Gate of Memoirs/Rebirth

To be reborn, again and again, until you reach a perfect form--even if it is not yours.
Portrait 	Dialogue
Music: "Future Resolve"	Music: "Future Resolve"
 	
*There is a dread pulse in the air as the battle rages around you.
*The cocoon's cracking carapace floods your senses with a torrent of thoughts.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*Empty visions of what you assume are Hypaea's memories—of the rancher and his land, swallowed by the anomalous grey.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*They spilled forth with that staticky ichor leaking from the cracks, pooling in sickeningly iridescent hues.
*As if it was desperately seeking a new container to hold its collapsing form together.
*Another stray bolt impacts the carapace, and finally, the pulsing in the air tapers off into a dead hum.
*For a moment, there is silence, and then there is soft, derisive laughter.
 	
*Inara: Heheh... Hahaha!
*Inara: You were certainly overconfident in your abomination's nigh impenetrable defense before.
 	
*Far from looking distraught, the Queen's inscrutable expression gives you pause.
 	
*She remains still even as Vishap lunges forward, poised to kill—
*But by then, it was already too late.
 	
*Inara: ?!
 	
*The sizziling static pooled on the floor comes alight—a lambent flame licking up the living liquid of Vishap's form.
*Inara's eyes widened in abject fear as an anomalous array of colors danced across her skin.
*But far from being a passive victim, Inara begins to snarl.
 	
*Her visage twisted in deific rage, growl emanating deep within some hollow in her chest.
 	
*And Vishap in turn, his eyes wild and angry—all to deny this formless intruder upon their core.
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*Inara: <Insolent creature... You know not whom you dare deal with!>
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*You see Inara's form engulfed by that nameless color before everything goes white.
*It takes your last ounce of strength to pull Giselle's unconscious form away from that encroaching light.
*Every world-ending catastrophe you've lived through comes rushing back—
*Athensphere. The Old World.
*From nothingness all creatures came, and to nothingness all would return in time...
*But in such destruction, it was impossible.
*The sort that annihilates all essence and condemns it to nonexistence.
*Devoid of sound, framed only by hollow light—this, you fear, is how it all ends.
*Not with a thunderous crash, but with your last gasp echoing in your mind.
Portrait 	Dialogue
 	
*Abruptly, sound rushes back to your ears, and you sense a presence right next to you.
*Kranus...?
*You feel a momentary chill, recalling the same form in those final hours of Athensphere.
*That's when you realize you're unscathed from the blast.
*Shielded, even, as a translucent barrier falls away at a flick of its golden claw.
Music: "Roaring Soul"	Music: "Roaring Soul"
 	
*Kranus: "On time", I suppose.
*You wryly note the terrible, and probably unintended, similarity of that utterance.
*Though the cavern has since erupted into a roaring crater of fire, you still spy the rift of your entrance—seemingly a little wider.
*Giselle's final hope, answered. Grey now creeps into her increasingly brittle flesh, like the rancher.
*It must have been the cocoon; and now from its igneous cradle rises that entity Inara grappled to the end with.
 	
*Your heart sinks when even the Queen seems uncharacteristically taken aback.
 	
*You can only follow her gaze and wait...
Portrait	Dialogue
 	
*For what is to come.
*"All that was, and all that will be..."
*"As the Mantle of Order and the Eternal Light had done for their world, so I did for mine."
*"... I ask this of you."
*"Are you prepared?"