A Tale of Six Trillion Years And A Night [DE PvP]

[Deleted]

"That was a great fight you put in for, Albin Landry, toward the end you really had me thinking about how to press for an advantage. I think if we'd gone on much longer, I probably would have had to use one or both of my releases just to get the job done. So y'know, good on you, Third Seat." ...What? What? "What?" He asked aloud, completely dumbfounded by her comment, "there's... You mean to tell me that you didn't release at all during that fight?"

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. Not just one, but two releases this girl had? And she hadn't used either of them? He felt sick to his stomach. He thought he put up one hell of a fight; she'd pressed him to pull out almost all of the stops. And to think; she hadn't even released yet. She hadn't even begun to tap into her own abilities. While certainly making him curious, the thought alone filled Albin with existential dread.

"If nothing else," he spoke, "I'm glad I was able to hold my own as long as I was able to against you. Truth be told, I don't know what I would've done if you'd decided to release. Though, color me surprised; I would've guessed that those fish of yours were related to your personal abilities. I've got to admit, I'm certainly curious to see what you're capable of." Giving Nuala a friendly smile, Albin began to ponder for a brief moment on what her release might've been.

As Nuala began to compliment her own fish, and started to allow them to enter that "home" she had set up for them behind her, Albin couldn't help but smile. If nothing else, those fish of hers certainly made the fight interesting. He'd never seen anything like them before; even his own Captain's summons hadn't been that captivating to take on in combat. She'd certainly piqued his interest with them. Especially so as a large shark - aptly named Ricardo - made himself present, emerging from her reef and taking shape as the absolutely massive "fish" he seemed to be.

"Name's Nuala. Nuala Byrne. I own a tea shop over that way." He made a mental note of the location. He'd have to visit at some point, provided they stayed on fair terms. "You're the injured party here. I've got some questions, but let's cover yours, first. What do you want to know, Shinigami?" Giving her another smile, Albin stretched out his shoulders; tried to power through the injuries he'd been reminded of. With a wince from his own movements, he started to speak.

"Thanks for sharing, Nuala," he said, "I appreciate it. For starters, though; I saw you had one of those Quincy charms during our fight. Stuck out like a sore thumb all things considered. Though, despite that, I didn't once see you manifest a bow. Not to mention your talk about having two separate releases? You remind me of someone I met a while back; a half-Quincy, actually. Had some hellish-side to him as well. Are you by chance like that too?"

(OOC: Nuala's the victor of this fight!)

[Nuala Byrne]

Nuala blinked at Albin's disbelief. She paused for a moment when he posed the question, and then laughed out loud, practically giggling. "No, I didn't release! Haha," she laughed a little more, her voice high and loud, then giggled some, and then chuckled herself into quietude. She smiled, shaking her head at Albin. Release her powers, in a fight this trivial. As if she'd live down Priska's memory like that. She cleared her throat.

Albin went on for a little bit about her fish and her capabilities. He thought about his Captain's summons, a notion that piqued Nuala's interest, though she did nothing to voice it. She answered him instead. "The fish are related to my personal abilities, just not to my unique powers," she explained. "I spent some time studying under a mentor and developed my fishy friends using Soul Command to evoke and manipulate their spiritual signatures as they developed across a few generations. Except for the whale sharks. They had to be developed at a more accelerated rate since they live so long."

The Shinigami commented on her bangle, referring to it as a "Quincy charm." Instinctively, she found her right hand touching the bangle as she reminisced on the bygone days of working together with Priska. Priska was always the star of the show; she excelled at all forms of the Quincy arts-- except forming a bow. With that, she had such notable difficulty that her family had crafted an especially sturdy focusing bangle for her to use in combat training. It was designed for heavy, long-term use. Ideally, it would have lasted her into adulthood, whereupon the maturation of her powers would have been replaced with a more permanent model. Less ideally, had everything gone according to the Quincies' plans... well, Nuala didn't really want to think about that. Her face soured and saddened.

Albin commented on her lack of a bow release, herself. He must have still been under the impression that she was a Quincy or something very much like one. He asked as much, comparing her to a half-akki. Was she by chance like that too? "No," she told him. "I'm not a nakabakki, though I did meet one while I was living in Hueco Mundo. He attended my mentor's Hive with us and helped out the Guadaña from time to time. I am pretty sure he's gone now, condemned to Hell for his father's sins." She reminded herself of the topic at hand. "No," she repeated. "I'm just human, mostly. My mother came under attack from Hollows at some point in my gestation, and I inherited a piece of their spiritual signature as my own. We're called Fullbringers if you're not familiar.

