Fragments of Darkness

[Twilight Path]

Sarah felt like the spells had suddenly rushed towards the remaining forces. It was strange, seeing a battle that seemed so one sided. In reality, it was hard for her to even try and understand most of what was going on. She could tell what the spells were doing, but not how the forces Acteur and herself had summoned falling so easily. Even though Acteur was still near her, it was too much to try and understand. A teddy bear was talking towards them.

The house objects around this place confused her more than a walking, animated mechanical object. Her hands had tightened on the silver piccolo a moment before the petrification, so now it seemed perfectly stuck near her mouth. She would have used more power, but it became hard to understand what the teddy bear was saying if she did try and draw out what remained of it.

The teddy bear continued talking, becoming infuriated over something. "What...?" An accusation seemed to be aimed right at both of them. She spoke without breath, so it almost seemed like a whisper when the accusation translated into her rather confused mind.

"What of this you cretins!? What is it that you came here to do!?"

The images Sarah could see, at least slightly, were of some sort of battle. However, the thing she saw most clearly was of the one called Maestro. Atticus, she believed to be the name, since she had seen the invitation when preparing parts during rehearsal. What if... What if Acteur was the one being punished by the one he respected? The fear began to well inside of her, unable to be completely doused by even her lovers presence. The fact he was near her made it harder to imagine if she had to witness it herself!

Her body slowly began to give into that fear, as if if being drawn by a deep power. The last fearful dream she had began to enter. She could remember two people vaguely speaking, the ones that had told her only one path could be correct. Their paths were always right.

"Follow the dark as your love guides you... but lose yourself."

"Follow the light as your heart tells you... but lose your prince..."

Acteur... Acteur had already said she was fine as she was. She knew that she was, after having chosen that hard path. However, what was this power drawing her to leave what seemed to be their current situation. The last thing she could remember was a curtain of darkness cutting her off from everything.

*To Dive*

[Acteur de la Noir]

As the magical energies closed in around Acteur and his apprentice, the Heartless puppetmaster found himself frozen in the middle of raising his right arm, prepared to snap his fingers and launch into another Abraca step. But not from the Freeze spell that the Cardians (who had, maddeningly enough, utterly toppled yet another of his "performances") had been about to launch. No...this was a high-yield Petrify spell, complex enough to allow conscious thought and speech while rendering him utterly motionless. Acteur strained inwardly, trying to focus his own mystic will to throw off the spell...but alas, it was a magician's attempt to break the spell of an arch-witch. Though he was loathe to admit it, the Phantom Puppeteer found himself realizing that he'd met his match, this day--he wouldn't be able to get out of this binding. Not under his own power, anyway...

Nevertheless, Acteur continued his inward struggle to find some way out. All the while, his haunting gaze darted about wildly, trying to find the source of the voice who had shouted that fateful incantation...and then stopped, piercing yellow eyes focused directly on...her. As the witch approached him, arrogance mixed with elegance in perfect measure, Acteur found himself fighting the urge to curse. Not because of his current predicament, mind--rather, because the master of the house had finally shown herself...and he, the master of performances, was unable to do the encounter justice! How could he gesture and posture, meeting the stabs and slices of Shantoto's verbal rapier with his own, in this condition?!

Ah, well...one made do with what they had. Locking eyes with the powerful witch, Acteur let out a theatrical laugh, laced with--in full defiance of his situation--his own cultured brand of mockery, mixed with the genteel of a nobleman. "Ah, the lady Shantoto, I presume," he greeted eloquently. "Master of your domain, in control of all that transpires..." A pause, and a cryptic note entered his voice. "...Or so you'd like to think."

