lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

And now it's time for Yugo to quickly narrate something to hopefully keep his dragon in this fight...

"Clear Wing's a spirit in a body made from solid vision with mass...!" is what he manages to declare and the only thing as the sabers tear 'wounds' into the dragon that 'bleed' with digital particles.

Which also doesn't prevent the Rose Queen's attack from sending Clear Wing flying off course and toward a wall. So much for that (rather short-sighted) plan.

Edited 2018-05-28 01:33 (UTC)

Without Joker to hold her back any more, Amethyst stumbles forward, fists clenched. She isn't so headstrong as to try to attack the high fae on her own, but boy, she is not going to keep her mouth shut. "You didn't give him nothin"!" she shouts. "He was better off before you got your gross hands on him!"

It's times like this he wishes his tentacles were stronger, that he had something else to add other than raw fire power. He wants to keep their exit clear but he doesn't know how many thorn doors have already closed behind them. He has an idea for later but there is no way he's going to voice it now. His Power of Choose could get them out if it worked. If perhaps they could weaken her.

"Believe in us, Steven. We will save you~♥ You belong with us, not her! Your love is far stronger than hers ever will be." The Rose Queen was in the way, and he side eyes Joker at him stepping forward. There's nothing he can do. This is the third time now for Steven. He may as well allow him to play that role. Gon, Yuya, and Amethyst's words ring in his ears and he hopes that will reach him if his do not.

Yuya almost screams as Clear Wing lunges. With Joker's hold released, Yuya rushes forward immediately to try and intervene someone getting hurt. "Wait, stop!"

He shouldn't be relieved when the dragon is knocked back, but he knows how much he could have hurt Steven.

He hopes Joker has enough of the Rose Queen's attention, because all of his is on Steven. "We don't have to take him back, because the Prince wants to leave on his own! Because he knows the truth--he knows his real home, and his mom who gave him his gem."

He looks at Steven insistently, trying to get to his side to keep by him. "You're stronger than her, Steven! You can fight back!"

Edited 2018-05-28 01:46 (UTC)

Gongenzaka stoops down; he tries for a more direct connection, placing his paws upon the earth as he attempts to reach for the roots beneath using his vines- stretching and straining them to even break the soil, let alone make contact. He said earlier, after all- magic itself could be a poison.

And now he seeks to heal it. To help. To clear Steven's mind and remind him of the ones who loved him enough to chase down this wretched queen. He doesn't push any narration toward that, beyond it being possible however- what is important after all...

...Is the will of the one they are rescuing. "Steven...I, the man Gongenzaka, have seen many things, even within just this last year...but among those things, this much is clear... ...Even if you know not what to do, it is alright! Follow what your heart declares! Reach for it, and take hold!"

Edited (I KNOW HOW PLANTS WORK I SWEAR) 2018-05-28 02:11 (UTC)

That's one thing of theirs down, but there's more of them. Trusting the others to keep up the good fight, Joker continues to lend his voice to the arena they're in as well.

"By sayin' that, you prove that the word 'mother' is a hollow false thing on you!" Something in him begins to burn at his own words, catching alight stronger than he would have thought, but Joker doesn't have time for reflection. There's only speaking. "It is as meaningless as a crown on a lifeless skull! A mother isn't a title that you use to force your will onto a child! But Steven has a will of his own! And so long as he follows our voices, we'll always be able ta touch him, because he touches us!" It's dramatic, loud, and he demands it to be true for more reasons than one.

Hoping she gets no ideas with those swords of his, he swipes his hand to the side. "We have given him more than you ever have, Rose Queen! And that's a bond you'll never be able to sever!"

The Rose Queen has never given the impression that she's good at controlling her emotions. How much she is lacking in that regard is swiftly becoming obvious, as every insult turned her way just makes her more and more visibly furious. She stands in front of Steven, warding off anyone trying to get close to him with her swords.

It isn't until Joker speaks that she's finally had enough, though. There's something off about this whole encounter - somehow she hasn't been able to snuff them out as easily as it should have been. There's no reason they should be alive now, and yet there seems to be something guiding events in a direction that prevents her from simply wiping them out.

She hates it.

"We will cut you down for you lies," she shouts, throwing one of her swords straight at Joker. Whether or not it hits, she takes a step back so that she can kneel, putting a hand on the back of Steven's head. "Steven. Use your power to get rid of them. Now."

