awashlogs | if you're feeling dead i'll be your reanimator

[He thinks it over only a second before nodding firmly.]

Yeah. 'Course I can.

[It's different, providing cover fire for another ranged fighter, but it actually makes his job a thousand times easier. She won't be in the thick of it, hacking and slashing with a greatsword; he won't have to aim around her.]

Actually, how open's your schedule, or is this a right-now, take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal? Because I have an idea, but it'll take some time.

Are you kidding? A fight I've got the luxury of getting ready for sounds like a dream.

[She's visibly intrigued, though, by this promise of an idea. Ideas were always few and far between back in the day, and good ones even rarer still.]

Why, what've you got cooking?

Height would be good for me, too, if I'm gonna be picking these guys off with a rifle.

[He points upwards with his free hand.]

If we're choosing the battlefield anyway, why don't we build some kind of temporary tower or platform first? That way, once we draw them in, we can take 'em out at our own pace from our penthouse view.

Edited 2018-10-09 02:22 (UTC)

...So like a hunting blind. Sit inside and just pick 'em off.

[She shrugs a little, having no objection to the idea.]

I'm not exactly Crafty McHandytool, though. Carpentry's a little outside my scope...

I can do it! As long as we only need it temporarily, something like that shouldn't actually take all that long to put up.

[Not that he's Bob the Builder, either. But there's something about envisioning the structure they'll need, about putting it all together and having something solid, that feels pleasant and empowering in his chest.

Maybe it's all the camping. Maybe Gladio rubbed off on him. After a moment, he chuckles and swings his arms.]

It'll be like that treehouse I always wanted as a kid.

You know I never had a treehouse either? I was never really the outdoorsy type. I mean until I stopped having a choice about it.

[She watches quietly as he swings his arms the way he does, and on one of the backswings she smoothly moves her own hand into the way and catches his fingers with hers. So slick.]

What can I help with?

[Oh. Goodness, he's caught. Whatever shall he do? Blush and fail not to smile like a big goof, apparently.]

Well... why don't we draw up the plans together? And would your magic help us get wood, maybe?

[...]

For building!

[THAT ISN'T A SUSPICIOUS CLARIFICATION, MR. ARGENTUM!]

...You know for a minute there you had me thinking you were going to pound nails with your —

[...]

...fists.

[there was another way she was going to finish that sentence and spoilers: it wasn't with "fists".]

But yeah, I think I can figure something out.

[AND THEN THEY DID.

Their somewhat rickety, small-ish hunting blind waits. Visibility's good. The moment for... nailing has passed, likely without incident.]

I can do a flare thing. Why don't you head for the blind first and I'll catch up once I've got their attention?

[Prompto is, after all, a speedy boy.]

You sure you'll be okay? Don't get swarmed.

[Worry worry. She's not about to argue, though.]

I can't hit a crowd if you're in it, so make sure they don't surround you, okay?

[Nod, nod! Prompto doesn't want to get swarmed, either. He is not that kind of hero. He starts to say something else, but then he freezes. After a second, he tilts his head a little.]

I can keep 'em from catching me for a couple seconds if they do gang up like that. Stick them in one place. I'll do that, okay? Like shooting fish in a barrel! Except totally bony and not-delicious.

[He nods again, enthusiastic about whatever idea he just came up with, and bumps her arm with his knuckles.]

Catch up to you in a couple, Aestas.

[Oh, oh, look at that, it's a clever boy up to something on the verge of battle, and it really shouldn't make her heart go flip-flop but boy, it sure does.]

See you on the flip side, gunboy.

[And off she goes to get up to her vantage point, perched like a raven and tracking Prompto carefully as she watches to try to see what he'll do.]

[For a while, he just waits and watches until he's sure she's far enough away to be safe. Then, he calls the Lion Heart to hand, blue streak bright along the muzzle, peers out along the edge of the field, and spies a likely rattle of movement at the treeline.]

Lights, camera--wait, skip the camera. Lights, action!

[He holds his gun sideways and shoots high, then brings his arm in to shield his eyes, letting the gun dematerialize as his Starshell bursts into being, glowing like a low, miniature sun above the trees. The light's bright enough to alert more than the couple idle skellies out here on their wandering patrol; they're the first to stumble onto the field, but there are more on the way, clattering eagerly through the woods.]

H--hey! Over here!

[Prompto spares one nerve-wracking second to jump up and down, waving his arms, before turning and starting to bolt for it. After a couple seconds, though, he stops and looks back. Glances at the hunting blind. Stares back at the poor creatures coming up the way.

Man, they're slow. This won't be any fun for poor Summer at all.]

That's right. Come on, guys...

[Now walking slowly backwards in their blind's direction, he beckons the bony troops on like slow, lumbering, trainable animals. When more appear further afield, he sidles that way to bring them closer together.]