Then came the witch's summoning of her crystal ball, to determine the source of her apparent suspicion. And, as he saw the events unfold from his vantage position, Acteur de la Noir found himself realizing that his taunt had been more accurate than even he had realized. As he watched Atticus--the nightmarish creature revealed at last, the wizard's cloak merely a front--impale his victim with such brutality, the Phantom Puppeteer reminded himself that this was to be expected. His master was the embodiment of the darkest depths...the place where monsters dwelled. One could not judge based on the limited codes of conduct that the warriors of Light so often embraced--in a battle of that magnitude, it was all or nothing. One could not fault Atticus for unleashing the full potential of his nightmarish nature in a fight to the death.

All the same, as he watched that elegant witch--the very one who'd seen through to the very depths of his own existence, discerning the secrets that he'd divulged to no one--breathe her last, maintaining her dignity until that most ruthless end, Acteur de la Noir had to close his eyes. Enemy or no, Ultimecia had held true to herself, even when pushed to the limits...an admirable quality that few possessed. As a figure of elegance and mystery, her kind would be mourned. Especially by he, who saw the value in such performances.

What sort of world would Maestro build, founded on the bodies of such unique enigmas as her? Does he mean to swallow the Light completely?

Just as he was about to address Shantoto--whether to mock or to offer condolences, even he wasn't certain--Acteur paused, feeling an impulse akin to the one that struck his captor...the sense that something was amiss. Instinctively, those spooky yellow eyes darted towards Sarah...and widened, as they saw her dropping into a deep trance that he found himself recognizing all too well.

"Cherie...?"

[Shantotto]

[glow=teal,2,300]After watching the visions of the orb, it dropped and shattered on impact with the floor. Inside, Shantotto became ever conflicted with herself. The knowledge of knowing Ultimecia and herself were of the highest powers was always true. Though these images showed someone who could kill one as high as Ultimecia. For a moment she stood standing over the broken remains of the orb. Seeing everything within her memories, there was nothing that could be that strong. Though, the orb fashioned from Ultimecia herself, shows not but truth. Within her mind, it began it's slow consumption of hatred and anger.

She clutched her fists. Glancing now at the heartless that were frozen in the petrification. She made but a simple yet clear demand to her Cardian guards. "You three, your job here as come to a close. It is I that will deal with our foes." The Cardian's did nothing but bring their stave's to end, and like a loyal dog, the three warped back to the study.

Now with her Cardian's at safeties end, still staring at the heartless she spoke. "Now, I'm mad!" she shouted, as a massive surge of power flowed through the room. It's awesome power would shake the very grounds at which the intruders stood. It's epicenter was Shantotto. Like her Cardian's, she had the same massive abilities. Though unlike them, she could use all at will. She raised a hand to the front, her target the remaining heartless. She spoke with subtlety, "Freeze II". Then in a brief moment she snapped her fingers. In a blinding instant, beneath each heartless enormous, jagged spikes of ice shot from ground to ceiling. After a moment the ice shattered into ten's of thousands of fragments.

With the heartless gone, she now turned attention to the two remaining... guests.[/glow]

[Twilight Path]

"These Shadows, did you come across many of them? How did you escape? Did you find anything of use? Anything to keep them at bay? A young girl like you either has great speed in her step or something powerful to strike back with."

Sarah's eyes opened, but her mind seemed to be thinking of something else. She was thinking of her first meeting with Queen Maleficent. The last few memories she had seen in that strange place had started a series of things she had never questioned. The way Queen Maleficent had spoke had never seemed odd to her.

"You haven't come upon any large keys, have you? Or anyone wielding them? They are simply a danger to us here, and we'd love to see them taken care of. Bad people carry them, and I would not like to see you, such a pretty young lady, being damaged by the evil powers in them."

Keyblade notes. Why were they called keyblade notes? What was so important with the word key? "Keyblade." She spoke out loud, still unaware of what was going on. "Why... That word?" She finished her thought, starting to focus on whatever was going on around her. "Acteur?" She spoke, trying to control the flow of fear that had been building before the rather strange dream state. It took a few moments to remember the vague details.

