[X] Conversation
-[X] The Distortion
-[X] E.G.O, specifically Xiao's
-[X] The Distortion
-[X] E.G.O, specifically Xiao's
KaliQuest (Project Moon/RWBY)
- Thread starter breakingamber
- Start date
- Crossover
Emotional Turbulence 6.2
Emotional Turbulence 6.2
Seeing two Aura users in action against each other. It's giving you an idea of how fights on Remnant might play out. All-or-nothing clashes. Huntsmen either fight at their best or they do not fight at all. Injury is no longer a factor as long as Aura remains. You'll need to remember to keep that in mind.One of your favorite tactics will no longer work. In the City, almost nothing could stand up to a horizontal sweep with your full power behind it. Even the strongest Fixers would be left staggered and maimed, choking on a mist of their own blood. Easy pickings from there.
Huntsmen do not bleed.
The thought does leave you curious as you turn towards Xiao. Her eyes are fixed on the unfolding fight, concerned for Miris's safety.
What kind of woman must she be, to ascend to Director of the Association of all-out war? To earn the undying loyalty of so many Liu Fixers, Miris among them? To manifest her own E.G.O with no Abnormality assistance required, something Carmen once said should be impossible?
"Xiao," you begin, meeting her red-eyed gaze, "you manifested E.G.O., back in the forest. How did that happen? What do you know about it?"
Her brow furrows, though she doesn't turn to you. "E.G.O… the source of your power. And the reason that you were made a Color Fixer. Most of what I know comes from Miris, who in turn learned it from you. The only difference in our mutual understanding: I believe it is also called 'Psychoment', according to Hana. Though information more solid than a mirage is—was difficult to obtain."
The term is unfamiliar to you, but it does seem fitting. Equipment manifested from the psyche. Psychoment. As far as wordplay goes, it's not worse than Carmen's silly name. You still prefer hers.
Xiao isn't finished.
"As for how I came to possess it, 'manifest' it… It happened in that hellish Library. After Section 1 was wiped out to a man, after Miris…"
She hesitates, closing her eyes. Grief and regret clearly war across her face. And for a moment, you think she will clam up entirely. Silence reigns, punctuated only by Qrow and Miris's quiet grunts of exertion. Steel thudding against flesh, the swishes of rain interrupted.
But eventually, her face smoothes, eyes opening with a strange, new kind of determination.
"Apologies. These memories may be painful. But they are entirely mine to bear. I should not run away from them."
Before you can so much as open your mouth, whether to reassure or… anything else, you dunno, Xiao plows ahead with her recounting, voice steady.
"You know why I entered the Library. A truly selfish desire: to retrieve Lowell's book. Many Fixers of Section 1 followed me. And all of them perished. Moths, diving into a flame burning brightly for someone else. And seeing them fall, die, and burst into books, the same way Lowell must have done not so long ago… I began having doubts. Guilt, piling up in my mind. And when Miris pulled me away, faster than I could react, it gave me time to think.
"That was the worst part."
You understand. It's no secret. Stray thoughts are the most dangerous thing when trying to manifest your E.G.O.. And Xiao, in this strange prototype stage that shouldn't even be possible…
"It was Miris that reminded me. That he, Chun, and everyone else. That I had stepped down as the Director of Section 1, and held no more power over them. And that they had chosen to assist me, for whatever reason. Faith? Hope? Charity? It didn't matter."
"Perhaps, if that voice, charming and otherworldly, had spoken to me mere moments earlier, in that despair-filled state of mind, I may have made a different decision. But I digress."
A voice…?
"No one can fault your best. Rest, Pyrrha Nikos."
"Carmen?" you whisper, too quiet for even Miris to hear.
"No, back up a moment," you say, your own voice somehow urgent yet distant. "What kind of voice? What do you mean?"
You need an answer. You need this answer. You didn't know that you did. But this… has become the single most important thing you can even think of. All-consuming.
"It must have been in my head; Miris heard nothing, despite standing right next to me. But I did not imagine it. It was unfamiliar to me, and yet I knew: this speaker was the wisest person in the world. Perhaps incorrect, but the experience in her words was unmistakable."
"I would want to be a person with a beautiful voice, like the wisest person in the world."