Here, skelly, skelly, skelly, skelly...

[Oh. Okay, crap, that's enough. There's a bunch of them now, and Prompto breaks and runs for real until he's close enough. Then, he turns one last time. He summons the big gun. The heavy machine weapon Cid fixed up for them. He waits.

They're only feet from him when Prompto fires the gun--knocking himself back on his butt--and a big, black sphere pops out of it, sucking the skeletons together like a vacuum's opened in the field.]

[Fortunately, Summer's not precisely the kind of person who defines battle as "fun", categorically, so she's not too worried about having a good time at the moment; she's mostly just shuffling her weight back and forth from foot to foot on her perch, trying to find a rhythm while she watches Prompto enact his plans down below.

It takes her a minute to figure out what he's doing — and she's momentarily dazzled by the Starshell, herself — but from up high it's always easier to see the patterns that armies make when they move, and how they converge and disperse on the two-dimensional plane of a battlefield.

She sees what Prompto's attempting, sort of, and it becomes clearer and clearer the more he darts around. But then all of a sudden they're close to him, and the timing of this plan goes from leisurely to critical when whatever he does knocks him down to the ground, impeding his ability to flee —

But then the gravisphere starts to draw in the skeletons, sucking them toward it like a black hole, and abruptly, she gets it.]

Okay.

[This, then, is familiar. Standing in a hunter's blind, standing on one of the peaks of Sorceror's Isle — it's all the same, whether there are waves of water or of grass down below her, whether the targets are hapless sailors or undead abominations. She remembers this rhythm: breathe out, dig deep, let her magic flow up and out of her body, into her hands, ready to be forged.

Battle magic always feels a little different than parlor tricks. There's something raw to it, something sharp. It acknowledges its nature, that it exists to destroy. It comes with the realization that she's calling upon this magic with the intention that her enemies will die.

Good. Fuck 'em.

She brings down her hands, and the battlefield erupts as a firebomb drops in a rough circle with Prompto's gravity sphere as its centerpoint, scorching bone and evaporating ligament as it hits.]

Whoa!

[Were Prompto not already flat on his ass, the explosive force would blast him off his feet for sure. As it is, he shields himself again from the searing heat and light--(ten years from now, maybe it'll feel familiar, crouched all together in a bunch to protect their King from the flames)--rolls, and scrambles to his feet, dropping his machine gun back into the Armiger so he can run like the dickens.]

Whoa!

[He whoops it again, louder, directing it up to her.]

Girl, you're on fire! Not literally. But everything else is! Literally!

[Prompto spares one look back over his shoulder before he reaches the hunting blind and clambers up, panting and a little sooty and grinning.]

Maybe we didn't even need this. Though I guess the fire could bring more, maybe, and we can just chill. [He pauses and tilts his head.] Unless you're tired? That was a pretty big boom.

I know, right?!

[She flexes her fingers a little bit as Prompto comes climbing up next to her, like the movement is helping with keeping the magic at the ready in her fingers. It's not, of course, and it would be silly to assume otherwise, but it's not like she really knows how her magic works on a fundamental level, and sometimes it's just about doing the little things that will make her feel better, in the end.]

I'm okay. I can usually drop a couple of those before I get too worn out. They're big and flashy, but not really all that complicated.

[Even so, she's opening up the front of her cloak and throwing one of the folds around his shoulders, which is either the equivalent of being cute and sharing a scarf, or just her paranoia talking as she tries to help keep him a little bit more hidden from enemy view.]

[He smiles, ducks his head and lets some fire-unrelated warmth rise to his face, and then scoots obligingly closer. It's big, but it wasn't meant for two people to wear at once--or maybe it was, but only like this. Close. Nestled together for sharing secrets; or being, themselves, the secrets shared.]

Okay. I can pick 'em off from here on. Unless a bunch suddenly come, and then Hot Stuff Kabooms can be our last getaway move.

[Nothing's coming yet, though, so what he pulls from the Armiger isn't his sniper rifle. They smell warm and buttery, in fact, and he hands one to Summer.]

Corn on the cob? Too bad no one's found any corn that'll pop yet. That'd be perfect right now.

...You literally just keep hot buttered corn in your magic closet.

[You butter believe she's going to take that and tuck into it, though, because hot damn.]

You're sure we couldn't just explode one of these and get popcorn? ...I don't know how popcorn works when you're not buying it from the store.

[Hnomf nomf nomf. Bless Iggy Scientia, the Armiger's infinite storage, and whatever ancient genius invented butter.]

I'm pretty sure that's not how it works? Though I mean, we only tried it with fire once and not with exploding. Only got really bad burnt corn for it, and Iggy wouldn't let us eat it.

if you're feeling dead i'll be your reanimator

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