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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 28, 2024 19:54:18 GMT
Lucille nods and listens to what Rydia says, glancing to Cal. Okay, so Cal is helping expedite the process. That's cool. So she has to connect to Cal by envisioning them in their mind? Okay, uhhhh...
She also closes her eyes and imagines Cal. Cuddly and adorable, and apparently super ancient. She tries to focus her thoughts and emotions on them, and it doesn't take long for a lot of wildly different thoughts and feelings to bubble up. She likes how cute they are and how they're willing to help her. However she can't help but feel uneasy with their presence. They're someone new, and now she's basically enlisted to help them on a quest, pulling her from her home and family. As she exhales her breath is visible as the air around her grows chilly and starts to swirl, picking up wind as the frigid power radiates out from her in a small localised snowstorm. The spell is quite potent in spite of it being her first time using magic, as her repressed emotions carry much strength but also instability. She finally snaps out of it and opens her eyes with a gasp as the snowstorm dissipates, leaving permafrost on the nearby plants and a thin sheet of ice on the ground around her.
"Woah..." She says. Was that snowstorm all her? She smiles. "That was... AWESOME! I just used magic!" She exclaims, glancing around herself as the negative emotions fade away rapidly in place of her renewed wonder.
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Post by ultralilly on Feb 28, 2024 21:37:17 GMT
Ignia noticed it first. The negative emotions that burgeoned in Lucille. To be expected. She had lost her family and her home very recently. Rydia saw it happen and winced carefully. Lightning and Laguna simply marveled at it but it was Lightning who clearly saw the discomfort on Lucille's features. That emotion was...not positive. Cecil looked to Ignia who exchanged looks and knew exactly what this meant.
Rydia smiled nervously through Lucille's wonder. Did she realize what she just did? Maybe it was for the best she needed to be told. But not now. "Y-yeah! That was pretty good!" Cal whimpered, looking slightly confused as it stared up at Lucille with concern then looked down. "Just um...keep practicing. Different emotions can lead to different types of spells so uh...maybe something positive next time. Not that...you aren't but...that was still very good for a first try!"
The summoner stepped away and looked to Lightning who patted her on the shoulder. "My turn. Just go sit down." said Lightning who stood directly before Lucille with arms crossed and bearing a scrutinizing expression. Lucille, Lightning could surmise, was going through all kinds of emotional things right now. There was an undeniable feeling that was mutually felt and seeing that snowstorm had given Lightning a better understanding of what Lucille felt. She gestured to Ignia who lifted her keyblade in hand and flourished it. The center of the plaza where Lightning and Lucille stood was enveloped in light. Eventually, the sights around them faded while the plaza ground still remained intact. Replacing the sights was an astral space filled with stars and darkness of varying hues of purples and blues and blacks.
"Relax. We're still in Scala Ad Caelum. This is just an illusory simulation. " explained Lightning who was the only person Lucille could see besides Cal. "But that was concerning. You hate them, don't you? The Heartless."
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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 28, 2024 22:30:18 GMT
Lucille notices that her teachers are not especially pleased by the powerful spell she just cast. This causes Lucille's own excitement to waver as she starts second guessing herself. Was that the wrong type of spell? Was she supposed to do something more subtle? She just kind of did what came to her but...
Her train of thought is interrupted when the scenery around them shifts into a far more astral detachment from the prior courtyard. She was about to freak out but Lightning reassured her this was just an illusion of some kind. "O-oh... Okay," She says as she then listens to what Lightning has to say. She rubs her wrist. "Uhh... I mean... Well, yeah," She says hesitantly. "They killed my parents right in front of me. How could I not? I could barely sleep this past week because I kept reliving it every time I closed my eyes,"
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Post by ultralilly on Feb 28, 2024 23:15:44 GMT
Lightning sighs and shakes her head. "Well, hate to break it to you but that feeling isn't going to be going away anytime soon. But you can't let that dominate your every thought and action. If you let it, then you're going to fall. Hard. Harder than what you felt when it happened." She looked down at her hand. She grimaced and clutched it tight enough for the leather to lightly squeak. "I'm not telling you to forget it happened. That's impossible. But you need to move on. It's not going to happen overnight."
She withdrew her weapon that seemed like a blade and swept it to the side. "But what helps is having control. We can get to that later. But for you? The best way to work through this..."
From the darkness, they emerged. The very creatures that were responsible for her tragedy. They crept and wriggled about.
One of them leapt up high but before Lucille could even register such a thought, Lightning's blade effortlessly arose and sliced through it in a clean stroke without her ever looking back. The creature evaporated into a dark mist. "...is to get your emotions sorted out. Defeating a few of these should be easy for you, right? Let's see you do it then. With your new weapon."
