Scene #7633: Featherman NEO Season 1 Episode 7 - Clash! The Mysterious Darkness???

Owner	Pose
Xion	It's oddly clear outside in the late morning to early afternoon, few people out on the streets. The good FEATHERMAN NEO stands next to two tourists, looking over their shoulder at a RESPECTABLE SOCIAL DISTANCE while observing local MASK GUIDELINES, a surgical mask hung awkwardly over his faceplate while pointing people down the lane for their destination. Another day's excellent work, Featherman! Observing local social distance guidelines helps battle the spread of an irredeemable foe: disease! Feathermen, do your part! Turning to FEATHER AWAY, the helmeted crusader finds the street abandoned save for one person - a vague shape in a concealing coat and hood. A black gloved hand raises up, slowly pointing at Featherman. Blue eyes look out from under the hood, clear even through the darkness. "Featherman Neo. You said you want to redeem everyone. Do you really have that power?" The raised hands fingers open, and then close around a twist of silver in the air as a starry-toothed keyblade 'shwink!'-s into existance. "Your heart tells me you aren't sure."
Featherman Neo	Featherman Neo readjusts his mask once he notices it's mostly abandoned. After a few moments of adjusting the surgical mask over his faceplate, he poses, and then notices the hooded figure with the blue eyes. They've never met. Not helmed enough to be a Dark Featherman... "Do I have the power...?" Featherman says, confused, as they draw their weapon. A fight. He doesn't have to use his 'intuition' to tell their intent, and he doesn't care enough to try and probe into their mind and find out who they are. That'll be revealed in due time. But they say his heart tells them. And he has no reason to doubt that - he, too, can read emotions and minds. Instead, he draws his his Wing Slasher red combat knife, and takes a defensive state. "I do not know why you have decided to challenge me...but I will not deny what you've said. Tell me - does it matter if I'm sure?" Featherman cautiously approaches, and then abandons caution with words and sprinting. "But you clearly want a fight, so allow me to take the first blow!" The knife moves to slash across her coat, trying to damage her, but it's not going to be a deep blow even if she was weak.
Xion	"You know why. I just told you." The blue-eyed keyblader adjusts her stance to hold her keyblade two handed and low - her stance widening. Her heeled boots scuff the ground beneath her as she lowers-- Featherman lunges and slashes, Xion making a deft backstep as the knife scrapes dark cloth and catches on silver zippers before sliding free. "It matters. 'Redeeming everyone' is a goal that requires an unreasonable power. So much that it's absurd. Show me it. Can you?" Her prepared stance sweeps her keyblade diagonally up. Her body follows and turns, rotating to plant a kick into Featherman's guard and shove off, air-hiking into a downward chop with a pale-blue aftertrail of light. When it connects, stars and sparkles explode off the point of touching, whimsical twinkles that bounce off the ground and roll to a stop before melting like sugar candies. "If you're saying it because you say whatever you like, Featherman, I'll be the reason you think more about your words!"
Featherman Neo	Xion slashes into Featherman, kicking off him and creating exploding 'twinkles'. His armor sparks from the blow, skidding him back, as his surgical mask tilts off to the side of his face from sheer blow. He quickly moves to realign it... "I'll try. I don't know your gauge, but I'll try my hardest! But don't believe I'm saying it because I say whatever I like..." "I say it because it's the ideal I believe in! That everyone has the chance to be redeemed! And I want to try and be one of the ones to do it!" A hand goes up. A round locket appears in it, and is quickly slid into the belt, as the knife is put into a defensive stance. The locket clicks in. SNAPSHOT The locket slides open, revealing a picture of an armored knight Featherman. FEATHERMAN ENGARDE - SUMMON Another Featherman, with a giant lance and a wrist shield, appears next to Featherman Neo. "Let's show her our strength, my friend." Featherman Neo charges in for another slash, but mid-slash, twists on his feet, turning into a human whirlwind. While he's doing that, Engarde tries to take advantage by priming that lance full of holy light, and charging forward to pierce into her guard, trying to knock her back and damage her simultaneously.