Carmen. It has to be Carmen. How could it be Carmen? Carmen, Carmen, Carmen…
You didn't see it personally. That porcelain pool of guilt and despair. Where her lifeblood spilled out and nobody saw until it was too late. But you see it in your nightmares, those lifeless limbs, pale hands, reaching out from within the bloody bath.
She'd never lift her head again. That bastard had taken her, to fulfill the mission she'd always preached. And, in ten years, perhaps even succeeded—But it wasn't worth it. Nothing could be worth it. Disease of the mind your ass—You'd never see her eyes, her smile. And never hear her voice. Until now. How, in all—
You wish you could have understood her better. Those fancy hypotheses and charts and graphs, units and all the science you'd simply brushed off as not your business. All that talk of wells and Cogito and—hell, you don't even know what it is, barring 'what we so desperately need to fulfill Carmen's vision'. You were there for protection.
You didn't protect jack shit. Even those that remain… you went off and died, fruitlessly. And Ayin must have gone on with the original plan. That inhumane, soulless… No. It's not his fault. He simply played his role.
You're the fucking failure. The courage to protect… you can't reach it…
"Who is Carmen?"
Xiao. Her voice. Startling.
…It could be a coincidence. Must be. Anyone could say those words. And Carmen. You know. She is dead. You should have died instead, but this is the world you live in. Well, not any longer.
You need to pull yourself together.
"An old friend of mine. You reminded me of her," you finally say, a half-truth. You're not good at those, and it shows: Xiao's eyes show suspicion. She thinks you know more. But you don't. Surely you can't. You struggle to remember what Xiao was discussing, change the topic. Heavy for small-talk, but anything is better than…
Fucking stray thoughts. You have a completely different black-haired red-eyed leader to deal with.
"What happened afterwards? Miris gave you a pep talk. Then what?" you say, turning your head back towards Qrow and Miris. A distraction.
They… are certainly still duking it out, mostly as you expected. You could tell the outcome of this fight before it began. Qrow is stronger than Miris. This was never in question.
What surprises you is how close it all is. Or, rather, isn't. Miris is a fine Fixer. But even clearly holding back, barely using the firearm built into his weapon, Qrow always holds a clear upper hand. The Liu Fixer gets some licks in, even managing to put Qrow on the back foot once or twice. But nothing ever comes of those opportunities, and his Aura continues to steadily drop, green turning yellow.
Xiao finally continues her tale. And concludes it: "There is not much more to say. Following our conversation, I found a strange power within me, coupled with some… physical alterations. I'm not one for poetry—"
That's a blatant fucking lie.
"-but I could compare it to the heat of the rising sun, followed by the light of high noon. The fire of a dragon's breath. We returned to the battlefield… and, in time, lost. That E.G.O. or Psychoment, regardless of what one calls it, was not enough."
The ex-Liu Director's eyes flick down towards the Aura monitor in front of her, then back to you.
"I have a query of my own. What do you know of the Distortion phenomenon?"
Hm. You've encountered exactly one Distortion to your knowledge. And when you'd clashed against Pyrrha, that feeling had been similar to clashing against Xiao. Fighting thoughts and emotions given form, in the form of their weaponry. There must be a link there, somewhere.
You'd asked Miris, earlier. But maybe asking straight from the source will help. This 'Distortion Phenomenon'... if it can consistently produce threats akin to the Beacon Tower specter, you ought to be prepared for it.
"Not much," you admit. "There's some link between Distortion and E.G.O., but I don't know what or how. From the one Distortion I've encountered, I get the sense that… fuck. Distortion's less pure, somehow? Tainted, maybe?"
Smoldering versus blazing. Cinders instead of dragons.
Xiao nods. "I didn't expect anything substantial. The White Nights were after your time, after all. I had still hoped you had additional insight, with your knowledge of E.G.O.. But I had surmised as much myself."
That term again. You really need to figure out what those 'White Nights' are. The source of Distortions?
A torrent of flames captures your attention for a brief moment. The sound of Miris landing a solid hit on Qrow with a flaming fist, the outline of a dragon surrounding him for a split second. The Huntsman somehow turns his momentum to his own advantage, flipping back around and resuming his offensive.
Miris's Aura is in the red. Won't be long now.
"I have fought and captured a number of Distortions, and can theorize: Distortions are created when someone fails to manifest E.G.O.. Every time I encountered one, I almost felt as if the human behind it was… lacking something. Drive, perhaps. Or maybe they had that drive, but lost it. I don't have enough evidence to say for sure."