It's that feeling again.

Their words had felt so real, like everything they said was true and he just knew it somewhere deep in his heart. He could fight back, he could be his own person, they wouldn't leave him behind. He'd shifted, trying to get closer to them somehow, even as his own bound limbs held him back. He had to stop this. He had to try.

And then the Rose Queen speaks, touching him, and he can feel all of that threatening to slip through his fingers. It's like a hand around his heart, pulling him back from that promise of hope and light, doing everything it can to smother his will in its grasp. He makes a choking sound as he tries to fight it, and all the while he can feel the extension of his body growing and changing.

The crystal vines around them come to life, beginning to glow with a familiar frozen heat. The energy off of them floods from the Blue Rose and through his body and mind, drowning everything else out as its desire to grow and survive overtakes everything else.

But yet, Steven doesn't feel himself disappear completely - not like before. As much as it hurts, he's still there, and he knows this can't happen. He can't let it. Please.

'Please,' he begs the entity in his head, pushing his emotion, his desire against its own. 'We don't have to do this. We don't have to listen to her. You don't have to hurt people anymore...!'

Steven cries out, in frustration and in pain, but he doesn't let it stop him. He tears against his hands and wings with all of his strength, uprooting lengths of finger and pulling until the strands of crystal shatter.

Around them, the energy building in the crystal roses begins to flicker and fade.

Yuya looks around as the vines begin to glow and the tension starts to become all that much more present. He almost stops breathing, fingers gripping tight around the staff as he's forced at a distance too far by the Rose Queen. His mind blanks for a moment, unsure how to carry the story back to their favor until he looks back at Steven.

And sees Steven pulling his hands up. That's it. "You're doing it, Steven!" And now Yuya knows what he can do.

"See, the Prince is stronger than the Rose Queen. He knows he can escape, and it's even easier now that he has help!" He shoots the Rose Queen a defiant look. "One of the Knights made a promise to him, that whenever the Prince was in trouble he would help! He would always reach back for him, and that means now!"

And Yuya lunges for Steven again, full of hope that Steven will be able to reach out for them--that they can get him out of there.

Edited 2018-05-28 03:13 (UTC)

He sees her face contort in rage, sees the way her hand moves back, and Joker has just a split second to hastily breathe out the right words underneath her shouting. "Any blade tossed, a knife thrower could catch-" And, while that title has always belonged more to his brother than him, he is a knife thrower of sorts. Perhaps the truth of the statement helps lend a solidness to his otherwise quiet words. Joker can't explain it- magic and adrenaline make things blurry- but he twists out of the way of the sword and snag a hand out to wrap around the hilt, twirling it out o the air.

It's very fancy, and he'd marvel at it if he wasn't terrified for his life and everyone else's.

Everyone else's, but especially Yuya's as the boy rushes past him. One of these days, his heart is going to stop for real. In that split second, Joker's mind makes a hasty decision. She needs to be distracted, needs to keep from skewering Yuya- He can't throw the sword back (might hit Yuya, Steven, give it back), so his other hand, the wooden one, does the first thing that springs to mind...

And tears the Pokeball off his belt to fling it as hard and fast as he can at the Rose Queen's head.

Her body language bleeds anger and for some reason it was good to know that she could get so easily riled up. Normally he would feed it, being the emotional manipulator that he was, causing ones blind rage to distract them from everything else. He's just not sure if he wants to. They did have the library's defenses on their side but a fae was still an almost impossible foe.

"It's not going to work this time. Steven can fight through this," he says calmly, regardless of how he feels about any of this, and he's closing the gap at that sword being thrown towards Joker. Honestly, he should let him get stabbed to hopefully learn a lesson but he's putting a heavy bit of trust in him to take care of himself. He just wants to be close enough to dispense a healing draught if needed.

He sneers gently at Joker and his fancy footwork. His eyes flick towards Yuya but he doesn't follow. His eyes are instead on the Pokeball with a lifted brow.

Amethyst's bracing for something terrible to happen, for the Rose Queen's words to force Steven to unleash the full force of the garden on them all, and the thought of enduring that isn't as bad as the thought of Steven having to have done it but there's nothing she can do to stop it, any more than she could disobey Nightshade back in Portland --

-- but then it doesn't happen. She lowers her arm from in front of her face to see absolutely no wave of plant-based destruction and Steven beginning to uproot himself from his horrifying prison, and around her the others are saying what seems more and more to be the truth.