Xion	"How irresponsible, Featherman Neo..." The hooded fighter answers simply, extending her blue-hilted keyblade out to point with her keytip. Featherman Engarde emerges from FEATHERSPACE, and the spinning attack becomes... A tornado. Featherman(s) make a terrible mistake they couldn't have known about, and attack the hooded warrior with a tornado. The strike connects, and as Featherman Neo becomes a whirlwind and Featherman Engarde strikes in with the MAXIMUM FEATHER flurry of blows, the expression of the black coat softens and erodes away in the wind, leaving... Nothing at all. A brown haired girl with bright blue eyes, a white top with blue trim, and a lilac skirt grips Starlight in both hands, looking unimpressed with Featherman's assault. "You're going to need more than a tornado to change everyone's hearts, Neo." The tattered black coat that 'Kairi' had been wearing falls and flutters to the ground next to her, pierced through a half-dozen times by Engarde's strikes. 'Kairi' spares a hand to sweep it through her short hair, expression still set. Her other hand lifts Starlight again, pointing it at Engarde and Neo both. "'I want to'. 'My dream is'. 'Neo is the hope of redemption'. You could have said those things, but instead you skipped through the hard parts. Well, here it is." "I'm the hard part." A crackling dark purple fizzes in the air between Neo and Engarde, before erupting into a sphere of distorted darkness. "You have no appreciation for the words you're saying, Neo. You should appreciate their weight - the Gravity!" The distorting-sphere implodes in a shearing, tearing force.
Featherman Neo	As the girl is revealed...Featherman Neo has no idea who this is. But it doesn't matter. She's the hard part, right? "Hah...I guess I always have. Not an admirable trait for a hero, no. But cutting the Gordian knot...has always been my bad spot!" The sphere of distorted darkness is growing. It's about to implode, probably doing major damage to the pair. Featherman Neo shouts out. "FEATHER BARRIER!" Featherman Engarde suddenly raises its shield arm, and a prismatic several layer barrier appears in front of Neo, on the ground. The gravity still affects them, causing both to slam hard into the barrier on opposite sides, but only Engarde eats the shearing and tearing, physical toughness protecting it from the worst of it. Featherman Neo still seems to wince from that, though, hard. "If you can read my heart...can't you see why I'm doing this? I know it's not easy. I know I'm promising the world. But I have- no, I want to!" With Engarde injured, and Neo in whiplash, Neo grabs another locket from midair. "Hibiki, allow me to borrow the power of our bond!" He presses a button on the belt, and a second slot opens up, where he places it in. SNAPSHOT It locks in, and the picture slides open. Featherman Neo with Hibiki Tachibana. HIBIKI TACHIBANA - PISTON ARMS The picture slides closed, as a pair of massive rocket-powered piston gauntlets appear over Featherman's fists. He pulls his fist back as the barrier ceases to exist and Engarde starts to steady himself... And moves to land a pair of powerful jabs on Xion, before the rockets kick in and move for a massive uppercut!
Xion	The power of Hibiki, perhaps the unstoppable object herself, flows into Featherman Neo. He takes the fore, with Engarde in knockdown stun. It is just the pair -- 'Kairi' and Neo. The ground breaks with the empowered lunge, snapping and shattering as the fist swings in close Kairi leans out of the way, rolling through every-other frame of existance. The powered uppercut whiffs past her ear. Starlight disappears into a ball of silver light around her fist as the invetable cross-up second blow sweeps towards her. Catching the piston-powered fist with a gloved hand, the wash pumps across her, rippling down her arm as her smaller fingers hold back the blow. "Tachibana Hibiki. I know her too." Kairi smiles distantly, her eyes reflecting Featherman Neo's helmet. "I know I said you must have an unreasonable power to say the things you said, but borrowing a snapshot of Gungnir still isn't enough." Her silver power-coated fist has the energy lift to the shoulder and resolves into a mechanical sleeve in red across her arm, the end opening in a charged plasma cannon with a black barrel that instantly surges with power. "Does it feel right to say you'll redeem everyone?" Kairi asks, tilting her head as her arm cannon fires towards Neo's center of mass, pkoom-pkoom!.
Featherman Neo	"Hrk!" Featherman has his blow caught, and then is shot in the chest, sparking and skidding him back as it blasts straight into the white 'plumage' of armor. "If someone else's power alone was enough, then I'd just have them do the job." He agrees with her, and then responds to her question as he straightens up. "...it does. It feels like the only way I can be the me I want to be. If you've seen my heart, you've seen the darkness inside. I hate that about me. That specific darkness I have..." "So I want to be the hero that redeems others." He moves to doofily grab one of his medals from the belt, the Engarde one. Engarde disappears as he does. He then slots it into the side of the gauntlet, very carefully. SNAP SHOT The gauntlet begins to charge with vermillion energy. PISTON ARMS - ENGARDE STRIKER This time, he's combining his own power of Engarde with that of Hibiki's gauntlets for a flashy tokusatsu-style super punch, trying to actually push his rival back with sheer force! This blow's hopefully more accurate, as he has a better idea of how she moves and dodges now, and is aiming to try and avoid that.