"As for the bangle, it belonged to my surrogate sister, Priska. She and I were the two most important parts of a Quincy experiment, called the Azerite Project. They tried to fuse our souls to create a... I guess a sort of Quincy that can withstand and use Hollow spiritual energy? A symbiosis of opposites. Like a Vizard, but Quincy and Hollow instead of Shinigami and Hollow. This bangle is all I have left of her. It's the focus of one of my releases, Eclipse of Conscience." While she spoke, she found a park bench to sit at and invited Albin to sit down next to her while they talked.

[Jeff Franklin]

I count 51 paragraphs from Albin and 39 from Nuala. 1275 TP goes to Albin and 9,750 + 3,000 (From DE Thread)= 12,750 Ryo gained from winning goes to Nuala (As asked for)!

[Deleted]

"The fish are related to my personal abilities, just not to my unique powers. I spent some time studying under a mentor and developed my fishy friends using Soul Command to evoke and manipulate their spiritual signatures as they developed across a few generations. Except for the whale sharks. They had to be developed at a more accelerated rate since they live so long." Albin found himself confused.

"That's..." he started, "actually quite interesting. So... You've just kind of bred them over the years? That's really, really cool actually!" Albin found himself growing quite excited as he spoke. After having experienced interactions with the fish, and dealing with them in a combat scenario, he couldn't help but find himself psyched as he spoke. Perhaps he'd inquire about them a bit more about them later on? If the conversation took a turn that way, he'd ask about it later on.

"I'm not a Nakabakki, though I did meet one while I was living in Hueco Mundo. He attended my mentor's Hive with us and helped out the Guadaña from time to time. I am pretty sure he's gone now, condemned to Hell for his father's sins." Once again, confusion began to set in, but he'd wait to see what else she had to say on the matter. Though, some of the words she'd used he'd recognized; namely, Nakabakki. He'd known that word from Rose, who also happened to be one. Was that some common term?

"I'm just human, mostly. My mother came under attack from Hollows at some point in my gestation, and I inherited a piece of their spiritual signature as my own. We're called Fullbringers if you're not familiar. As for the bangle, it belonged to my surrogate sister, Priska. She and I were the two most important parts of a Quincy experiment, called the Azerite Project. They tried to fuse our souls to create a... I guess a sort of Quincy that can withstand and use Hollow spiritual energy? A symbiosis of opposites. Like a Vizard, but Quincy and Hollow instead of Shinigami and Hollow. This bangle is all I have left of her. It's the focus of one of my releases, Eclipse of Conscience."

After a solid few seconds of pause, started to speak. "...So there's a lot to unpack there. Um... Firstly, I'm a little confused as to what you mean by 'Hive'. I'm guessing the Guadaña is a small group from there? Though, yikes... That's one terrible fate to meet, huh. Hopefully he's not doing too terribly, yeah?" A soft chuckle sounded from the Shinigami. He'd only hoped that his friend wasn't bound to meet the same fate down the line, and what he could do to help.

"As for everything else, uhm..." he trailed off, scratching the back of his head, "that's... hopefully that wasn't too terrible? I can only imagine just what kinds of things occur in a 'Quincy experiment'." Albin quickly shivered in place. "I'm sorry to hear that your sister didn't make it, though. I've... I know what that's like." Holding a hand out toward Nuala, looking to give her a friendly handshake, Albin did what he could to try to make amends for the actions he'd made previously.

[Nuala Byrne]

Albin was genuinely interested in what Nuala had to say for herself, and he did his best to be empathetic of her struggles, though it was clear that he felt out of his depth when it came to her story. He had a couple of clarifying questions, which Nuala was happy to entertain. "The Hives were my mentor's homes. Sort of like skyscrapers out in the remote sands of Hueco Mundo. The Guadaña were his hand-picked Arrancar monks. A bit like the Espada but less influential and... I think they weren't as powerful? That's what they told me but... the more people I meet and the more I remember them, the less I feel that may be true."

Albin held out a hand to shake Nuala's, but she slid off the park bench, instead. He wore his heart on his sleeve and his thoughts on his aura. "You don't have to apologize or make reparations," she informed him. Now 'fully charged' from the reiatsu-replenishing properties of her Svadisthana Drive, she dropped both Drives, and then the Engine Core. The various glows about her faded back into nothing. "You said you wanted to see what I'm capable of, right? You were at least curious about it. Well, I'm at the beginning of my night, so it looks like you'll get your wish. I'm going to release Eclipse of Conscience as soon as you're ready and I'm rested. It will bring some Hollows here, probably a couple of strong ones... so as soon as you're healed, get ready for a challenge."

Whistling, she called Ricardo down from the skies above them. She checked with him about his reiatsu status, and he reported that he was well-prepared for healing their new friend. Nuala glanced sidelong at the Shinigami. "Okay," she said aloud, signaling for Albin's attention. "Just climb in the shark's mouth and Ricardo will get you patched up." She looked at the man as if she had been entirely serious, and actually expected it to happen.