Interesting, but ultimately unhelpful. And a slightly different interpretation than Miris's, who'd seemed to treat the two as two sides of the same coin, somehow. You still nod in thanks.
The Scroll beeps in alarm. Simultaneously, you hear Miris's Aura shatter, like the sound of breaking glass. The spar is over. You take a glance at Qrow's Aura meter, for the first time, and find that it is still healthily in the green. Less than a third depleted, if you had to estimate.
Huh.
Miris accepts his defeat with grace, and Qrow immediately retreats and relents, planting his greatsword into the ground. Xiao tucks her Scroll away into her jacket, lifting the bright red sword she was using as a cane. On closer inspection, it's not quite a Shi katana; rather, it's some kind of… elementally tempered blade. It radiates heat.
Actually. That might be just Xiao.
"I suppose it is my turn. It was a pleasure, Kali," she says.
You reply, "Yeah, thanks."
Miris takes her place as she squares off against Qrow, swinging her sword through the air experimentally. And… well. You guess you have a new conversation partner.
[ ] Conversation topics with Miris? (Pick three(?))
- [ ] Yourself
- [ ] Himself
- [ ] The laboratory
- [ ] Remnant
- [ ] Plans
- [ ] Aura
- [ ] Qrow
- [ ] White Nights
- [ ] Current events
- [ ] Write-in
A/N: One bombshell finally dropped. That's cool, I guess. That chapter took an annoyingly long time to research and even longer to write convincingly.
I remember when I first started this quest, I figured it'd be an easy way to blow off steam. Kali's blunt and brusque, not very poetic, should be easy to push chapters out. Then I remembered that, uh, I had these annoying things called standards. And chapter commitments got higher and higher as I struggled to keep everybody in-character, including the idiom-loving Xiao, Qrow's weirdly sarcastic bluntness, etc. Thinking's the key to writing well. And while having less time to overthink has probably been good, it's also led to a number of mistakes I've only caught in post. Embarrassing.
I don't regret it, though. This is probably the third-most successful thing I've ever written, and definitely the second-longest. That's worth something.
As for the Miris vote… I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to push out a triple-length convo within my self-imposed deadline, especially on top of, like, actually narrating Xiao vs. Qrow. But I'm willing to try. So feel free to vote for up to three different things, I'll take the top two for sure, and if I've got time I'll do the third.
I'll probably struggle with that 'vote divisiveness' concept for a good while. Don't have high hopes on being able to fix that anytime soon, given the way I write stories. Considering the 'big vote' of where the story's main focus is going to be is coming up very soon… well, here's hoping.
Is it spoilers to say that it's highly unlikely that Xiao and Miris remain major characters for the foreseeable future?
Unrelated note: Mildly interesting Library of Ruina-related fun! Lepidoptera got me curious, mentioning GôDdBỹÉ's ridiculously high maxroll. So I compiled a list of the highest average rolls in Library of Ruina.
- Angela's The Knowing I: 999
- Penitence (Realization): 666
- Remorse's Please Don't Vanish Like This (Realization): 100
- Greta's Mealtime: 100
- Punishing Bird's Punishment!: 90
- Paradise Lost's Behold My Power and Do Not Deny Me (Realization): 66
- The Forgotten's Nostalgic Embrace of the Old Days (Realization): 60
- Fourth Match Flame's Fourth Match Flame (Realization): 60
- Marionette's Eliminate Error (Realization): 50
- Magic Bullet's Bullet of Despair (Realization): 50
- False Throne's Playtime is Over!!! (Realization): 40
- Philip's Blazing Strike: 35
- The Red Mist's Great Split: Horizontal: 35
- Argalia's Grand Finale: 35
- Tanya's Beatdown: 32
- Aspiration (E.G.O.): 31.5
- Mimicry's GôDdBỹÉ (Realization): 30
- Sound of a Star (E.G.O.): 30
- Ozma's Grief of the Deprived: 30
- Big Bird's Salvation: 30
- Happy Teddy Bear's Nostalgic Embrace of the Old Days: 30
- Baral's Serum W: 30
- The Black Silence's Furioso: 29.5
- The Red Mist's Great Split: Vertical: 29.5
- Jae-Heon's Backstitch: 29
- Zena's Shockwave: 28.5
- Tanya's Beatdown (Player Version): 27.5
- In the Name of Love and Hate (E.G.O.): 27.5
- Xiao's Tāo Tiè: 27.5
- Mimicry (E.G.O.): 27
- Fourth Match Flame (E.G.O.): 26
- 얀샋ㄷ요무's Distorted Blade (Player Version): 25.5
- Oswald's CLIMAX~!!!! (Player Version): 25.5
- Wrist Cutter's Sinking (Realization): 25
- Faint Memories' Grief of the Deprived (Realization): 25
- The Vermillion Cross's Rampageous Strike: 24.5
- Today's Expression (E.G.O.): 24
- Marionette (E.G.O.): 23
- Wrist Cutter (E.G.O.): 23
- Apocalypse (E.G.O.): 22.5
- Baral's Serum R: 22.5
- Dipsia (E.G.O.): 22.5
- Nikolai's Disposal: 22.5
- The Black Silence's Spew Smoke: 22.5
- 얀샋ㄷ요무's Distorted Blade: 21.5
Point is, this list is clearly not comprehensive. Still, I figured it was cool and wanted to share it.