These were different and were obviously an illusion of some kind, but to Lucille it probably made little difference. They were here. But this time, she was well-armed and better prepared. Still, the wounds were still fresh. And Lightning knew this. She watched Lucille's reactions carefully.
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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 29, 2024 0:21:17 GMT
Lucille winces as Lightning hits her with a hard truth. How the heck does this lady expect her to move on? It's only been a week, she hasn't even had time to truly grieve them yet because she's been so busy just surviving. When she sees the Heartless—or at least the simulation of Heartless—her bitterness only grows as her grip on the shortsword tightens. Would beating these things actually be easy? She usually only faced one to two of them at a time and she had the range advantage of her pitchfork, but with this little shortsword she has to really get into the fray.
But fine, she'll do it if that's what's necessary. She eyes the creatures with suppressed anger and spite as they approached. She steps forward and slashes at one of them, but being unused to the reach of her weapon the hit is shallow, causing the thing to be hurt but not down. She backs up as it lashes at her, and with another strike at closer range the thing dissipates. With her taking longer than normal to kill one, two more had already closed the distance. She gets one of them with a clean backswing but the other one manages to hit her, the stinging pain of its scratch making her yelp. She quickly turns and strikes that one down as well.
With each blow Lightning can see Lucille getting more worked up to the point she's making simple mistakes like not watching her back as another shadow scratches her. Angered, Lucille turns and kicks the thing away then stabs another that approaches. She continues to be sloppy and uncoordinated, but as she gets drawn into her anger she also reveals more of her inner spirit to Lightning. She is able to tell that there is a warrior inside of Lucille. It's faint, unrefined, and buried beneath doubt, but nonetheless there and waiting to be nurtured.
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Post by ultralilly on Feb 29, 2024 1:26:32 GMT
Lightning begins to move as Lucille fights, talking as she goes. "You're leaving your back exposed. Never do that. It just invites the enemy for another opening and Heartless especially love targeting the unaware." As she continues on, more Shadows emerge and capitalize on the sloppy sword work. It gets the job done but as far as Lightning sees, there is lots of work to be done. "Channel the anger but don't let it make you be blind to your surroundings!"They come at her in a small groups and Lightning watches as she takes them out. it becomes slightly easier to deal with them once she realizes their patterns. They slink away when Lucille's strikes get close then make sneaky attempts to lash out at her in between her strikes. Then from the edges emerges a thing that is only slightly bigger than the Shadows. It bears an armored helm with two yellow eyes poking out of the mouth of it. It brandishes two sets of red claws as it saunters from left to right on each foot, making clanking sounds. It makes a move at Lucille in the form of a spinning tackle. "Never let down your guard. Shadows might be weak but they can always be used as a distraction for a greater threat waiting to strike!"Calaguru uttered a yip in the hopes Lucille would notice the creature make contact. |
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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 29, 2024 2:06:10 GMT
Lucille huffs in frustration as she's swarmed by shadows and pelted by instructions from Lightning at the same time. The shadows are also being more elusive, trying to avoid her attacks and strike her when she isn't ready. They're still slow enough for her to handle them though, with the occasional scratch to punish her messing up. Take it easy Lucille, this is fine. One stupid shadow at a time.
However Lightning's final warning does make Lucille raise her head and turn to face the incoming Soldier. She gasps in surprise as it does a spin attack coming right for her. While she sees the attack coming her poor combat instincts pair with her not yet knowing how to properly defend herself, which results in her backing away only for the attack to impact her directly anyways. "Gah!" She yells as she's knocking onto her back. She manages to keep her grip on the sword however and bashes the thing in the face with the pommel, which causes it to back off of her. She quickly gets back up to her knees and has to slash away a couple of shadows trying to take advantage of the opportunity. A third one manages to claw her in the back though, and when she turns to slash at that one the soldier dashes back in and gets her cleanly across the face with a claw slash that hurt like hell.
Luckily because there's no damage to her physical body her vision doesn't get obscured by blood, but she is sufficiently pissed to be seeing red anyways as she slashes the thing and then stabs it. The attacks connect and seem to injure it, but it is far tougher than the simple shadows. Lucille stumbles to her feet and slashes through another shadow that tries to attack her. How many of these things do they expect her to kill?
The answer is evidently 'more', because two shadows get her from the flanks and slash her arm and thigh. She bashes one of them with her elbow and slashes another, but then the soldier rounds in and claws her across the torso, this time backing out in anticipation of her retaliatiory slash. Lucille growls in frustration and stabs another nearby shadow, and then slices another. However she is then slammed into by yet another spinning tackle from the soldier, but this time barely manages to maintain her footing. With three more shadows bearing down on her alongside the soldier, Lucille feels her emotions surging as her sword begins to glow.
