bart11

Starring: Seifer Almasy, Bart Fatima
Locations: Grounds outside Balamb Garden
Date of Log: May 13, 2001

You've been given an assignment. Take out a couple of other wetback Cadets and scour the countryside for those creatures that've been apparently causing the plagues in Garden and Balamb Town. It's been an interesting time, you've found a few of them and they were slaughtered rather easily. Their disease likely won't harm you thanks to your stamina junction. The Cadets with you have GFs too, and vitality or stamina junctions. This why you three were sent out, because Cid doesn't want anyone else getting sick. However, as you wander across the plains and woodlands of Balamb Isle, you hear something up ahead, it sounds like voices. The female Cadet with you, a girl named Lyia, murmurs something about checking it out. But her and the male Cadet, Zander, defer to you. After all, neither wants to get on your bad side.
Should you go in a little closer, you'd discover what's going on. There is some sort of shimmering portal off to the side, and a bunch of people dressed in strange, pearlesque armor surrounding a fat little man dressed in desert clothing attire. He stands next to a very tall... and rather adrongenous looking individual and a second youth with sungold hair, who is collared by a metal band, the leash attached to said collar held by the androgenous person.

Seifer creeps forward, ducking low into a patch of tall grasses as his eyes scan the scene before him. Turning back and forth between the cadets crouched beside him, the senior cadet puts one finger over his mouth, using the other hand to gesture. Pointing, he commands Lyia to circle around the left, and Zander the right. 'Stay low, and stay hidden until my sign' he mouths to each of them, turning his pale blue eyes back to the portal. He searches the rag-tag group, looking for weapons obvious and subtle.

They're not all that rag tag a group. The pearly armored soldiers carry some sort of weapons that resemble pick axes. But they glow slightly, and pulse with energy. Not your normal weaponry, that's for sure. The fat little man doesn't appear to have any weapons, and he just looks smug, speaking to the ... woman? Well, whatever. "Adel, I think we should close this gate, move it to another location. There were some of those SeeDs wandering about here earlier."
Adel nods, peering suddenly toward the area where you and the cadets are hidden, but not really seeing you, just looking in that direction. "Yes," the voice is also androgenous, difficult to tell of Adel is really male or female. "We will move it." Of this she is certain and it's rather clear that -everyone- is deferring to her at the moment. Strange... she doesn't appear to be armed either. Tugging on the leash, the blonde haired youth at her side gurks as this 'Adel' makes him follow her back toward the Gate. Apparently a pet of some sort, he is not carrying any weapons. Just the soldiers.
Lyia nods and moves to where directed, Zander also heading off to the right. Both are quiet as church mice in the action.

Seifer frowns suddenly, the name echoing repeteadly in his ears. Adel? Adel? Images of school teachers flitted in his head as he tried to recall the memory. However, he was soon shaken from the recollection as the...figure...looked in his direction. His body hit the ground even farther, his face turned to the side as anxiety washed over him. What the hell was going on? Another voice echoed in his head, Matango's intrusive voice. 'Seifer...Adel is a...". Seifer growled lightly, closing his eyes to push the annoying voice away again. The need for action overcame him as Matango's anger came, and Seifer lept, stupidly, to his feet. One hand gestured briefly for the cadets to stay down...for now as he began to stride toward the group. "Hey!" He waved his arms over his head, sweeping his vision across their faces. Grey coat fluttered in the wind, and he made an effort not to look at his hidden comrades. "Over here!"

A Sorceress? Is that what your GF was attempting to warn you? Yes, Adel very much is a Sorceress. She smiles faintly as she has known all this time that she and the others were being watched. Turning, she touches the sunhaired youth's head, brushing at his gold hair idly as one might stroke a pet. "So, you decide to show yourself." She knows of the others too, but lets them stew for now. Is it this one who is bold enough to stride forward that interests her. The little fat man doesn't stick around, he's fragile and easy to hurt, see and... darts through the portal as fast as he can.
Though all five soldiers stand ready to defend their Sorceress if need be, she gestures for them not to fire. Not yet, at least. Overconfident, perhaps, but she has a lot of power at her disposal. Besides, she's in the mood for games. "Are you strong?" she asks, still stroking the youth's hair. He doesn't seem to like it much, but doesn't draw away from her either, enduring it.

Seifer grins, holding his arms out wide as he continues to stride toward the group. 'Sorceress Idiot, Sorceress!' Matango screamed into his mind, but by now it was far to late. The grin falters for only an instant, but comes quickly back, firmly entrenched in smugness. "I would say so..." He responds to Adel, stopping suddenly about 4 yards away from the group. Now what? "Well, quite the picnic we're having here?"

