lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

At the same time:

Shima charges the clones, springing over them at the last second, staff clashing against their swords.

"Now, while I've got 'em distracted!" he shouts to Herbert.

As Peridot cuts herself out of Malachite, the fusion literally poofs into two, separate gems. Both of which fall to the ground, and subsequently, into the water with a splash, and neither of them move from there.

This also means that the waterclones wibble, then splash down back into nothingness with Lapis' concentration over them gone.

Grimacing, Herbert starts to slash along through the clones...and then staggers to the side without even the token resistance of the water and ice. He's confused for a moment before he looks up and sees that Malachite is gone: Peridot's mission complete. Taking a breath, he clenches his jaw and runs towards where the Lady has Sans, sword in his right hand and scooping up the potion from the ground with his left.

"Your fatal weakness!" he pronounces, and throws the flask to smash on the floor over the Lady, swinging down at the seaweed with his now literally flaming sword after he does so.

Fire isn't her weakness, really, but according to the narrative flow of this scene that doesn't really seem to matter. The Lady has been busy trying to tangle up Sans, latching onto his skull, neck, and front paws with her weeds and threatening to do worse. She's found it amusing mostly - as much as his lasers have singed her, it's all still very much a game.

At least, until Malachite poofs and Herbert comes at her with a flaming sword that is weirdly good at cutting through her hair. She falls off of Sans's head, which she had been standing on until that point, the release of hair tension causing her to lose her balance.

"Well, this is disappointing," she says, glancing over at the water that Lapis and Jasper fell into. "I'm done playing for now, I think."

She leaps into the air, away from Herbert, and dives into the pool of water the gems fell into.

"She's gonna keep being disappointed, 'cause whether she's about ta try and take her toys 'n go, or pull something else, we still get there faster."

Yamantaka, who'd been stunned by that gem-weapon headbutt earlier gets bolstered by Shima enough to manage to reorient himself, long enough to reach with his clawed hands into the water to scoop up the prone gems that'd gone under and drop them on the stone floor of the library.

Edited 2018-05-28 04:37 (UTC)

Peridot also falls, because the thing that had been containing her basically just evaporated under her feet. The difference between her and the other two gems, though, is that she is the only one of the three of them that's wearing a ring that literally lets her walk on water. So. Instead of splashing below the surface? She falls on her face.

The Lady of the Lake rushes past her, and she scrambles to lift herself up on hands and knees, following the fae's path.

"Is that it!?" She says incredulously. That can't be it. It seems far too easy. She didn't even get to punch the fae in the face? What the heck?!

The gems aren't there.

She doesn't understand it. She dove in first. The water is hers. Yet, the gems aren't there. Someone grabbed them first?

The Lady emerges from the water, coming to stand on it as well, looming over Peridot.

"Fine," she hisses. "I'll take this one instead."

Think fast, Peridot. The water is about to swallow you whole.

Oh. So it was too easy.

Unfortunately Peridot is still basically prone when she feels the shadow of the fae rise up to loom over her, and she only has enough time to just scramble to her feet with an angry hiss before that water is rising up to nab her

As she established earlier in the narrative, she still has that powerful Earth Spirit aura surrounding her, which gives her the force of will to fight back and keep from getting completely wrecked right away, but... This is a true fae they're dealing with. She won't last very long without assistance, no matter how hard she kicks her feet and paddles with her tail against the pull.

Edited 2018-05-28 15:09 (UTC)

Alphys almost didn't get a chance to fight her own water clone, because she was distracted by the sight of Sans AND Peridot transforming into ultra-cool super forms?? What the heck?? That's so cool??

...And then her water clone beamed her upside the head with its weapon, knocking her to the ground. It's only dumb luck that she isn't taken out completely when the clone splashes into nothingness and she can drag herself up with a groan. Oh, her aching head... she takes a moment to get her bearings about what's going on, which is just enough to tell that things are going pear-shaped at an alarming rate.