A teddy bear with coat racks they were supposed to attack. The coat racks were strong enough to keep them outside wherever they were supposed to go. The teddy bear came out and began talking. Something with accusing them of a foul deed and Atticus killing someone. An orb had shown the brutal murder. Now they were talking only to the strange creature. She slowly focused on the feeling around her, a concerned look on her face. It was Acteur beside her. She visibly relaxed for a moment, uncertain of what to do.

[Acteur de la Noir]

When the great witch demanded answers, Acteur did not provide them—at least, not right away. For an endless stretch of moments, the Phantom Puppeteer’s focus was directed to his apprentice—the chestnut-haired musician clad in her own variation of witch’s garb, slumped in her mystic confinements and lost to the world around her. But this was no simple case of exhaustion…nay. While not the master magi that Shantoto was (his present predicament testament to that fact), Acteur de la Noir had a keen astral sense—he knew a mystic trance when he saw one. And the sort into which Sarah had fallen was very distinctive, in that regard…

Unless Acteur de la Noir’s hunch was very much mistaken, his apprentice had just taken a Dive.

Combined with the events that had just unfolded in Shantoto’s crystal ball, the Phantom Puppeteer was under few illusions by this point. Things would never be the same. Sooner or later, he’d have to make choices. And as he gazed upon his apprentice as she roused from her slumber—that beautiful and brilliant musician, who’d proven one of the few humans who deserved the Heart she’d been given—Acteur found himself in a state of confliction on the matter that he’d never imagined when he’d first been given life by Atticus the Fallen.

For, devoted as he was to the night, Actuer de la Noir now found himself wondering about the path of the Twilight…and what might be yielded by one who walked it.

With this in mind, the response that the Phantom Puppeteer gave as he looked to Shantoto was simple…and in that simplicity, there was a cryptic elegance, accentuated by the enigmatic gleam in the puppetmaster’s ghostly yellow eyes as they met those of the whimsical-yet-formidable witch. “What else could it be, mademoiselle?” he asked, his usual cavalier belying a solemn undertone. “The final act is swiftly upon us.”

Any further narration Acteur might have offered died on his proverbial lips as he beheld the sinister gleam that had entered Shantoto's eyes. More precisely, as he realized that the deceptively silly-looking witch had turned that baleful gaze upon Sarah. The implication wasn't not lost on the Heartless puppet-master--he had little doubt that Shantoto, possessed of such fiendish imagination as she was, could find all manner of torments to unleash upon the captive musician...and, Acteur realized with an uncharacteristic chill, would likely have little hesitation in doing so. Especially after the scene that had just unfolded in her crystal ball.

Once again, Acteur found himself struck by that powerful, forbidden emotion, that which ought to have been impossible for a Heartless. And yet, here it was--faced with the genuine threat of seeing grievous harm come to Sarah Appleton, the Phantom Puppeteer found himself driven to protect her, at any cost. And, as if in response to this realization, a surge of astral power was sparked to life, coursing through Acteur's wooden limbs like a current of icy water. The sudden rush of magical energy pushed back the all-enveloping numbness that was Shantoto's petrification spell; like a painting melting away to reveal a second image beneath the dissolving acrylics, enchanted stone was swept away to reveal the dusky-yet-vibrant hues of that Victorian garb. Once more, Acteur de la Noir was master of himself.

Alas, it was a temporary reprieve--even now, the Phantom Puppeteer could feel the omnipresent crush of that Medusian magic striving to enfold him once more. And here, on Shantoto's terms, it was only a matter of time before the petrification closed in--he had moments, perhaps minutes, at best. And no sooner had the thought crossed Acteur's mind than was it followed by a decision--one that was so instantaneous and instinctive that he was already moving, his fingers clicking together in what had become a trademark gesture...the summoning of a Corridor of Darkness. But this time, there was only time enough for one of them to escape through the swirling vortex...and thus, by Acteur's will, the nocturnal portal opened next to Sarah, its ebon embrace drawing her in like the ethereal arms of Morpheus.