"So you say," Adel replies, still grinning, her canines abnormal and fangish. Her voice is still a cross between male and female in intonation. "Perhaps I should test your strength." That tone of voice grows almost sickly sweet then, trickling like overly ripe fruit about to rot off the vine, "Bartolomei, test this one for me. See if he is worthy." Startlingly blue eyes regard the woman warily as his head tilts slightly to the side, looking up at her before shaking his head. An act of defiance, but he doesn't want to hurt anyone.
The leash is removed off the boy's collar. And then a hand shoves him forward, beyond compelled to to obey his Sorceress' wishes. You're looking at a Knight, Seifer, though this is hardly the romantic ideal the books have portrayed to you. "Show him that you are strong, Bartolomei. That my Knight is strong."
Hands covered by fingerless gloves clench and unclench and he sighs, "I don't want to hurt you. I don't have a choice, however." Still, he seems to be leaving the first move to you.

Seifer stands unmoving, his arms crossing over his chest as he watches the scene. His eyebrow raises suddenly, observing the 'prisoner' as he advance. His mind (and Matango's) clicks that this must be a knight, and inwardy Seifer is quite shocked. Eyebrows arc again in confusion, and Seifer drops into a half-hearted defensive crouch. "Fight...him?" He glances at Bartolomei. "All right." A ringing of silver tore across the plains as he drew the Hyperion from its sheath at his hip. Saluting the Knight, Seifer dips the end of the blade and begins to circle.

For once, Bart is at a loss. His primary weapon is whips, and he does not have one with him. Well, not yet. One of the soldiers is instructed and thusly tosses the leather thing toward the sunhaired youth. He'd prefer two, but one at least betters his chances. As the circling starts, he cracks the whip to unfurl it further, opposite hand held outward a touch defensively. It's Seifer's weapon that he's eyeing, he's only seen one other person use something like that. Fatima blue eyes narrow, wary. His heart just isn't in this at all, but there is that voice at the back of his head, demanding and compelling him to obey.
Finally, he gets tired of just circling and cracks the whip toward Seifer, aiming for a wrist. If it grabs hold, he'll draw back, trying to jerk his opponent off balance.
Adel, meanwhile, seems unconcerned, watching with a sadistic sort of enjoyment. The soldiers merely wait.

Moving gracefully, Seifer's liquid movements seemed more akin to a feline than any clunky human form. Eagle eyes followed every gesture, the whip seeming to slide in slow motion toward him. The cadet spun to one side, out of reach of the whips coiling end. Knowing the whip usually an unwieldy thing, he rushed in behind it, the gunblade raised as he charged. Seifer moved for a horizontal slash, designed more to intimidate or test the defenses then to cleave.

And Seifer will find that Bart is rather fast. Though the prince is not very strong, and Badb doesn't grant him a strength junction, she does gift him with unnatural speed and that is what saves him now. Ducking under the slash as he also moves to the side, one moment Bart is there and in the next, he isn't, moving to circle around Seifer and catch him from behind, the whip cracking at his opponent again, this time just to get his attention by tagging him on the back with a sharp thwack, should he succeed, at least. On top of that, the whip has begun to glow. Red ether streaking it. If it hits, it's gonna leave a mark which will probably just piss Seifer off. Got a lot of pride in that coat there?

Seifer staggers backward at the sudden blurr, thrown off balance as the Knight speeds around him. He felt Matango's intrusions, but decided this time that the battle rage would only get him killed. The sudden sting slashing into his back turned him on his heel, but it was nothing compared to the sudden anger. One gesture flung off his coat, the slash destroying it's back completely. "Oooo...no good." Fast fast...what was fast? Lightning. OOooo. Seifer's hand shot forward, a crimson glow rimming his eyes with throbbing power. A bolt of thunder erupted from the energy in his hand, lancing toward Bart.

Startlingly blue eyes go wide, and within the span of a moment, twin wings unfold from the boy's back, lifting him up into the air as that lightning spell is launched at him. He doesn't completely escape from it, twitching as it strikes at his legs and knocks him out of the air, onto his side. The rest of the spell head straight toward Adel, though she must have some kind of sheild up, it is absorbed harmlessly and doesn't even appear to phase her. Knowing that he is now quite vunerable, Bart touches at his forehead and then points toward his opponent, "Confuse." He really doesn't want to hurt Seifer, and so chooses the only one of his spells that he thinks won't cause a lot of damage. Besides, there's half a chance it won't even work.