"Rrrrrgh, that's ENOUGH!" She yells and with a wide slash a crescent-shaped arc of razor sharp ice cleaves outward in front of her, slicing clean through all four of the enemies. After that she falls to one knee, panting in exertion as she seems mostly spent.
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Post by ultralilly on Feb 29, 2024 19:24:43 GMT
Satisfied with the results, Lightning looks to a spot out in the void and nods. Within moments, the scene returns back to Scala Ad Caelum. Laguna looked gripped with concern and Rydia was clasping her hands together. Cecil breathed a sigh of relief and Ignia withdrew her Keyblade. No more enemies appeared. It was calm again as the only sounds that overtook the scene was the gentle breeze and distant sounds of the city coming to life for the morning. The pain would subside and there would be no injuries. Though the exhaustion was quite real.
"That'll be enough for the day." Lightning stated. "We'll do this again tomorrow. Get some of your issues figured out. We can't have you taking hits like that in the field."
Ignia approached as Lightning departed, going on her way and disappearing into the city itself. "Are you alright? The illusions are made to hurt but not injure...but I do wonder..." she pauses to say more but perishes the thought. She needs time to acclimate. Now's not the time. There was another pressing issue happening elsewhere. She was only going to oversee a brief training session then be on her way. She sighs and shakes her head. "I...can only do so much right now as I am needed elsewhere. I have to go." said Ignia who turned around in one bold movement then walked away as Laguna and Rydia approached Lucille.
Laguna exhaled sharply "Hoooo man, that looked rough out there. Shadows are tricky lil buggers on the best of days but a Soldier is a step up. Good hustle out there!" He'd congratulate with a light pat to Lucille's shoulder.
The summoner nodded "I agree. Not many could do what you did right off the bat. Glad my lessons helped...somewhat." she followed this up with a nervous chuckle as Cecil approached.
"You'll have to excuse Ms. Lightning." he said directly to Lucille. "She can be a bit much but she means well enough. Her main concern is making sure you are capable. And by the one strike you gave my shield and the way you dispatched the Soldier, I think you're well on your way."
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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 29, 2024 20:29:05 GMT
Lucille breathes a sigh of relief as the test seems to be over. Thankfully the pain of the attacks fades along with the rest of the illusion, and she slowly returns to her feet as she listens to what the Guardians have to say. She ends up rubbing the back of her head nervously at at Laguna and Rydia's praise. "I mean... It's not really THAT impressive since I have Cal's help. Without them I'd have been completely helpless..." She says. At Cecil's talk about Lightning she waves a hand. "It's fine, I get it. She's tough but I can tell she's trying to get me to improve," She glances down at the shortsword. "I gotta be honest though I don't think a shortsword is quite it for me. Its reach is too small, I kept cutting too shallow," She remarks.
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Post by ultralilly on Feb 29, 2024 22:33:22 GMT
The thought did occur to him when he observed her movements. "I employ use of a sword myself but I tend to wield it and my shield in separate hands. I can get close and protect myself as need be but I sacrifice speed in the process. Perhaps a more nimble weapon suits you better with longer reach, maybe? Because I doubt a shield would do you much good with how light on your feet you are." he remarks with a sheepish laugh. "Whatever the case may be, I look forward to seeing you around."
With a simple wave, he excused himself.
This left Lucille with Laguna and Rydia.
"Erm, I should probably head back and meet with my trainees. They kiiiinda need to be debriefed after our whole mission. nearly slipped my mind after getting caught up in this." he trotted back the way he came , briefly turning to call out "Next time, I'll treat you to some ice cream!"
Finally, there was Rydia. She stooped down to give Cal a pet who enjoyed it quite famously. She softly murmured to herself and to Cal. Then she'd look up to Lucille. "You have alot of potential, Lucille. Some would say on equal footing as a Wielder but I don't think you're quite ready for that type of burden." She stood herself up and looked to where Laguna had gone, now meeting up with a bunch of kids down the way that were armed with unique weapons. He laughed with them gave them thumbs up as if giving them props. "Enjoy the city. See the sights. Then get some rest. You have a right to enjoy yourself. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even yourself."
And with that, Rydia took her leave with a short bow. All that was left was Lucille and Calaguru who just lazily flopped to its side.