"C'mon, Steven!" She scrambles towards him. "C'mon, you can do this!"

"Yeah! Because it's not just for us you're doing it for, it's for everyone that you care about-...!" Yugo throws in, to go with encouraging Steven to break free as everyone else is.

But the sight of Yuya being one of their few trying to literally reach for Steven that abruptly catches his eye in the middle of what might've been a good speech too. "Yuya, get back!" Because seriously, the Rose Queen is right there oh god.

Clear Wing would be too easy for her to see coming though wouldn't it. So maybe... "And... at this moment the summoned soul of swordplay rocketed over to help the two knights defend themselves from the Rose Queen...!"

And at Yugo's literary command, the sharp embodiment of a toy sword obeyed.

They're all cheering for him. They're even reaching for him, despite the presence of the Rose Queen, but Gongenzaka bites back the urge to interfere when Yuuya darts forward- he remembers well what they spoke about. Remembers, despite the pain, and accepts it. He has an egg, he tells himself, he has an egg-

He needs to focus. "The strength of our love, and OUR friendship," he thunders. His vines work away at the earth while hidden by his own bulk and foiliage until they can reach the roots beneath, but rather than grab at them, they simply rest against them as two hands would in his mind.

This is his way of reaching out. This, and that of his soul- and his soul and his heart cry for Steven to hold on, FIGHT!- drawing from the magic he learned to heal poisons, and from the magic he learned to find spirits, and praying that between the hearts around his friend and between the power of Creation itself, Steven finds his full strength. Not just to fight the Rose Queen...

But escape...

"THAT POWER FAR EXCEEDS WHAT 'LOVE' YOU CLAIM TO HAVE, ROSE QUEEN! TO CLAIM OTHERWISE IS UNFORGIVABLE!"

The Pokeball bounces off of the Rose Queen without any particular effect. It's just a Pokeball, after all, and she brushes it away with a swoop of the arm. All it succeeds in doing is distracted her for half a second, which may or may not be helpful.

It does give Yuya and Amethyst a moment longer to get close, so that as the Rose Queen swings down at them with her blade, Yugo's summon manages to get in the way. The Rose Queen's strike will be vicious, but it's better the hologram take it than anyone else.

"Steven!" she snaps, unable to believe that she is seeing. He's unrooting himself? How? "Listen to me! I demand it!"

Her fingers, thread through his hair and shove him forward, like she's trying to pin him to the ground.

He won't.

Instead, he reaches out with his now freed arms - the crystal has been torn in irregular patterns, barely resembling the hands they once were. He sees Amethyst and Yuya coming and he lunges for them, just as he's being shoved into the ground by the Rose Queen.

The only thing that's still stuck are his feet, and he doesn't have the momentum to break them. He needs them to pull him out before it's too late.

"H-Help," he cries, trying to squirm away from her.

Amethyst swerves around Yugo's summon as it takes the blow from the Rose Queen's sword. All she wants is to get to Steven. Of course that means getting way too close to the Rose Queen for comfort, but at this point she doesn't care. The story's got to make it work, right? And if it doesn't, well... Well. She'd do it anyway.

She pretty much dives forward to grab Steven's hand with both of hers.

"I got you, dude!"

Yuya looks up with relief at Yugo's duel monster intercepts the blow, giving them time--and more importantly, saving their skins. He just barely manages to reach Steven's hand, inspired and ready to encourage him to freedom--

And then the Rose Queen shoves him forward, and Yuya stops cold. His chest burns immediately at hearing him weakly cry out at she forces him down and his grip fails to tighten on Steven. He's dumbstuck only for a second, and then he's furious.

To the side he sees Amethyst dive forward and grab, probably to pull him out. Yuya doesn't have much in the way of physical strength, and while that wouldn't stop him from trying he's not going to play a physical tug-of-war with the Rose Queen.

He looks up at her with open anger, and then moves quickly to grab her wrist to the hand tangled in Steven's hair and dig his claws into her skin.

"The Rose Queen lets go."

His vines are loose around the roots- a comforting hold, like a hand on one's shoulder, but lax enough so that it isn't holding the root there. That would be exactly the reverse of what they need after all.

But Gongenzaka isn't just leaving pretty words with his soul, or holding hands. No, as Steven cries for help, and as the boy reaches for the two who are now just a short bit in front of Gongenzaka himself, he raises his metal arm with cold eyes.

