[video] ||Rising Sun||

[worldofhurt]

[Flashes of violet and white tear, feral, across vision, blinding in their intensity, coupled with near-immediate thunder roaring, and somewhere amidst it, a child whimpers. Voices behind her urge her onward, encouraging, but the perspective whirls around to fill with bodies--adults--gathered a little ways away from the dais dressed for stealth with weapons across their forms. At the front of them, an old man smiles.]

You can do this, Sheena.

[Everything wavers, and maybe it's the addressed shifting her weight from one foot to the other. It jerks, then, as she whips herself upright, sets her shoulders. It's natural to be uneasy in a place like this, but she can overcome it. These people believe in her, and she believes in herself. She's trained for this. Even if it's frightening, she can do it!

But another crack of thunder so nearby has her flinch. There's no movement with the one that follows it.

The image shifts as she turns back to the altar.

A pair of small hands lift, much too small to belong to an adult, and cross at an angle one hand atop the other with palms facing out. Her gloves are a dusty red with yellow bracing the backs of her knuckles, sleeves tucked into guards at tiny wrists.]

I am Sheena!

[Her voice is just as small, young--she's only seven--but it's loud to her. She can feel her heart beating, feel it racing; it's in her ears, in her head, in her throat. She's nervous, so nervous, but she has the adults from the village with her. She can do this.

...But the crackling, almost indefinite form that appears before her, gazing down at her with terrible, terrible eyes utters out something so alien that it's all she can do to stay standing there, her vision filled with those eyes.]

What... is he saying...?

[Panic crawls into her voice.]

Grandpa, I don't know what he's saying!

[The bizarre voice continues, humming like electricity between metal rods, and using a language she can't even begin to comprehend. Annoyance at the disruption. Challenge.

Feet slide against the floor as she backs away, allowing better view of the Spirit.

Volt.

Form fading in and out, forming and reforming, purple-hued lightning wrapping around a denser core, and eyes that somehow don't belong to that face set above the mouth somehow carved by that lightning--fanged, perpetual grin. A bolt strikes the ground by her foot which sends her sprawling in the opposite direction. Shouts. Voices calling to her, urging her to rise and try, but--]

I can't! I don't know what he's saying! Someone tell me what he's saying!!

[Whether it's shock or terror, there's no waver of sobs in her voice, just a flat demand. She needs to know. She needs to know! She can't hear it, but her breaths come too quickly and her vision swims for a second; swallowing, she picks herself up to face the Spirit, but...]

Stop!

[She's shrieking at it, now, and her hands fly to her head to try and block out the noise.]

I can't understand you!

[...Which seems to be the final insult Volt's willing to take. A magic circle crackles to life somewhere behind her. When the scene turns to it--when she turns, the voices of adults--shouting before--become suddenly violently clear. They rush out of the circle, though a few aren't so lucky. Lightning rains down within the circle, and between that and the shouts and Volt still speaking, she...

She's sent flying by the next bolt, off the dais and to the floor, sliding over it past the foot of the steps. The old man's there, arms wrapping swiftly around her, and he murmurs to her little things, reassuring things, his face filling her vision instead of the horror around her, but she catches a glimpse past his shoulder of the others gathering the injured and racing for the entrance.

But Volt isn't finished.

Screams. Shouts. Cries of alarm and pain. Trained adults fleeing for their lives from the wrath of a Summon Spirit all because... because she couldn't control it. The old man sends her running towards the entrance, tells her Go!, and she tries, desperately wanting to keep her eyes to the front, but she can see the bodies and her vision swims.

She stops abruptly when she hears one more hit the ground as she reaches that threshold between the altar room and freedom.]


[The wail that rips from her throat is what forces her out of the dream, lurching and reaching for nothing though the sound is more a drawn out groan in the waking world. Sheena, refusing the pay this world any heed (she knows the SFC's probably broadcasting after Zelos' and some of the others' she's seen crop up on the network, but she doesn't care, so it doesn't enter her mind solidly enough to bother), curls up, arms around her knees and her face pressed against them. She forces her breathing to slow, shoulders trembling. It works for a second. Just before she breaks down again, whimpering apologies to the fallen and their families all over again.]



