Fortuna Verto

72-Missing Future

On another timeline, distantly in the future, a desperate project had begun in order to salvage all hope. On that timeline, Axln had just sent both Velvet and then even Mheridz, her own daughter, distantly into the past.

Axln knew this had been a plan for them for quite a long time now, but her hesitation had brought them to this. Lyun.. was now dead, that was an incident which had hit her incredibly hard.. and it still was. The two of them had been through these troubled times as vanguard for so long, since before they were their children's current ages. Everything had been difficult, but they had endured. Now, however, she was truly alone. The people who remained on the other side were no longer in her reach without Lyun around, not while she was stuck on this side. She would thus even remain on this one world her whole life too, her travels were over. Of the people on this side, her daughter was now gone too. Having effectively agreed to sending her daughter to a timeline which would offer only death as a reward.. Axln simply could not spare the courage to face her husband with the news, either. Her sister.. Xwyhr had long disappeared after being expelled from the academy, even before Mheridz was born. There was no evidence, but it was safe enough to assume Xwyhr had died, much like Ezhyrae all that time ago. Death was rather rampant in society now, it really was only inevitable at this point.

Axln took her sanctuary aboard the citadel, the only escape that had yet remained to her. It was possibly the most protected place in the world, untouchable by all of the outside threats. However, she knew it wasn't any long term solution, the place simply wasn't stocked with the resources to survive in for very long, especially if the surface was completely overwhelmed. It was then, as such, even hiding here would simply be a slow and painful death. This is why she knew such was not a sanctuary she could hide in for long, she needed to make use of what she could to improve her odds.. by any measure left available to her. Knowing this, she went to find Luna, her only remaining confidant in the whole world.

"Hello inheritor. Was your excursion successful?" "We've lost Lyun, so things have gone really bad. I just guided Mheridz over to the foundry, got her setup with everything she would need to get established in the past. Velvet should be doing the same thing. Both of them are gone then too." "That is unfortunate. Would you like a battle update situation?" "Is it more bad news, or is there anything good this time?" "I assume this would count as bad news. The enemy has appeared again near the academy in vast numbers. One of them has been identified as a high class target. Reports from our forces have classified its ability as one which can manipulate outcomes by influencing probability." "So it's capable of making us unlucky. Considering how things look so far, I fail to see how that changes anything." Luna's news just felt like the most obvious outcome of events at this point, according to Axln. Having bad luck was simply everything staying constant.

"How would you like to proceed?" "Might as well do the same thing as always. Send me down to the front lines, I'll work to deal with it somehow. If there is a safe opportunity, as always, take it out." Luna nodded an acknowledgement, leaving Axln to prepare for a rift. Soon, she was down there confronting the battalion of her enemy, feeling as much into much of anything as Luna probably was. She quite honestly felt broken, simply going through the motions at this point. She attacked the nearest with a dust claw strike.. only to miss as an ashen dune happened to slide open at that point to have her fall in. She at least got their attention, which was a great start. When they turned to attack her, she simply set up a shadow barrier, an act which was designed to unmake them with dark elementals. However, something in her design messed up, with the shadows instead breaking down the distance between it and her, the strike then landing even more defiantly. The impact sent her flying, leaving her considerably dazed in the effort and rather uncoordinated, which for the most part left her simply open for a follow-up strike.

It was at this point, so completely uncoordinated and alone, that she missed Lyun more than anything else at all. She really could use some help right about now from her lifelong friend.