And whispering in her mind, a heartfelt serenade from a mysterious suitor: "Be safe, Cherie. Let not your twilight heart be swallowed by the Darkness..."

The message was directed both to Sarah Appleton and the Corridor of Darkness--directed strictly by the will of Acteur de la Noir, it would take the twilight musician to where she would likely be safest...leaving Acteur to face his own fate, whatever it may be.

[Shantotto]

[glow=teal,2,300]Upon turning to her unwelcome guests, she quickly peered to the two of them. Though only for a moment she did look to the girl, before an evil gleam would cross her eye. She was the weakest in comparison, and most likely the least fun to play with.

As Shantotto began her casting on Sarah, it was ended abruptly. Acteur had somehow managed to send the girl away. How this happened was beyond her belief. Someone of such lowly stature shouldn't be able to cast even the simplest of spells under her break. "Well I see you still hold some bite..." as she spoke watching the rift transport the girl elsewhere. "...next time around, show me more of a fight!" Shantotto turned then to Acteur and shouted "Warp II" sending the would be puppet master to an alternate world.

After the two intruders were warped out, she settle among the wreckage and havoc her Cardian's and her guests had made. Still even after seeing the images of Ultimecia's death, she still could not fully bring herself to believe one so high, such as herself could be killed so easily. She then turned to the doors.

Walking through the wreckage of the battle, staggering through piles of dust and rubble, Shantotto finally makes it to the outer steps of Castle Oblivion. Even with the snow fall, still very subtle magics still fell to the ground, a ground covered in blood. Seeing such an awful mess, and being curious by nature she moved closer to examine the center puddle.[/glow]

[The Heartless Army]

The grieving process is a terrible one. So much pain, so much suffering. These are the ingredients by which darkness grows. These are the wellsprings of deep regret, and even deeper evil. It is by such unfathomable agony that something... else... would be born.

That blood-stained patch of snow would prove the womb by which this darkness may be born. The seeds provided by not one, but two powerful creatures on opposing sides, the conception an act of violence, and the fertilization the depth of loss provided by Shantoto herself. Five would come into this world, and each carried with it the markings of its creation.

They were Ultimecia's Lingering Sentiment. Tainted, twisted things, heartless born of the meeting of Atticus' evil and Ultimecia's DNA. They would each lift from the crimson there, black as death with the heartless symbol glowing upon their featureless faces, their bodies tattered mockeries of Ultimecia's lovely garb. Each symbol glew a different color, indicating each of the five stages of mourning. A dull gray to represent denial, a hateful red for anger, a cowardly yellow for bargaining, a deep blue for depression, and the last a brilliant white, possibly the brightest of the dark ones, to represent final Acceptance.

Each one blurred as it moved, displaced from time by a fraction of a second or two. They didn't seem to stay in place long, but rather warp from place to place, where they would pause and contort slightly before moving again. Each was incredibly powerful... and now all five were looking to the wellspring of their existance: Shantoto. They shared common threads of reality with her... and as such a very marginal immunity to most of her magicks. They were her grieving... they were her pain. And now...

...They all would destroy her. All at once, they leapt forward, ready to rip her heart out so that she could join her friend on the other side...

[ultimecia]

[glow=gray,2,800]As they leap all at once to grab and tear at Shantotto's form, they simply vanished into the swaying winds. For a moment, the Tarutaru found herself alone in that icy wasteland, but not for long, as a few meters in front of her stood one of the heartless figures. Shantotto was in the presence of Denial- that which would pave the entrance of the grieving cycle.

The one with a dull Grey glow on the head region stood forward, and tilted its head to the side, " I must be alive somewhere, and yet you waste your time here, Shantotto." it spoke with the voice of Ultimecia, holding up its claw-like fingers to point at her, "Surely, I am alive, do you think not?"

In the end of that question, it would chuckle demoniacally, a mixture of Ultimecia's snicker and that of a being with a high pitched voice. "HAa-HEE-HAa-hEEe!" it started, and charged forward, a hand set to strike for blood, " SURELY I AM OUT HERE!?!"