[ooc: Feel free to try and interact with her within the memory, or talk to her afterwards. She needs hugs. Now in the right comm!]

Comments

Action/after waking

[chosen_gigolo]

[He's not certain what made him check the network as he locked up GV for the night but he couldn't look away when he recognized the scene. He'd heard what happened, from Sheena, from others in Mizuho, but seeing it, especially through a young Sheena's eyes...

And then the memory ends, and all that's left is a scared little girl, crying for her people. His friend, broken down in sorrow.

Mouth pressed into a thin line, Zelos puts his SFC in his pocket and all reservations with it. Sheena needs someone now and he can put aside everything else for the time being, all the complications and twists and bends of their interactions, to be a shoulder. A rock. Something solid she can beat or cry on or scream injustices at until she's hoarse.

Because it's better than being alone with your memories.

He takes off towards her apartment, having found where she was staying within a month of her moving in. He keeps tabs periodically; it's how he'd known to bring her and Colette to Ordo when they'd fallen into comas. It's simply for her safety, obviously. He knows Sheena can handle herself when necessary, he does know that, but what with murderers sometimes running around the bubble and curses messing with their heads and occasionally bodies? It's better to keep an eye.

He flies there. It's fairly uncommon for him to do so, not really liking his wings or what they stand for (though he does resort to showing them off here in the bubble sometimes; virtually no one is familiar with Cruxis and they just see it as something pretty and diverting.) but he feels he needs to get there as soon as possible. Before Sheena again internalizes the memory, lets herself believe she's useless like she used to. She'd improved so much over their journey, had gained that confidence back, even faced her fear and triumphed over Volt. He would hate to see her lose it.

There's a quiet rap on her window when he arrives, caught in silhouette under the dim filtered light of the bubble and the light from his own wings. He wants to help - whether he can or not being what's in question - but first she has to let him in.]

[ video ]

[martelapproves]

[ Mithos had never bothered to do his homework on Sheena. Why should he? She was inconsequential. Someone who helped Lloyd, after trying to assassinate Colette. But at the same time, he knew she was the one who was taking the Summon Spirits from him, even if he was the one who betrayed them and invalidated his Pact with them. There was very little he could have done to stop her, but they had served their purpose as far as he was concerned. As long as they never got their hands on the Eternal Sword and released Origin's seal, there was absolutely nothing the Summon Spirits could do to stop him.

The dream he witnessed was... interesting. He knew Sheena was here, but he had never even tried to talk to her. Why should he? She wasn't important. She was just another human, another enemy. But what he saw was enough to at least make him curious. He certainly didn't have this kind of trouble with Volt. About the closest he had to this was Ratatosk, but at that point, Mithos, Yuan, Kratos, and Martel mopped the floor with him right before he betrayed him. Their Cruxis Crystals, along with the Eternal Sword, was enough to dethrone the guardian of the Tree, and permanently remove the Centurions from the equation.

Mithos would be seen watching, his eyes half-lidded. He's been resisting the urge to sleep, but even with his Cruxis Crystal removing the need to sleep, he's still felt strangely tired. Without Kratos and Sophie here, he's... been strangely depressed.

And that mental fatigue essentially had the same effect on him as physical fatigue. He's dreading his own dream. ]

/afterwards

[rockstark]

[Tony frowns as he stares down at his SFC. he knows he has no right to see what he's seeing, that this is something incredibly personal and horrible for this girl ... even if he can't understand most of what's going on.

but there's death, needless death, and a loss that he can understand the feeling of. he swallows, thickly.]

I'm sorry. ... Sorry it happened, sorry I saw it ... sorry you had to go through it again.

[sorry she had to wake up from it and be alone. but it's not his place to offer any more comfort than that, not when this is the first he's seen of her.]