Seifer turns his gaze upward, decidedly startled at both the wings and Adel's apparent invunribility. Matango's warning of sorceress again echoed in his mind, and Seifer's gunblade moved again into it's hypnotic defensive dance. The blade before him turned into a writhing snake, and Seifer dropped it to the ground in one terrified gesture. Pale blue eyes settled on Cloud, who stood where Adel once had been. The figure floating above him looked much like Rinoa, and he frowned and staggered backward, "Rinoa?" A voice called to him, as if struggling against a heavy wieght. The White Gryphon. 'Seifer! It is sorcery, confusion! Fight it!' Realization dawning, he brought his willpower to buy against the intrusive magic. The confusion peeled away, and Seifer lept to the ground to avoid any magics or attacks aimed at his way when he was under the haze. One hand groped for the gunblade he knew rested on the ground.

Seeing that the confusion spell actually did its trick, Bart leaps back to his feet, the wings pulled back inward now that he doesn't need them. He's just full of tricks, but most of them aren't Badb's doing, he's a Fatima, and it's inherant in the blood. Be glad you're not battling his older brother. As soon as he sees his opponent reaching for the gunblade, he juts a palm outward, blasting out an Aero spell in an attempt to stop Seifer from retrieving his lost weapon by knocking him backward with a gale of wind. (Interesting to have two people with Wind GFs battle it out, isn't it?) Later on he'll wonder how Seifer knows Rinoa, but for now he's just trying to subdue the Cadet without actually -hurting- him. If he can make Seifer look bad, Adel won't have an interest in him. You don't want her to have an interest in you. -.- Bart found this out the hard way.

Seifer senses the sudden energies in the air, the air increasing to furious intensity. Unable to react in time, the blast picked him up and threw him backward across the grass. 'Do not lose your blade' another of Matango's intrusions offered, and even in the air Seifer began his own spell. Another Aero spell was inacted, focusing on the Hyperion laying in the grass. It tore into the air, aimed in the direction of the flying cadet. Blade and man met at the same instant, and Seifer landed unharmed on his feet, his gunblade in hand. The smug man bowed, flourishing his weapon. "Tada.!" 'You are an Ass eternal, truly.'

Now, pardon, but Bart does have to pause at this little display, a hand on his hip in a manner that suggests regality rather than a fighting stance. He grins, can't help it. Were circumstances different, he'd probably congradulate his opponent on such a smooth move. Badb, on the other hand, remembers Seifer rather well and isn't impressed, her feathers ruffled somewhere at the back of Bart's mind. <Such a cocky little child. He hasn't changed a whit from when he was Irvine's roommate. Show him what you're made of, Bart.> *Angel?* <Yes.>
"Good night, my friend," Bart says, the wings unfolding from his back then, an radiating aura of holiness surrounding him suddenly as he lifts into the air. The wings are ethereal, almost, not quite real. It's almost as if you touched them, you would expect your hand to go right through it, even though they are real in a sense and can be felt. Hovering off the ground, the wings begin a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat, flapping back and forth to create a gale force wind far stronger than the Aero spell, even stronger than Tornado. Strong enough to knock the Cadet off his feet and into the woodlands beyond unless somehow Seifer's GF can defend his chosen against this elemental attack.
It's actually a spectacular sight, braided hair unfurling and shimmering with a golden light as if he truly were seraphim descended temporarily from the heavens, blue eyes alight with an unnatural intensity, body haloed.

Seifer frowns, feeling the Gryphon's words. 'Give up control Seifer, now.' Knowing the GF was speaking in desperation, the cadet let himself slide into the background. His own eyes began to glow with crimson fury, a red light limning his whole being right as the attack began. Seifer and his Guardian pulled together, a force of wills and magic fighting Badb and Bart's powers. Seifer floated in the air, the gale force winds ripping him from the ground. Before he could be thrown backward, he enacted counter magics, aero spells and a tornado on himself to counteract the elemental attack. Seifer's hand worked continously, using his repertoire of spells and Matango to hold him floating in the air, opposing winds blasting infront of him and behind him, fighting the Knight's power. "No!" The cadet growled in defiance, a pulse of scarlet light rippling from his body in a tremendous force of strength he didn't even know he was capable of. Despite their efforts, Seifer began to slowly slide backward in the air, fighting the winds.

Even if this looks cool, it's damned tiring. Bart can't keep it up forever. Adel looks very pleased in the background, actually eyeing the prince quite hungrily. The ether in him is at an all time high, and if it weren't for the fact that she is not in secure surroundings, she would grab and junction him right now to absorb those delicious powers and feed on his life essense made only more delicious by a heavy infusion of that raw, unstable energy. Lucky for him... and for Sigurd, who is empathically linked to his baby brother.
As for Bart, he grits his teeth, feeling the resistance to what he's doing, as well as the strain it puts on his wings and on the muscles in his back. This is going to leave him sore for awhile, but he keeps it up, seeing that the resistance is slowly fading, Seifer being driven backwards by the force of his Limit Break. It's determination that keeps him going, keeping Adel's interest on him rather than on the Cadet. "Go back... god dammit... tell Sigurd he can't save me this time." Sigurd? Does he mean Instructor Harcourt?