[/glow]

[Shantotto]

[glow=teal,2,300]Curious as always, Shantotto knelt down to examine the pool of blood. From inside the pool she could small, shiny, spherical like objects slowly to the surface. Her hand slowly reaching, so close to the surface. To suddenly before reaching into the pool, five creatures of darkness would spring fourth from the blood. This caused Shantotto to jump back several feet for being a taru.

Sitting there in the snow she watched as they sprang from the pond, shrieking, and soon after their appearance vanishing. She would stand after the fourth wiping the snow off of her cloths. As she raised her head the fifth would rise from the pool of blood. Shantotto's ears drooped down as she sighed. Seeing as only one of these creatures stayed meant she would have to hunt the other four down. She'd rather of killed the five now, as she had more pressing matters to attend, until it spoke.[/glow]
"I must be alive somewhere, and yet you waste your time here, Shantotto. Surely, I am alive, do you think not?"

[glow=teal,2,300]It spoke as it held out a hand shaped as though talons were on each finger. Her ears perked up after hearing the creature speak. "Ultimecia..." She spoke with a questionable tone as she looked up and tilted her head to look at this creature. "No..." she said simply, "...You are not the witch of time, but something darker...maybe from her mind?" She stood trying to see just what this creature was.

Shortly within moments her eyes widened. The creature gave off a laugh none the like of Ultimecia, and suddenly charged at the taru. Claw lunging at Shantotto as she stood. Within moments it was within striking range. Quickly she shouted "Stun." This would halt the creature but momentarily, giving Shantotto time to dash away several feet. As the stun effect wore off, she began to float up in the air in a black ominous glow. Her gowns waving in the air she point to the creature. "What are you?! What has become of the one Ultimecia?!" Though unsure it would even answer.

Quickly considering her surroundings, she started to cast "Freeze" as she spoke. "I have but little time play. I can offer but a quick lesson! Now, class is in session!" As the fragments of the spell started to engulf the black creature.[/glow]

[ultimecia]

[glow=silver,2,800]This creature with a Grey mask flailed about after being stunned. It composed itself and stood to stare at the hovering Shantotto. It would chuckle darkly, crouching over until its claws where on the snow bellow pinching the bits of flakes to produce droplets of water. [/glow]
"What are you?! What has become of the one Ultimecia?!"

[glow=silver,2,800]The wraith-like heartless chuckled again, a mixture of Ultimecia and a high pitched voice. As the freezing shards came plummeting down, the creature staggered, and began to be consumed by the icy attack. As its body began to freeze over, she held out an extended hand toward the Taru, chuckling still before speaking, " What do you mean what has become of me? I am alive... I cannot die... so... much work to be....done...!"

Darkness began to seep through the frozen body, and disappear softly in waves of mists. The creature that spoke like Ultimecia stood there with hand extended toward Shantotto, as if reaching for her aid.

"So ... much work... and still you stay there... where I can be in trouble somewhere... -- you do not care... do you?" the creature's body began to give out because of frost bite, and soon the darkness that built it would fall into pieces. Ice wrapped chunks of the creature parted and shattered as soon as they touched the ground. This creature was weak, as it resonated with Shantotto's emotions- The Taru knew something had happened... it was undeniable. Shantotto was beyond denial's grasp, and so this one would be the weakest of all... [/glow]

[Shantotto]

[glow=teal,2,300] With the first of Shantotto's five targets gone, she felt an odd sense of pity for the creature. Her arms lowered to her sides before coming to a cross. She still hovered overhead. "What a shame, I was hoping for more amusement." Though unsure of what the creature meant with it's final words. All that Shantotto wanted to know was where Ultimecia had gone and what to do about the other four creatures.

It was obvious to her that something so weak could have killed her likeness. With only a simple laugh, she opened a warp rift that began to engulf her presence.

She was now in her study.

*Off to Castle Oblivion > Shantotto's Study*[/glow]