Chao jolted as though waking from a nightmare, but it was not the comforting dimness of Satomi's lab that she found herself in, or even the clinical lighting of the Academy's infirmary. She was still in that bleak, white-washed dreamscape of her mind. Directly ahead in her field of vision, she saw herself impaled on the dark creature's magitek sword, the very vision of her death. Yet even as she looked on, the sight began to fade, growing dimmer to view even as it was burned permanently into her memory.
"Here in Phantasmagoria," the shadowy figure's voice came from behind her, "you cannot rest, cannot flee, cannot hide. Even the mercy of death's embrace is denied you here. So long as you have the strength of will to endure death in your mind again and again, you will continue to revive until the death of your very soul. You are renowned for your iron will, Reclaimer. How long will it take for you to break, I wonder?"
Chao spun to strike at the shadowy being as soon as it began to speak, flame trailing from the edges of her boot. Her kick connected with empty air, evaded with contemptuous ease by the creature disappearing from where it had been and reappearing in the exact same instant a dozen fulms away, its very posture indicating disappointment as it didn't even break its monologue.
"Can you do no better, Reclaimer?" it taunted. "With your limitless potential before you, your mind is still fettered so?"
Not answering, she opened her hands, small flames flickering to life in each of her palms. With a muttered intonation of "Captus Flammeus," she snapped her left arm toward the creature, ropes of flame shooting from the flame in her palm. As before, it faded from view, but this time, she closed her eyes, stretched out her senses, and allowed instinct to guide her movements into snapping her right arm up and to the right.
She opened her eyes and was rewarded with the sight of the being writhing within the magical bindings. A feral grin spread across her face. "You may be a product of my memories of everyone I've ever known, but this is still my mind, and my capabilities are only limited by my imagination!"
She twisted her hand around the flaming garrote, reaching forward with her left hand to pluck the rope of flame like the chord of an instrument, sending a surge of energy through it and into the creature. Within only moments, however, it burst free from the binding ropes, scattering them as embers on the wind. "Now at least you have some semblance of a hope at survival," it told her.
It raised both hands to the sky, an unseen wind howling around it. "Only one question remains: Will that flickering ember unleash a resurgent inferno, or will it be extinguished here and now?"
Chao sensed a surge of aether from beneath her and leaped to the side as it flung its arms outward, barely avoiding a pillar of dark flame that erupted where she had been. The air around her warped and shimmered, and it took her a moment to realize that the flame pillar had little to do with it.
The very environment itself shifted; where before they had been on a featureless white plain, now they stood in a vast cityscape that seemed to combine the aesthetics of Ul'dah, Limsa Lominsa, her home in Doma, and several Garlean castrums.
She had little time to sightsee, however, as the creature was coming at her again in the guise of Imogene and her magitek sword. Standing her ground once more, Chao swung her left arm forward to meet the strike. In a flash of light and energy, the magitek sword was stopped by a blade of energized aether, projected from the metal hilt that had appeared in Chao's hand. Here, in the innermost depths of her mind, the magitek genius could will all of her conceptualized weapons and equipment into reality.
The shade realized this as well, looking past her at the four magitek funnels looming up behind her. It leaped away to break contact, raising its shield as all four opened fire. Evading the first three of the thick red chemical lasers, it was forced to take the fourth on its shield, the magitek construction being the only thing that allowed it to survive such a powerful laser. Even so, there was no way it would hold up to a sustained barrage.
The creature retreated rapidly, seeking to gain distance in order to have a better reaction time to the extremely-rapid muzzle velocity of the lasers. The funnels pursued it doggedly, twisting and spiraling through the air as they filled the space with red blasts of energy from all directions. One such beam caught the magitek sword halfway up its length, slagging the upper half of the weapon.
Chao tensed her body, exploding forward into a shundo that left cracked cobblestone in her wake. The creature turned to react to her attack, but a timely attack by one of her funnels forced it to divert its attention to shield from the laser, allowing her the opportunity to sever its shield arm with her energy sword. Giving it no time to recover, she spun to add momentum to her side kick, launching it away in time for another funnel to burn away a significant chunk of its torso.
Nearly a dozen fulms away, the shadowy being halted its forward momentum and righted itself in a single movement, dispersing its kinetic energy in a spherical burst of energy around itself. It was already reforming itself from the extensive damage it had taken, its countenance shifting again. She didn't immediately recognize its newly-armored form, but the appearance of a magitek warhammer in its hand swiftly removed all doubt from her mind as to its identity.
