of her own. Not even casting Life would help- he was already fading away. And then Axel was gone, and Kyla was airborn. The world was in chaos. How could Axel die? Did anyone else die? Was everyone else okay? Everyone appeared okay, as far as she could tell-

A fresh wave of heartless were coming in from the air, as well. If the earthling group started on the bridge, would they just get picked up by heartless and dropped off the side? Could they get across the bridge before they were overwhelmed? What would they do if they got to the gate, and found they couldn't get in and were stuck there? But what about the lady in red, would she blast a hole through the gate, or what?

Questions, but not really many choices. Joe had been un-commandy for a while. She assumed he was busy fighting like the rest of the group. Or dead.

"Joe?"

Joe still felt the heat from Axel's suicide attack on his skin. It was one thing to watch this happen on a screen and another to be there in person and have the death lingering on the air.

Shaking, he looked to his side and saw Leon clenching his fist in grief. He could hardly believe that this much death was happening around him. Whether it was naivete or some kind of cognitive dissonance, he had assumed that all this would amount to was injuries.

No such luck. This was a full on war in the real world. People don't escape death just because they were popular.

He had to calm down, access the situation. Prevent as many more deaths as possible. And since he was already close to the front...

Leader-Joe and James had already given the call to move. He took a deep breath and exhaled, breathing out another Mana Mist spell as he did so. Then he began to run, making his way to the front of the group.


"Unless anyone has any objections, I'm shelling-up and taking point" Joe broadcast over the charms "If the new arrival on the bridge isn't friendly, I've got the best chance of surviving a hit."

[Amy : Narnia : Bridge Beginning]

Alright, keep moving forward. The lady in red was carving a way across the bridge, destroying their enemies and leaving a clear path in her wake.

Joseph wanted to take point, which worked for Amy. She'd follow a ways behind and buff him when they were a little closer to the bridge. She had a Reflect spell she could cast on him that would probably help out, but she wanted to be able to cast curative magic through it, and she hadn't ever practiced that level of the spell before. Still, it didn't last long and she'd rather wait to cast it until they were a little further along the bridge.

[Dani :: Narnia :: Shore -> Bridge Beginning]

Dani kept flinging her chakrams left and right to try and keep anything that was attacking her at bay when all of a sudden all of her targets were gone. With no explanation for the cause she paused and looked around only to witness Axel’s death along with everyone else. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Dani thought, ‘One of my favorite characters, dead. I never really got to ask him about chakrams in comparison to his fire.’

At this moment Dani started to become angry and frustrated. First her chocobo that she never named was now somewhere at the bottom of the lake and someone who she had looked up to perished. She was still rational enough to hear Joe say that they needed to keep moving forward and instantly started to head in the direction of the bridge.

She stopped for a second noticing some heartless on the arches and her rage returned with some tears. She summoned some water near the bridge and with enough magic managed to make a tidal wave in an attempt to kill any heartless near the bridge but not harm the bridge itself. ‘I swear to god if someone else eats it this place might as well become Atlantica’ Dani thought as she tried to wipe away her tears.

[[Narration - Clash on the Big Bridge]]

Tears burned the inside of their eyelids as the bearers of light pushed onward, swallowing the building weight of lost comrades deep into their chests lest they choke upon their cries and fall prey to themselves. Righteous anger and regret became the fuel that ignited a fire in their souls, souls that burned brighter than ever, each swearing in one way or another to see their goals through in the name of that which they were leaving behind, to be burned into their memories forever.

With battle cries to mask mournful weeping and weapons in hand to satisfy clenched fists, they obliterated any that dared survive and press past the nobody's finale and stand in their path. Though they were significantly fewer in number since they arrived, they could feel their comrades behind them living and passed on, driving them onward. Alone, they were but helpless victims in the face of this foe but together they could stand against this enemy and any other. Fear not this night, you will not go astray. Though shadows fall, still the stars find their way.

The glow from Atir's crossbow shone like a small sun as she pulled the trigger. Forced to take a knee below the tremendous weight of the shot, Atir watched as it careened into the sky, penetrating the massive devil ray heartless before detonating. The sphere of amethyst light engulfed a large chunk of the heartless' air force and lit up the sky like day, the clouds and storm peeled back like drawing a curtain. For but a moment, all was silent, the world stained beneath the light where awe and fear encompassed the new celestial body. As it shrunk, sound returned and the shock wave struck the castle and its surroundings.

The bridge shook violently, the earth trembled, and ice fell from every surface it clung to, down into the churning, broken lake below. Crashes against the lake's surface echoed like thunder as red lightning shot across the sky drawing trees like cracks upon the atmosphere.