'The Rose Queen lets go', he thinks, charging the arm, and he growls and half shakes with his anger for all that is happening around them. He can hear Marishi whisper despite her distance from him- 'And the arm charged with Strength, for it was just as much a part of his body as any other bit, and thus just as receptive to the might of his heart and soul, just as able to fuel his dedication into One Great Shot.'

'The Rose Queen Lets Go.' "...For even with only a hair of a moment free, the Prince would have what was needed to escape," he snarls under his breath, and fires a repulsor blast toward the Queen's body with more strength than his arm should have ever created.

There's a whole lot going on, and Joker knows better than to get in the way of what Gongenzaka is firing. It's a hasty glance back to check up on the others, and he quickly makes sure to dodge from that. However, he won't stay still for long. He darts right after it, a follow up-

"The Rose Queen lets go," he hisses under his breath as well, adding more weight to the demand, "because her love is corrupt and twisted." He comes in sliding on his knees, grabbing at Steven's other hand in hopes that Yuya and Gongenzaka have been enough to force her away- everything is happening in too much of a blur. "She doesn't stand a chance when we're together like this, right, Steven!?"

The Rose Queen lets go. There's so much forward momentuem right now he doesn't need to repeat it. It's what they are all thinking, all willing to happen. He's putting a lot of trust right now in everyone else, normally one to get the job done and then leave by himself, and he's craving something bittersweet just to go with the moment.

His eyes flick towards the kids, all of them, and then back at Gon who is preparing to fire. With it being an intent to attack, but not directed at him, he doesn't bother to move and allows his Power to Choose to keep himself rooted to the spot. He has to trust in his own power and the narrative to work.

"I trust you," he says outloud to everyone that can hear. He trusts Gon and his aim to remain true, for Joker not to get himself maimed, for the kids to rescue Steven, for Yugo not to pull a Lauren. "With Steven's love and light we cannot fail." They just need a moment of peace with the Rose Queen nowhere near Steven to yank him free and ditch. "We're almost there."

Yugo's staring at his cards, wondering what he can still do as everyone else aside from Tyki use the might of the narrative to jump into the fray. But Tyki's declaration, even if he has no idea what the guy is specifically thinking for him, the older-looking teen grins.

They're definitely winning aren't they? With the way everyone is weaving this story against the Rose Queen, it's working big time.

"With all our power combined, Steven's gonna be coming with us no matter what the Rose Queen says!"

As Yuya digs in his claws, the Rose Queen's primary reaction is shock.

It just doesn't happen - it's unthinkable - that a mortal would have such audacity, to demand that of her and to grab her like this. The boldness of his assertion stuns her, and she stares back at him with an expression approaching wonder. His claws don't pain her all that much, but she sheer confusion of it causes her to release her hold on Steven. She's completely at a loss.

And then Gongenzaka fires a repulsor at her, and the moment ends. She's blasted several feet back, shielding her face with her arms, and it is taking her a while to regain her composure. She skids across the dirt, finding balance in a low crouch, but she doesn't move to attack.

In the same moment the Rose Queen lets go, Steven is also pulled far away enough from his roots that the final strands of crystal shatter and snap - one final blow out of pain before the tension is release and he's allowed to sprawl forward into the arms of those waiting to receive him.

He collapses then, totally spent - he gave everything he had to get free, and now that he's broken loose all he can think to do is let himself drop into the arms of his rescuers and sniffle and sob with the beginnings to relief. It's not over yet, but he trusts them to get him out of there.

How could he not?

Steven is a heavy kid, short and stout and kind of 90% crystal right now, and Joker has to brace himself as he collapses into their arms. Honestly, it's a good thing that Amethyst is there as well. Even if he had the use of both hands (and he is trying to avoid stabbing the boy by accident), Joker has a feeling he'd go toppling over on his own. As it is, they can both withstand it, and he presses his face down into Steven's hair.

"We have you," he whispers softly down to him, almost exhausted from the sheer amount of relief flooding through him and out his mouth. "And we won't let ya go." He's shaking, just a little, although he hardly notices. The most important thing is here in their arms now.

But there's no time to revel for too long. Trying to haul the boy up- hopefully Amethyst helps- he calls back to Yuugo. "I believe it's time we take our leave!"

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