All 18.1 - Frustration

As the door slid shut behind them with an air of finality, the crew of the Gunakadeit were seperated from the mine, from Bastion still outside, and, further still, from Caitlyn. There were mixed feelings among those who were now lined in the hall, apparent on everyone's faces. Victor, the last one to enter, stood quietly as the others began to drift off to their own corners of the ship. His face was blank and distant, and only snapped back when he heard Cheko's voice ask, "Virgil was saying that Caitlyn and Bastion aren't comin' back. That...that ain't true, is it?"
Victor turned to look at her, his demeanor proper and slightly cold. "It is, unfortunately, true. Ms. Levine feels her skills are of better use in the mine, and undoubtedly so in the magic-starved Engiadina. Mrs. Komatsu, I assume, couldn't tolerate the strain of our current situation and lifestyle, and has taken her leave with her son. Seeing as she gave no particular reason for her departure."
"Oh, but..." Cheko tugged at her ear, "but...what about...oh..."
"It was imprudent to pry and Caitlyn was never one to be argued with. If she wants to leave, that's her perogative."
"But...Ryuji's still coming? Isn't he worryin' about his family in such a strange place? And what with these All things?"
"Mr. Komatsu's continued presence is a heartening surprise," Victor said as he turned towards the command room, adding slightly icily, "He values his priorities." He began to walk away, "Please keep an eye on Virgil, if you wouldn't mind. We'll be leaving now."
"Oh. O-okay," Cheko replied, visibly dismayed.
----
Lucca tromped away from the entryway and made his way towards the mess. Cress heard them come in and slid down after his friend. "Hey, what's goin' on? Everyone looks fuckin' pissed," he asked, catching up to Lucca.
"Everyone is fucking pissed. We're leaving, three people short. Whatever. Good fucking riddance." The druid's tone was tight and clipped, his barely restrained anger clearly evident as he stalked down the hallway.
Cress stopped in his tracks. "Wait, what?" He jogged to catch up again, "The fuck happened? Who's gone?" He looked around, noticing Cohen and Ryuji walking behind them. "That wizard lady? Who else? Fuck, it's not Mr. Erzebet, is it?"
"Of course it's not! Don't be a dumbass!" Lucca shot him a disdainful look, "You know damn well he wouldn't ditch."
Cress replied indignantly, interrupting, "Of course fucking not! Maybe he got sick or shanked or his kid got lost or somethin'! Who the fuck would just ditch without a reason if the world's fuckin' falling apart?!"
Shaking his head, Lucca continued, "Bastion said she was needed here or some shit, something to do with magic. Seemed to think she'd still be able to help or something though. Whatever. And Caitlyn took her kid and just up and fucked off."
"...The fuck?!" Cress was at a loss with this information. Confused, but still managing to notice how upset the druid was, he kept his silence, following after nonetheless.
"Yeah. 'The fuck?' is right," was all he offered in response.
----
Striding purposefully into the command, Victor saw Pierce sitting cross-legged in the navigator's chair, fiddling with a small object and an engraver's needle. He flicked his gaze over as Victor entered, and continued working. "Did she like the gift?" he asked lightly.
"She extends her gratitude, yes," he said, not stopping as he went to the hatch that led to the lower floor, connecting to the hall outside the two captains' rooms. Opening it, he yelled sharply, "Doctor! Mr. Komatsu! To command, if you would." With that, he turned and walked to the center of the room, looking out the front view towards the wall of the docking bay. The pair of men came, Ryuji appearing a few minutes before Cohen. Victor stood straightly, resolutely, and ignored the questions of the first until the latter appeared. When Cohen entered and asked what he was needed for, Victor turned on his heel and addressed them, "Congratulations. Our crew has been reduced dramatically, considering that both our second pilot and our second navigator are no longer with us. Each of you select a position. One of you is a pilot, the other is a navigator. I don't care which is which."
Cohen blinked and asked dryly, "Is there any particular reason it's us and not any of the others?"
Victor turned to him and replied bluntly, "Cheko and Carrot are both too small to reach the controls, and if either of the boys had any inclination to learn the systems they would have done so already. I need at least two reliable navigators and pilots to properly cover the ship. You are my options, unless I opt to summon the harlequin."
"I have no station preference," Ryuji replied, standing just as formally as Victor and mirroring his demeanor.
Both turned to look at Cohen, who sighed and rolled his eyes, "I suppose I'd be better at the navigation. I can't imagine my reflexes particularly out-classing anyone."
"Pierce, if you would," Victor gestured for Cohen to join the other man as he walked towards the pilot chair. Motioning for Ryuji to sit, he began to instruct the paladin in how to maneuver the ship while Pierce explained to Cohen how to open the doors using the control system. Under guidance of the two more experienced men, the pair moved the ship into position. Soon, it was on its way, jetting through the blue depths.