"B-boss!!" Alphys stammers as the fae is about to take Peridot. She's gotta do something, and she's gotta do it fast.

She reaches into her pocket and grips her Wismuth charm, immediately feeling a sense of calm wash over her, and she starts to sparkle. "And just when the heroes thought all was lost, uh... Peridot's best friends in the world, Lapis and Jasper, snapped out of the lady's control and rescued her from the villainess' clutches!"

Edited 2018-05-28 15:16 (UTC)

What might normally have been a groggy start for Lapis is thankfully overcome by Alphys' narration. Her head is surprisingly clear, but she doesn't question it. Peridot is in danger, and she has to help. She needs to save her, she needs to do something to help, because she just can't let Peridot go through what happened to her.

She lifts the water into a column where Peridot and the Lady are, giving very few options to flee. "Jasper! Get her!"

"Friends?" Jasper starts to protest, shooting a sharp, indignant look at Alphys -- but it's honestly difficult to fight the tide of the story Alphys is pushing along when she wants to fight the Lady of the Lake anyway... and can she really complain about fighting alongside Lapis?

Lapis's instructions bring her back to focus on the Lady and Peridot atop the pillar Lapis has made, and a split second later she's launching herself into a spin dash, hurtling forward and then directly up the side of the column of water. When she reaches the top she stops spinning, stabilising midair and summoning her helmet so she can redirect her momentum into slamming it down towards the Lady of the Lake.

"Alright! With the original kidnappees awake and unexpectedly breaking out of the Fae's control, they made just enough of a chance with their attack for the heroes ta blast her when she's knocked clear!"

Edited 2018-05-28 19:37 (UTC)

Well, some of that comes true. Jasper is strong enough to knock the Lady down into the water, the surface tension not enough to hold against the force - but it isn't enough to keep the Lady from grabbing Jasper with her arms and weeds, preventing her from leaving after the blow has been struck.

"Oh, you came back to me already," she says, and attempts to slam Jasper down into the water along with Peridot.

Peridot is thoroughly confused at first. One second the water is trying to drag her down, the next it's erupting into a column that lifts her up above the main surface of the lake. It's kind of disorienting, and it doesn't make sense until, in her haste to find a way out, she glances around and makes out the blurry shapes of Lapis and Jasper, apparently already conscious again. She sees Jasper fling herself into the action for an attack, and she can still see both gem and fae above her, grappling with one another now. There's a very real threat here that, if the Lady succeeds in pulling Jasper into the water as well, they're going to wind up basically back at square one, and that is just downright unacceptable in her opinion.

Concentrating hard, Peridot turns her gaze downward and searches with both her eyes and her mind to try and reach back out for the Vorpal Sword with her metal powers, wherever it happened to have fallen in the chaos. Considering half her current contract involved gaining better mastery over this specific ability, she senses it quickly enough. It flies to her, but she doesn't catch it in her hand; instead, she keeps guiding upward, with every intention of sending it out of the top of the column to slash upwards at the space between the Lady and the gem. Peridot can't speak to aid her actions right now, but she's putting every ounce of concentration into the moment and the intended results: At the very least, she wants to cut through those tangling weeds... but she won't complain if she slices a fae arm or two off, too. It is a sword that can cut through just about anything, after all.

The sword flies upwards, cutting through one of the Lady's arms. The part that is severed turns to water as it falls, splashing into the pool along with the rest of it. The Lady seems more surprised than hurt.

"Sharp knife!" she says, and then lashes upward with her hair to catch the sword on its way up. "I'll take that."

The bits of her hair that wrap around the blade cut themselves in two, but she manages to keep a grip on the hilt. Then, she aims it at Jasper, and takes a swing.

Lapis not so much pulls as yanks the water holding Jasper and Peridot back towards her, isolating the fae in her own column. It's a little bit rough and lacking finese, but whatever gets the job done, right?