Xion	'Kairi' stands there, defiant in the face of even the compound power of the unstoppable force and the redeeming object. 'So I want to be the hero that redeems others.' She waits, mechanical sleeve pouring down her arm to re-form Starlight in a muted flash. She waits, because recieving the feelings is also why she is here. He says his piece, and, very gently, 'Kairi' smiles. It does not reach her eyes. It does not reach her sword-clenched fingers. "If that's how you feel..." 'Kairi's brow drops. "I can't let your 'redemption' stand unchallenged, Featherman Neo. I oppose your judgement." The piston fist connects with a flashingly-raised guard, 'Kairi' bracing her hand near the comb to take the whole blow against her weapon. The ground cracks and deforms underneath her, pavement creaking and asphalt starting to bubble and run. The detonation of power comes, a colorful explosion of FEATHERMAN ENERGY. From the cloud comes her voice. "If you hate what is inside of you, then you can't redeem others. Wearing masks on top of your crying eyes isn't a solution." The cloud hangs, stopped from expanding in time by a tense pulse of energy, and then the whole thing splits in half and falls to either side of a brilliant line in the air. 'Kairi' stands behind Featherman ENGARDE-NEO and casually sets her blade casually across her shoulder, rising from a post-slash crouch that Neo didn't take part in. A half-heartbeat later, a space-distorting and pause-buffered counterslash rips through the cloud.
Featherman Neo	'Kairi' challenges Featherman Neo's redemption. His judgement. This is the part where the hero denies her, where he claims he can do it anyways. But... As the counterslash finally hits him, sending him scattering back with sparks flying heavily, he's still standing. "I'll give you all I have, because you asked for it. But..." "If they can't be redeemed, nobody can. So I will keep trying, because I want to be the one to save them. But..." The fist is brought back again. One last time. Featherman suddenly leaps as high as he can, which is decently high, and moves to go into a downwards punch, trying to slam 'Kairi' against the ground. "If my path is wrong, please, teach me! Teach me how to be what I desire! I want to be the one who redeems others! I want to be the one who can show others how not to walk my path of darkness! Don't just knock me around because you don't agree - show me the path to continue further!" The rocket-piston fist suddenly detonates, if it had indeed hit 'Kairi'. It detonates in another explosive burst of vermillion energy. He knows he doesn't have much left... So he's giving it his all. To show that he has power, even if it's not that unreasonable power. That he is capable, if he just knows the right way.
Xion	'If my path is wrong, please, teach me!' His fist thrust forward, exploding with all the force Neo's heart can muster. It swings into 'Kairi', and detonates explosively. His attempt at 'Unreasonable Power'. Unlike before, the vermilion energy does not hang or clash. In the eye of it, 'Kairi' stands, the crackling vermilion not reaching her. Her hair flutters in a gently-expressed breeze. "Show you? Okay." Her hair darkens, the red-auburn dripping off of her until only raven black remains. "The vermilion light of your tears isn't enough to reach me, Neo. The spear of your partner isn't enough to reach me. Your 'redemption' can't reach me." "How can it? It hasn't reached you yet." Stepping through the coruscating red, Xion's empty hand pushes Featherman Neo lightly on the chest. The weight feels like dying. A pressure falls like a globe on Atlas' shoulders.
Featherman Neo	Xion walks through the attack, revealing herself. She says her rival words. She pushes Neo on the chest. The pressure is overwhelming. He drops to his knees. It feels like he's gonna die. He's felt that before. Many times. This is...the strength of her matured resolve, isn't it? "...because I still hate myself, even after all these years. Because I can't accept what's inside me." Featherman tries to stand. He struggles. He's out of the fight - Xion can see that much. "I've got to love myself to love others. I've got to believe in redeeming myself, to redeem others. Hah...hah. It will be a hard road. Perhaps a wise one would take off the helmet now, and reveal themselves, so that they can earn it." He looks at Xion closely. Despite his resolve that helps him resist reading, she can feel this as a powerful resolve. "But I can't. Because I wear this mask to save someone else, too. And if they knew who I was right now, they would fall to a hate so strong, it'd consume them. Not until the time is right can I hug them again. But your lesson...I suppose you don't hear this from the hero types often..." "Thank you. I hope someday, we can become friends."
Xion	From over Featherman Neo, as he tries to get up hangs Xion and her shadow, wrists placed firmly against her hips as her fingers curl. "You don't really have to be so dramatic. When you laugh so loudly it sounds forced, so pick a more comfortable mask to wear for your daily life is my suggestion." Xion extends a hand down to help up Neo. "You don't have to take it off. Be whoever you want. Just show more care. Especially to yourself. When you arrive in a crisis, one of the people who you need to save is 'yourself', Featherman Neo. Don't forget it." With a brief smile that does reach her blue eyes, Xion yanks Featherman up, takes a few twirking steps back -- And disappears in a frame-jump and a vertical camera pan. And then a little dark portal-hole opens in the ground, large enough to grab her coat off the ground where it fell and drag it down too. She almost forgot!