After a short while, Victor turned to leave, "Continue familiarizing yourself with the controls. They aren't hard to explain, but they take practice. Feel free to experiment, since the navigation will put it back on its correct heading after you let go." Ryuji gave a sharp nod, unconciously grateful for the attention-keeping task. With that, Victor turned and left the Yetoman to his practice, as the other two continued to go over the complicated and barely-translated navigational and sensor system.  Climbing down to the lower level, he walked past the mess hall, where he saw Lucca elbow deep in a pile of chopped melons and pineapples. He paused at the entry, though he did not turn to face inwards. "If you're done mangling produce, I will be in the storage bay," he said brusquely, then walked off.
At the sound of the older man's voice, the druid paused, then began roughly tidying up the mess he had created. "Don't worry about it; I've got it," Cress offered, getting up from the adjacent table he had been sitting at, waving his friend away from the fruit. Giving his hands and knife a quick wipe, Lucca left the room and followed Victor wordlessly down the hall. The elder man entered the barren storage room and stood in its center, never looking astray, staring into the distance. Lucca followed in after him, drifting immediately to a far corner to drop his shawl, mirror and mask in a heap before moving to stand before the other man. Victor tilted his chin upwards slightly. "Ready yourself," he said simply. At his word, the druid cracked his knuckles and drew his axe and one of his knives, falling into a loose, readied stance. The swordsman did not move, standing stonily. Lucca drew a breath, then a second. He blinked, and in that fraction of a second, Victor had lept upon him, sword drawn. Victor lashed again and again, his eyes and face belying something that the druid didn't often see in him: anger. Pressing him back, parrying the druid's strikes with a vicious grace, he caught Lucca's weapon with his blade and held it. "Why are you here?" Victor hissed as he stared into his opponent's eyes, his voice carrying an edge.
The question caught the younger man off-guard and he paused, "The hell is that supposed to mean?"
Victor took the pause as an opening, whipping his right hand around and landing a punch to Lucca's gut. "Why are you here?!" he hissed again with greater insistance as Lucca gritted his teeth.
"Why the fuck do you think, dipshit!?" The druid snarled back with renewed fury, taking a vicious swing at the Victor's head with his axe and following it with a low jab with his knife, aiming to drive him back. "Those...things are destroying everything I've ever cared about! I'm not about to just stand by and let that happen!" the flash of his blades picked up speed, the force behind his blows mounting as he spoke, "I'm going to destroy every last one of those motherfuckers and then some for what they're trying to do to my world! And hopefully I'll be able to restore the balance afterwards!"
As Lucca spoke, Victor began to smile a cold and terrible grin, his eyes never leaving the druid's. He matched Lucca's swings, blocking and returning with the same feverish pitch. "Yes! Give me your conviction!" he commanded. "Show me your resolve!" He caught Lucca's axe again, and the two strained against each other, vying for control. "There were ten of us! Only ten! To do impossible things! Three have left. Three more would join them, if they could let go of what they lost. Only four, to save everything. Komatsu. Cohen. Me. And you." With a shove, Lucca knocked Victor back; he slid smoothly backwards and held a stance, still staring, still smiling. "So give me your conviction!" He held up his right hand, palm upwards. "Show me your power, the power of a god," he said, lower but with every bit of force. As he spoke, he clenched his hand, and Lucca could see the colour drain from Victor's skin; his nails blackened and his teeth were fanged, and a dread feeling of cold power emanated from his being. He lept forward again, sword poised. 
The druid back-pedalled, both of his blades coming up to block the impending strike, "How?! How the fuck did you just do that?"
Victor swung, and his blade connected with more force than it ever had earlier in the fight. Striking again and again, Lucca struggled to maintain his defense against the onslaught. "How? It's not a how!" The druid was the one to be knocked back this time. "Know it! Find your strength and show it to me!"
For a moment a look of confusion crossed the younger man's face, bringing with it a tinge of fear as he worked fervently to maintain his defenses. "What the fuck!? Gimme a second or something!" His words were followed by a sharp yelp as he narrowly dodged Victor's flashing blade. Dancing backwards around the room, he knew there was no way he'd be able to maintain such a frantic pace for long.
A strange, almost wicked smirk flickered across his face as realization suddenly dawned on him. It was quickly swept away by a look of unbridled rage as he let go and gave himself over more fully to the emotions swirling within him. "How dare you fucking doubt me! How dare you fucking doubt my conviction!" His words were punctuated by a swing of his axe that would easily have gutted a less agile opponent, "Who the fuck do you think I am!? You of all people know goddamn well that there's only one way I'll leave this mission without seeing each and every one of those fuckers in ribbons at my feet!"