Shifting her energy sword into a reverse-handed grip, she charged at the shade of Nero tol Scaeva; the frumentarii was an old nemesis from her days in Garlean employ, harshly critiquing her works and always suspect--rightfully--of her loyalties to the Empire. As she advanced, her funnels fired ahead of her in an effort to pin the Garlean down. However, Nero's armor, both its hard angles and its construction material, offered better protection than Imogene's had, and even the agility with which it wielded the warhammer allowed it to parry aside some of the laser blasts.
Contrary to Nero's personality, and thereby clearly attempting to unsettle her, the shadowy being said nothing as it surged forward to meet her charge, energy emanating from the head of the warhammer. Drawing her blade back for the contact, Chao felt a sudden flash of unknown foresight: she did not want to try to block that hammer or be anywhere near where it hit.
Slamming both feet to the ground, she leaned her weight to the right and executed an embarrassingly-sloppy shundo half a dozen yalms away. The awkward shift in momentum caused her to trip in mid-action, sprawling to the ground and barely managing not to stab herself with her beam sword. Her landing positioning gave her a front-row seat to the imminent impact of Nero's weapon, but far beyond it, a sudden motion drew her eye toward what looked to be a reptilian tail rapidly vanishing behind the corner of a building.
The magitek hammer struck the ground and released a tremendous blast of energy, rippling the air around it. She knew that such an energy pulse would have liquefied her had she been caught in it, and was suddenly grateful for whatever intuition had prevented her from meeting it head-on.
There was no time for further consideration, however; the shadowy being was overextended and vulnerable from that hammer strike, and she had to capitalize on its weakness immediately. She launched herself from the ground, taking a normal grip on the energy sword and pointing its tip directly at the creature's heart.
It made no attempt to evade or block, turning fully to face Chao as its form shifted again with a speed that caught her off-guard. This time, unlike the others so far, it assumed a complete form, in full color. The magitek genius found herself hurtling full-speed at Satomi, and the look of fear and confusion in the hyuran scientist's eyes caused instinct to override intent. Chao shifted to the right, missing the doppelganger of Satomi by so near a margin that one braid was burned away by the superheated blade.
She heard a metallic click, and looked over her shoulder to find herself staring down a rifled barrel, the sadistic grinning visage of Satomi beyond. The shadowy being chuckled in the hyur's voice--and only Satomi's voice--before it quipped, "Compassion is a weakness, and a luxury you can ill afford, Lingshen."
The flash from within the muzzle overwhelmed her vision with light.
"Here in Phantasmagoria," the shadowy figure's voice came from behind her, "you cannot rest, cannot flee, cannot hide. Even the mercy of death's embrace is denied you here. So long as you have the strength of will to endure death in your mind again and again, you will continue to revive until the death of your very soul. You are renowned for your iron will, Reclaimer. How long will it take for you to break, I wonder?"
Chao spun to strike at the shadowy being as soon as it began to speak, flame trailing from the edges of her boot. Her kick connected with empty air, evaded with contemptuous ease by the creature disappearing from where it had been and reappearing in the exact same instant a dozen fulms away, its very posture indicating disappointment as it didn't even break its monologue.
"Can you do no better, Reclaimer?" it taunted. "With your limitless potential before you, your mind is still fettered so?"
Not answering, she opened her hands, small flames flickering to life in each of her palms. With a muttered intonation of "Captus Flammeus," she snapped her left arm toward the creature, ropes of flame shooting from the flame in her palm. As before, it faded from view, but this time, she closed her eyes, stretched out her senses, and allowed instinct to guide her movements into snapping her right arm up and to the right.
She opened her eyes and was rewarded with the sight of the being writhing within the magical bindings. A feral grin spread across her face. "You may be a product of my memories of everyone I've ever known, but this is still my mind, and my capabilities are only limited by my imagination!"
She twisted her hand around the flaming garrote, reaching forward with her left hand to pluck the rope of flame like the chord of an instrument, sending a surge of energy through it and into the creature. Within only moments, however, it burst free from the binding ropes, scattering them as embers on the wind. "Now at least you have some semblance of a hope at survival," it told her.
It raised both hands to the sky, an unseen wind howling around it. "Only one question remains: Will that flickering ember unleash a resurgent inferno, or will it be extinguished here and now?"
Chao sensed a surge of aether from beneath her and leaped to the side as it flung its arms outward, barely avoiding a pillar of dark flame that erupted where she had been. The air around her warped and shimmered, and it took her a moment to realize that the flame pillar had little to do with it.
The very environment itself shifted; where before they had been on a featureless white plain, now they stood in a vast cityscape that seemed to combine the aesthetics of Ul'dah, Limsa Lominsa, her home in Doma, and several Garlean castrums.