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Post by giantfiredog on Feb 29, 2024 23:05:11 GMT
Lucille would be left pondering the words of Cecil as he departs, and she would wave goodbye to Rydia and Laguna as they head off as well. Enjoying herself, huh? She didn't really have much time for enjoyment this past while. Even still, she needed to resolve the weapon dilemma as soon as possible.
She nudges Cal. "Come on, let's head home. I need to do some studying," She says, before turning and heading back...
She ended up getting somewhat lost and had to ask for directions, but after arriving home she had lunch and then scanned the bookshelves in her room until she found a text about weaponry. She would spend a fair amount of time studying up on it, checking what kinds of weapons both common and uncommon are available. Honestly she wasn't against using a polearm, she had gotten used to her trusty pitchfork over the week of living out at the shrine, but she decided to dedicate most of her time checking the various one-handed swords available. A simple arming sword might suffice, though the rapier also caught her eye. She remembered reading a couple stories about a dashing swordsman wielding a rapier, a very classy weapon. She giggled at the thought of becoming a rapier wielding swashbuckler or something like that, all dainty and refined. Yeah that's definitely not her personality, but she had to admit the sword itself seemed kinda perfect. It had a nice length and was very light while still leaving a hand free for... Whatever she wants to do with a free hand. Maybe magic? The idea of using magic is still hard to believe for her but the results spoke for themselves, she summoned a tiny snowstorm and did an ice slash, both of which are pretty darn cool.
She would end up studying late into the night as she checked out another book about stances and sword combat. A lot of the technical terminology went over her head but thankfully there were pictures that she could make more sense of. Maybe with this knowledge she won't get knocked around so easily. Finally she would turn down the lights and head to bed...
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The following morning she headed back to the training grounds. Her nerves were high but at the same time she was excited about what might come next. Hopefully it's a bit less hectic than yesterday's test, she wasn't sure she could handle a crazy fight like that again without some sort of grasp of the fundamentals of fighting. The fact she got exhausted so quickly just from a handful of shadows and a soldier also made her realize that her help around the farm was nowhere near sufficient enough for her fitness to keep up with the rigors of combat.
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Post by ultralilly on Mar 2, 2024 4:29:43 GMT
The training grounds would be nearly empty. The only ones present today were Lightning and Rydia. There was no sign of Master Ignia or Cecil or even Laguna. It was just these two who seemed to be the most involved with Lucille's skills at this point in time. Surely, there were other Guardians around?
"Ah you're here. Earlier than expected. Good." Lightning nodded, arms folded. She looked to Rydia who held out her hands, palms facing the plaza ground itself. The assemblage of weapons presented itself before Lucille again. "Pick what you want...then we'll go for a few rounds with me." She swept out her blade and held it before her. Rydia then put a hand up to Lightning.
"Protect..."
A thin barrier enveloped Lightning like a thin line surrounded her entire form then slowly faded from view.
"Alright. Your job is to land hits on me. We'll start with three, if you can manage that much. Thanks to Rydia's magic, I'll be fine. I'll be doing everything I can to keep you from getting a hit in but...I'll give you a handicap; I won't even move my legs." she stated smugly.
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Post by giantfiredog on Mar 2, 2024 4:35:51 GMT
Lucille is mildly surprised at the lack of activity at the grounds today. She supposed it was early but she'd still expect others to be here. Oh well. She takes a breath and prepares herself for her next trials. First comes her weapon choice, which she would grab a rapier without hesitation. Time to put the stances and strikes she studied last night to practice, though she was sure Lightning would be quick to correct her form.
"Okay..." She says, assuming an offensive stance she studied from the book and leading into a thrusting stab at Lightning's torso.
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Post by ultralilly on Mar 2, 2024 19:29:50 GMT
She had assumed she would have picked out the shortsword again. But instead, she was slightly surprised Lucille went for the rapier. She wondered if she'd figured something out. There'd be no complaints from the Guardian who awaited Lucille's first move.
Without much effort, Lightning's blade rises to parry Lucille's weapon. It does so and true to her word, Lightning's legs do not even change position.
"Too predictable." she remarked, "Raise your elbow some more. Shift your weight to your right foot when you lean into a thrust. " She says as much sharply so that Lucille hears her clear enough, punctuating her directions with a firm gaze. "Again."
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Post by giantfiredog on Mar 2, 2024 19:55:39 GMT
Lucille winces as her attack is easily parried and she is half-instructed half-scolded by Lightning, but she nods and tries her best to replicate what Lightning says. She performs another thrusting stab at her torso, but then quickly pulls back and into a second thrust at her head. She makes sure to lean into it, but she actually ends up leaning a little too hard and could very easily be knocked off balance if Lightning wants to. The duo of attacks are still quite predictable and slow, but at least she's learning.
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