"And what way is that?!" Victor asked, imperious and manic, knowing the answer but demanding the words. He continued to press his offence, intimidating and overwhelming as he spun.
Lucca suddenly stopped his retreat and stood his ground. He let his eyes fall closed for a moment; a fool's move, but in that instant an eerie, wild aura enveloped him. His eyes snapped open, and hooking Victor's blade with his axe, he forced it down and wide with a ferocious snarl. The druid locked eyes with the older man as he did so, and Victor could see that they had changed in a way Lucca's shifting could never have accomplished: the irises a bizzarely bright green that seemed to almost glow in contrast to the black sclera surrounding them. Stepping forward to close the space between them, his dagger slashed in a graceful arc towards his opponent's face and he practically spat, "As a fucking corpse!"
Victor's hand whipped up, grabbing the dagger as its blade drove towards his face. "Why should that stop you?" he asked, the steel drawing blood from his hand that he ignored. "Why would that stop you?" Twisting cleverly about, Victor wrenched the weapon from Lucca's hand and tossed it away. "Death didn't stop Ryuji. Mine will be nothing but inconvenient! Why let death sway you?" Dislodging his own blade, he began the assault again, "Don't limit yourself! Not with your goals on the line!"
"Last I checked, I wasnt the one making death a limit!" His left hand immediately darted to draw another knife, "That'd be nature; not all of us get to have back-up lives, old man!" With a fearsome growl he returned the attack, no longer fighting solely on the defensive. "So what are you saying? How the fuck do you figure someone like me could go about getting around the whole death thing, huh?" he added, his voice dropping to a menacing growl, " 'Cause you know full fucking well that given the option I wouldn't let it stop me, no. Not with what's at stake."
"Nature!?" Victor emphasized his word with a clash of his sword. "Nature will bend for you! Don't you know what an ascendent is?! You've read thousands of books, you know full well!" The pair danced about in a furious display of power and skill. "Adventurers, the ones that Pierce seeks out, are drawn to events. They make stories. Ascendents make legends! They change countries, worlds, fate! By their will alone! Of course you'll die if you accept it. Don't! Know that you are beyond it! Nothing can limit an ascendent, not nature, not reason, not morality! The only limits are what they themselves believe should hold them! Feel your power and know that this is true!"
Lucca fixed him with a solemn stare, his bizarre eyes locked on the other man's for a long few moments, his expression almost searching. His weapons seeming to move of their own accord, still blocking and parrying in spite of his diverted attentions. Finally, he spoke once more, his voice low and forceful, "Then nothing at all will hold me, nothing will limit me, not a single fucking thing will stop me from seeing this through!"
"Good." With a quick spin and an air of finality, Victor used his sword to wrench Lucca's weapons from his grasp, sending them scattering about. With his opponent disarmed, he stepped back and flourished his blade once more before lowering it. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, the colour returning to his skin. "That should be enough, for now," he said calmly. Lucca simply stood staring at him stonily for a long moment before stalking over and guesturing wordlessly for Victor to give him his wounded hand, his lips already moving to form the words of a healing spell. "Thank you," he said politely, as the magic knit together the gash in his skin, leaving only a smear of blood to indicate it had ever been there. The younger man offered only a curt nod in response as he wiped the blood away with the hem of his shirt, then moved to collect his weapons from where they lay scattered about the floor.
Victor watched him as he moved about, tucking his belongings back away onto his person. "...What bothers you?" he finally asked, his voice having lost the cold quality it had possessed earlier.
Lucca was slow to answer, eventually stating flatly, without looking at him, "You know damn well I wouldn't quit. No matter what, I will see this through. Even if I'm the last one standing, even if I do have to challenge death itself, I will *not* let those things win. No matter what."
"Of course," he replied, almost gently. "I never doubted you. Most of the others, yes. I question their resolve, and their strength of body and character. But I have never questioned your commitment to your goals, or your power." He gave a faint smile, "I only mean to push you further, to help you realize everything you can do. I wasn't asking because I doubted your commitment. I was asking so you could hear it yourself, and feel your own strength. I do not doubt you, and I am trying to make sure you don't doubt yourself either."
The younger man glanced over at him as he spoke, listening with an austere expression that was broken by a small, lopsided smile as he finished. "Thank you."
He made a slightly smug face, "Thank yourself. It's your effort and willpower that's gotten you here, not I."
Lucca blinked at him, then made a face and snorted, "Shut uuup! Ya old weirdo!" He shook his head, looking perhaps a bit self-conscious. "Sheesh! Come on, if we're done here, you have to come help eat some of that fruit."
Sighing slightly and turning to leave, Victor commented, "I was wondering who you expected to eat that much watermelon."
Category:Advent of the All