She had little time to sightsee, however, as the creature was coming at her again in the guise of Imogene and her magitek sword. Standing her ground once more, Chao swung her left arm forward to meet the strike. In a flash of light and energy, the magitek sword was stopped by a blade of energized aether, projected from the metal hilt that had appeared in Chao's hand. Here, in the innermost depths of her mind, the magitek genius could will all of her conceptualized weapons and equipment into reality.
The shade realized this as well, looking past her at the four magitek funnels looming up behind her. It leaped away to break contact, raising its shield as all four opened fire. Evading the first three of the thick red chemical lasers, it was forced to take the fourth on its shield, the magitek construction being the only thing that allowed it to survive such a powerful laser. Even so, there was no way it would hold up to a sustained barrage.
The creature retreated rapidly, seeking to gain distance in order to have a better reaction time to the extremely-rapid muzzle velocity of the lasers. The funnels pursued it doggedly, twisting and spiraling through the air as they filled the space with red blasts of energy from all directions. One such beam caught the magitek sword halfway up its length, slagging the upper half of the weapon.
Chao tensed her body, exploding forward into a shundo that left cracked cobblestone in her wake. The creature turned to react to her attack, but a timely attack by one of her funnels forced it to divert its attention to shield from the laser, allowing her the opportunity to sever its shield arm with her energy sword. Giving it no time to recover, she spun to add momentum to her side kick, launching it away in time for another funnel to burn away a significant chunk of its torso.
Nearly a dozen fulms away, the shadowy being halted its forward momentum and righted itself in a single movement, dispersing its kinetic energy in a spherical burst of energy around itself. It was already reforming itself from the extensive damage it had taken, its countenance shifting again. She didn't immediately recognize its newly-armored form, but the appearance of a magitek warhammer in its hand swiftly removed all doubt from her mind as to its identity.
Shifting her energy sword into a reverse-handed grip, she charged at the shade of Nero tol Scaeva; the frumentarii was an old nemesis from her days in Garlean employ, harshly critiquing her works and always suspect--rightfully--of her loyalties to the Empire. As she advanced, her funnels fired ahead of her in an effort to pin the Garlean down. However, Nero's armor, both its hard angles and its construction material, offered better protection than Imogene's had, and even the agility with which it wielded the warhammer allowed it to parry aside some of the laser blasts.
Contrary to Nero's personality, and thereby clearly attempting to unsettle her, the shadowy being said nothing as it surged forward to meet her charge, energy emanating from the head of the warhammer. Drawing her blade back for the contact, Chao felt a sudden flash of unknown foresight: she did not want to try to block that hammer or be anywhere near where it hit.
Slamming both feet to the ground, she leaned her weight to the right and executed an embarrassingly-sloppy shundo half a dozen yalms away. The awkward shift in momentum caused her to trip in mid-action, sprawling to the ground and barely managing not to stab herself with her beam sword. Her landing positioning gave her a front-row seat to the imminent impact of Nero's weapon, but far beyond it, a sudden motion drew her eye toward what looked to be a reptilian tail rapidly vanishing behind the corner of a building.
The magitek hammer struck the ground and released a tremendous blast of energy, rippling the air around it. She knew that such an energy pulse would have liquefied her had she been caught in it, and was suddenly grateful for whatever intuition had prevented her from meeting it head-on.
There was no time for further consideration, however; the shadowy being was overextended and vulnerable from that hammer strike, and she had to capitalize on its weakness immediately. She launched herself from the ground, taking a normal grip on the energy sword and pointing its tip directly at the creature's heart.
It made no attempt to evade or block, turning fully to face Chao as its form shifted again with a speed that caught her off-guard. This time, unlike the others so far, it assumed a complete form, in full color. The magitek genius found herself hurtling full-speed at Satomi, and the look of fear and confusion in the hyuran scientist's eyes caused instinct to override intent. Chao shifted to the right, missing the doppelganger of Satomi by so near a margin that one braid was burned away by the superheated blade.
She heard a metallic click, and looked over her shoulder to find herself staring down a rifled barrel, the sadistic grinning visage of Satomi beyond. The shadowy being chuckled in the hyur's voice--and only Satomi's voice--before it quipped, "Compassion is a weakness, and a luxury you can ill afford, Lingshen."
The flash from within the muzzle overwhelmed her vision with light.
![[Image: 0uxkKgX.png]](http://i.imgur.com/0uxkKgX.png)
Chris Ganale | R'tahz Tia | Yuuna Akashi | Chao Lingshen | Seno Nakakami | L'dran Cresnoble | Garon Crayson