Another hand comes up from the water and forms a hand, intent on flicking The Lady into the closest wall which as much force as she can possibly muster. Lapis would also like her sword back, whenever Peridot gets the chance? It's part of her skeleton morp, thanks.

Things are going to shit really fast. People are doing a lot of basic fighting and not a lot of narration, and the Lady is very quickly assembling an all-new necklace. So, dead-eyed, Herbert advances slowly on the water.

"In her time," he begins, projecting like a stage actor who's also trying to compete as a speed-talker, "as the Lady's captive, Lapis learned certain tricks to fight the Lady's prior literal stranglehold over water. She was furious! How dare the Lady take her....how dare she take her friend--how dare, she take the rude obsessive orange one. Or Peridot's sword." He takes a quick breath, really trying to spew this all out as fast as possible and feeling like he's lost track of the point, maybe a bit. "She used her new knowledge of the Lady and this time the water was hers."

Good thing Lapis moves away the water that's holding her, because Jasper attempts to block the Vorpal Sword with her helmet only to find the blade slicing clean through it and the upper part of her face, nicking her gem as it goes -- she just has time to react in horror and pain before her physical form destabilises, leaving only her damaged gem suspended in the water that Lapis is controlling.

"God, it took a second, but here's that chance--"

Shima lets Yamantaka dissolve back into flames which wreath his staff, winding up for a strike. "We'll put our all inta this!"

Despite the fact she is losing control of the water in a way that makes no sense to her at all, she can't help but be satisfied by the way that Jasper falls apart. She doesn't even think about grabbing the gemstone this time. That part was worth it.

Besides, the lapis lazuli is the one moving around the water, at the moment. It seems unnatural, but hey. She's always been very fluid when dealing with new circumstances.

Lapis may have the water but that doesn't mean Lapis has her.

She laughs, and then leaps out of the water, using long strands of seaweed to hover instead. She takes the Vorpal Sword in the arm that still remains.

"What do you think?" she asks Lapis. "Two out of two?"

Peridot splashes down next to Lapis as she yanks the water back towards her, landing back on the floor with a splutter in time to catch the tail end of Herbert's narration. Jasper's gem is laying nearby, but she doesn't get the chance to look at it closely enough to realize it's damaged. Besides which, she has bigger fish to fry.

Her face contorts with rage when she sees the fae holding the sword, and then threatening Lapis of all things. She stands up, looking rather bedraggled with her triangle hair all wilted from being waterlogged, and holds up a hand.

"The fae failed to understand that though she held the sword, she would never be able to wield it properly; this was because the sword had come to this fight along with the hero to serve a purpose, and until that purpose was served, it would always resist the fae, and come back to the hero when she called!"

And as she narrates, she attempts to YANK the sword out of the fae's hand with her metal powers. Should've kept it tangled with your hair, dingus.

The swords flies out of her hand. For the first time, the Lady of the Lake is starting to look annoyed. It's not that big a deal, but geez.

"Why do you keep saying everything out loud like that?" she asks, putting her hand on her hip. "It's a bit odd."

It's at this point that Sans looms out of the shadows, his jaw blazing with magical energy. It has take a while to get control of himself after getting seaweed in his skull, but it looks like he's finally had time to charge that laser of his.

He lets it loose on the Lady of the Lake, but this time at MAXIMUM POWER.

Or something.

WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK, SANS.

In an attempt to help, Alphys cups her hands to her mouth and shouts: "AND THE BRIGHT BEAM OF SHINING JUSTICE HIT THE LADY DEAD ON!"

Yeah, no, Lapis is, surprisingly on key with The lady for this. It is exceptionally weird, honestly. But then there's a bright blue laser zooming past her to hit the Fae, and anything Lapis could have possibly said or done is now a moot point.

Instead, Lapis makes a sweeping motion with her arm, and she attempts to gather every single person present in what water she has.

And book it as fast as she can. Like, fast enough that she doesn't consider that MAYBE SOME OF THEM NEED TO BREATHE.

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