In its wake, a clear, empty sky, accented only by the full moon shone down on all below. Bodies of heartless fell like rain burning and leaving trails like drops of ink running down a page. The massive heartless sank slowly as well, darkness trailing off one side which had been completely eaten by the blast.

Atir stood and dropped the crossbow to the stone walkway. She moved sluggishly, leaning over as though panting for air. She raised her head as a hum rose from the gate of the castle, a flash emanating deep from within her eyes. She nodded before straightening herself, stumbling once. The dark ice general gave one last look to the bridge where the light bearers had begun their charge led at the forefront by the crazed woman wielding the elements as naturally as one might mold clay. With nothing more, she retreated into the castle.

As the hum grew, a voice, soft like whispers carried over the lake. Somber and devitalized it spoke slowly as one would reading one's eulogy.

"Behold, the 1st dam's collapse. All have gathered as the trial of soul begins."

At that moment two things happened, first, the air around the castle settled. The clouds cleared away from what remained of the slowly falling beast and a thin mist spilled out of the castle, spreading over the lake and bridge, permeating every inch from the deepest reaches of the lake's depths to the highest point in the moon-lit sky. The light bearers, in unison, suddenly felt weaker, as though their combined strength, all their built up momentum was drained from their bodies in an instant.

The voice grew, deeper, stronger, with more emotion and ferocity with every new word spoken from an unseen mouth, "Judgement is passed though a cold steel gaze and all stand equivalent under its judgment. Pray sins and virtues will not save you here!"

The ground shook, the lake sloshed about below clattering and screeching, scraping and gnashing frozen jaws for the unfortunate soul unlucky enough to fall from the bridge should any slip and fall from the sides without railing.

Meanwhile, all the heartless that had crossed the threshold of the lake's edge, either by bridge, ice, or sky, writhed, withered, and faded, darkness flowing skyward and collecting into a massive cloud.



Once every ounce of darkness had joined the mass, in shrank, then detonated, releasing a new beast within. Covered in white crystalline scales atop pitch black skin beneath, was a draconic humanoid figure that floated down on shimmering white and blue wings, not unlike those of a bat.

Singing could be heard within the castle, as a simultaneous shift in the air could be felt like a pulse running through the heart of the world. Blue and red light in bizarre interwoven patterns zipped outward on every surface in a cone starting at the gate, across the bridge and ice, then all the way to the edges of the lake. From the surface of the lake, spat forth a new structures, massive towers, spears of red crystal growing upward till they stood 3 stories above the bridge stopping well below the height of the walls. Twelve of these sprouted up in total, scattered at various distances on each of their sides.

[[BGM: Arrival of the Guards - Battlefield from Drakengard 3]]
[[Alternatively for laughs- Cue: Battle on the Big Bridge from FF XIV OST]]

With two beats of its wings the demon flew up higher, giving off light that bounced between the vibrating spires as the singing grew louder and louder where it was surrounded by thorn covered tendrils and to it, the bodies of ice soldiers lifted from the ground from everywhere around the castle or on the battlements and flowed into it. Countless bodies collapsed into the cacophony of limbs made of corrupted ice before at last it opened its wings, spanning greater in length than the width of the bridge, and a new body profoundly larger than the gate it guarded, the now four-legged demon came down to rest upon the bridge with a crash. Belphagor raised its head, letting out a roar that only a dragon of ice and darkness could produce.

With a quick look over the group it became obvious, as though simply gone with no hint of ever having been with them at all, Nick had vanished.




Nick, as he stepped upon the stone bricks that made up the castle's bridge, found himself hit by a wave of cold air. While he struggled to run alongside the rest of the group, he soon found himself losing sight of them midst the white out of torrential snow engulfing him. Eventually, the wave of ice was too strong and after being forced to stop his advance entirely, the storm passed in an instant.

He still stood upon the bridge, but alone. Everyone he'd arrived with was gone, not a trace, the only foot prints in the thin layer of snow were his own as though the others had simply never existed in the first place. Where did they go? What the hell was going on? He hadn't been dreaming had he? This was Jadis' castle, that part wasn't a dream, neither was the bitter cold clinging to his skin.

Another gust, the snow on the bridge brushed away like dust. A whisper at his back. His front again. A spiral of voice, whipping him around in a paranoid cyclone before the sole of a boot collided with stone. A figure stood between him and the castle.

As Joe cast his spell, the enchantment on his body was just as quickly devoured by the mist. Where shell should have formed to protect him, he was left alone still vulnerable and naked to the magic he hoped to defend against, he knew at that moment, his buffs would not save him here.