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drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
I'm wondering if people knew that Ayin was the leader of L Corp. IRL, CEOs are decently famous, but considering what the City was like I can see why their names aren't all that well known. Knowing what he's been up to would... well, it'd tell Kali that he didn't fail at least.
Still, the most important things to know are Aura and the White Nights and Dark Days.
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
I'm wondering if people knew that Ayin was the leader of L Corp. IRL, CEOs are decently famous, but considering what the City was like I can see why their names aren't all that well known. Knowing what he's been up to would... well, it'd tell Kali that he didn't fail at least.
Still, the most important things to know are Aura and the White Nights and Dark Days.
Eternal_0bserver
(Unverified Bookworm)
- Location
- Earth, Northern Europe
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] White Nights
- [X] The laboratory
- [X] Plans
- [X] White Nights
- [X] The laboratory
- [X] Plans
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- Location
- Moscow, Russia
Before I cast my vote, I need some clarification. Does Kali know Roland or Angelica, he probably was not Black Death then, but still. Who fought against Kali? Was it Binah?
Edit:
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Current events.
- [X] White Nights.
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
Edit:
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Current events.
- [X] White Nights.
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
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And that's why she has EGO and didn't distort.
If only you knew the truth, none of this would have been possible if you hadn't been there, everyone would have been killed by Garion instead of Ayin and Benjamin surviving.
I really hope we can meet Gebura and she can explain what happened to Kali here, she really needs it.
Hello, early LobCorp Gebura.
No, this would be the Dark Days.
Also, White Night did nothing wrong.
...Still wondering when Project Moon will give us the Dark Day abnormality....
Yeah, Kali is constantly getting tripped up in conversation due to the White Nights, knowing that they came from L-Corp HQ and that L-Corp was Ayin's should make a lot quite more easy to understand for her.
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
Edit:
Nope, she fought Gebura:
She do knows about Angela's existence though, they have a conversation before the fight.
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Does Kali even know about the whole LobCorp business? Wasn't the old L Corp chosen as the target by Ayin and Benjamin after the fall of the laboratory?
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
drearyArchon
Chaos Lord Chaos
- Location
- The Floor of Social Sciences
Kali probably does not know about Roland or Angelica. They mentioned that they worked on completely opposite sides of the City and so never got the chance to meet.
Kali does not know about L Corp. yet. I'm hoping that the conversation would lead there with Kali asking about the source of the White Nights and Dark Days.
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] L Corp.
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] L Corp.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
Technically speaking, we did see what it could look like.
I'm pretty sure the Pale Librarian was the representation of the "Dark Days".
Pale librarian? Are you talking about the silent girl phase of keter? Or something else? I have no idea what you're referencing.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
One part that (the Second phase of the silent girl with those dark wings)
and one part bad ending Angela who is said to be the Pale Librarian, who would fit with the "dark days" theme better. Given that Angela decided to go all in and "take away salvation" for everyone even herself in Angela's Bad End.
Just think that part is full power silent girl, she is apparently noted as being a very special abnormality on some material, she is the first abnormality extracted and is a Zayin with the level of power you normally see in Alpehs (Zayin because she's completely harmless if you don't feel guilt, meaning you can contain her without any deaths easily, as long as you know who to send, and the classification is about how many death you can expect for containment).
As for the bad end, well, I havent seen it, that might work, don't know.