Seifer screams again, but with a noticable lack of energy. The winds continue to buffet, the red glow fading rapidly. Matango was not tiring, but Seifer's body could not yet take the energies flowing through him. The cadet slumped, his head lolling and his eyes rolling up white as he passed into unconciousness. His body flew backward but in a steep downward arc, slamming into the ground relatively nearby. His body did not stir, and his blade lay embedded into the earth a few feet from him.

Bart drops to the ground, crouching there with his chest heaving. The wings fall abjectly around him, too weak at the moment to so much as lift them an inch. "Shit..." he curses, feeling the need to vomit almost from his exersions, like he exercised too much and too quickly and had not yet caught his second wind. Adel strides forward at this point, looking a bit on the ponderous side. Slowly she begins to approach the unconcious form of Seifer even as Bart looks up and watches her, alarm in his features. "Adel..."
There is a mocking laugh from the Sorceress, turning to look at her Knight, "Silence, Bartolomei. You have done well. But, do not push your luck." However, she doesn't come any closer to the Cadet, turning instead and heading toward the winged boy who still lies exhausted on the ground, attaching that silver leash to his collar again. With a hand, she gestures for everyone to follow her, heading toward the portal to leave. Apparently she isn't going to take on another Knight, sparing Seifer the pain and horror of it.

Seifer stirs suddenly, one hand grasping futiely at the ground. Where his body had failed him, Matango's stamina junction had not. The Cadet slowly pulled himself to his knees, his head drooping as he fought to look toward the Sorceress and her knight. "Come back here...coward."(Shades of Monty Python, Anyone?) He growled, moving to stand. Seifer collapsed again, his locked arms and pride the only things preventing him from falling face first into the dust. "I'm not...finished...yet..."

The collar is jerked on, making Bart wearily get back to his feet, staggering slightly as his muscles scream at him for daring to move. However, he's allowed to stop as Seifer gets back to his feet, sort of. Adel grins then, those fangs revealed as she can't help but be impressed by the Cadet's mettle. "You are strong." This she sounds confident of and with Bart being dragged behind her, she moves toward him.
"No.. Adel don't... oh god..." is all Bart can really say. Adel reaches down toward you, a blinding mental flash suddenly invading your mind, penetrating any mental defenses like an elephant treading through tin foil. She's trying to make a new Knight, and she's decided she wants you. Bart groans, feeling he has failed in his attempt to spare you of this...

Seifer growls, again attempting to take to his feet. Managing only a kneel, his hand closes over the hilt of his gunblade. To weak to lift it, he glares at Adel, "That's right I'm str..." His words ended in a scream as he felt the presence in his mind. Matango threw in all his strength to defend his chosen's mind, but the Sorceress' power tosses the Guardian aside like a rag doll. The Cadet fall to his hands and knees, clutching his temples.

There is a look of sadness on Bart's features, for he knows what you are going through. He felt it too, that first time. And now he is too exhausted to stop her, though he can't. She compels him to defend her, fight for her, do things for her. He cannot attack her. As the pain clears from your mind, you can feel Adel back there, and she is pleased with you, compelling you to rise to your feet and follow her. Just hope she doesn't decide to give you a collar like the one Bart has.

Seifer rises slowly, with a strength he had no had a moment before. Confusion raced through his thoughts as his body moved at her command. Matango now seemed a dim thing, still with him but as confined as the Cadet was now. He gathered his gunblade and sheathed it at his side, following behind the sorceress with energy not his own. Eyed drift slowly toward the two cadets, still hidden in the tall grasses now out of fear than his orders not to move.

Those Cadets dare not move now, seeing the power of the Sorceress, and of the Knight with the longer blonde hair. Adel doesn't at all seem interested in them. Let them return to Garden and tell the others what they have seen today. She wants you. With a small purr, she jerks on Bart's chain then and leads you toward the portal, compelling you to follow her. You are her knight now, you must protect and aid her, these things you know, and even if you realize it and attempt to resist, you cannot bring yourself to harm her. Bart sighs and shakes his head, following along because he too has no choice. It seems that since her old Knights are attempting to resist her, she is gathering more.

Seifer follows after her, looking from the portal to her old knight. So far, this did not look good at all. 'Great job, Ass.' Matango's voice echoed dimly, and Seifer knew the GF was just as frightened as himself. A Sorceress. Knight. Life long dreams of the Knights he had wanted to emulate suddenly faded, interplaced by the picture of Bart, bowed under the wieght of the collar and Adel's power. Today was definately not a good day.