Part of my remark is about using the name *Dark day*, not just representing them, I actually think White Night represent the darks days, funnily enough, which would actually lead to this hypothetical abnormality being closer to one sin in behavior, to keep the contrast.
- Location
- Earth
You should go and watch them then. I think you can get the ending without redoing a certain Reception from just watching the after-battle cutscene.
Or you can be me and receive the guy three times in a row, just to grab all the endings in order
Like in Lobcorp where you can choose to answer *…* instead of the correct ones to see the bad endings, I see, well, I already was thinking of doing it once I was reminded of them, that just cement it, though I cannot right now.
Or you can be me and receive the guy three times in a row, just to grab all the endings in order
Half a mind to try some new strategies on him, funnily enough.
Three quick clarifications.
I might have to veto the Ayin/L Corp vote. I don't think it's ever been brought up in-story even once. Kali has no ability to know anything about Lobotomy Corporation, seeing as it only came to be after Binah killed her. Asking about it specifically is OOC knowledge, p sure. So... yeah. Odds are the White Nights topic will end up flowing into an L Corp summary anyway, so... choose something else, I suppose?
As for the people that received Kali in the Library... it was Roland, Binah, and Gebura, in that order. Generally, I assume that if the game gives you X floors for any given reception, 'canonically' speaking, it takes X floors to complete that reception.
I might have to veto the Ayin/L Corp vote. I don't think it's ever been brought up in-story even once. Kali has no ability to know anything about Lobotomy Corporation, seeing as it only came to be after Binah killed her. Asking about it specifically is OOC knowledge, p sure. So... yeah. Odds are the White Nights topic will end up flowing into an L Corp summary anyway, so... choose something else, I suppose?
This hasn't been implied in-story yet, but it won't be long until it is, so I feel comfortable sharing it: Kali actually knows Argalia personally, and Angelica very loosely by proxy. The Blue Sicko's entirely schtick as a Color was marketing and networking, and they're all about the same age. Neither of the siblings were Colors at the time, but Kali does at least know his name, that he uses a scythe with a degree of skill, and that he's really good at the stupid 'making friends' thing. She doesn't know much about Angelica, and definitely doesn't know anything about Roland. She's heard of Charles' Office, but isn't particularly familiar with its members.
As for the people that received Kali in the Library... it was Roland, Binah, and Gebura, in that order. Generally, I assume that if the game gives you X floors for any given reception, 'canonically' speaking, it takes X floors to complete that reception.
Huh. Sorry to call you out like this, but are you the same Talow from TeeQueue's LobCorp LP? If so, small fandom. If not, sorry and please carry on.
Yeah. and I'll go edit it with my second thought then.
Hmmmm..... You can count it as us making sure to ask for more information when the topic does flow to it? I can't talk for everyone but that's my first thought on how to make it IC, and I do really want to make sure to ask about it, there is soooooooo much that fly over Kali's head just due to that.
Here's the issue.
Xiao and Miris... don't actually know that much about L Corp? They were the green, clean, less mean, energy production company that replaced old L Corp with their massive smoke monster, coupled with some mumbo-jumbo about Enkephalin. Oh, and that weird pillar of Light came from the center of their Nest, and that seems to have caused all sorts of issues across the City. Other than that... shrug. They don't know that they created Abnormalities from there. They don't even know that Abnormalities were involved. I'm warning you guys away from this topic both because it's vaguely OOC knowledge and because it won't be very productive. There's no easy way to connect 'new energy company' to anything Kali's genuinely familiar with, and I get the sense she wouldn't have much motive to ask about them.
If you guys want to justify it like so, I guess I won't stop you, but I can't promise it will result in much. And if you guys have different headcanons or otherwise evidence that contradicts this, I'm open to hear it.
[X] Conversation topics with Miris?
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
- [X] Aura
- [X] White Nights
- [X] Ayin / L Corp.
questioningmeme
Just be yourself
- Location
- River of Light
The poor man is just too much of a massive punching bag.
His second phase is hilarious for this, here you are, in front of an gigantic monster, one that seems to have crawled right out of hell, with 1000 hp and four little summons that keeps coming back... and all it's resistances are at best weak, most of the time fatal, it constantly get staggered, it lose hp so fast you don't even see it, and it's adds are not any better. Now, his third phase is the strongest of them IMO, at least as long as you don't *cheat* it with Yesod.