☄ [First Strike → Video]

[armum]

[How many full-fledged knights come for a stay? Lightning is armored, armed and looking every inch a servant of her goddess, Etro. This woman doesn't do weak and she is pausing only to address any who might be watching. Then, when her message is concluded, she will continue on her way. Time doesn't fix itself, you know, and she has a little sister to guide...to find...

Her job is never done - or so it feels.]

Was this your desire, great Etro? [Her exhaled breath lifts her pink fringe.] I am Lightning Farron, a servant of the Goddess Etro. If it was by her will that I was brought to this location, so be it, but I sense that someone has interfered. I must return to Valhalla.

[She glances at her audience sharply.]

The unseen will reveal itself in time.

Comments

[armum]

They would if they sacrificed themselves - and their power - for the greater good of humanity.

[alwaysimpaled]

Yeah, except in the most utterly drastic of situations - of which there are exceptionally few - 'sacrifices for the greater good' are bullshit. If you're not willing to live for a cause, you need to find a different cause, and if you can't, better find someone who can.

[armum]

Not this one. [Her voice is quiet but firm.] She isn't dead. She's slumbering so that she can regain her strength.

I am who she found.

[alwaysimpaled]

Not what I meant, or else you'd be the goddess. Look, believe what you want to believe just... don't be surprised if you end up getting played. That's just how things tend to go in my experience.

[armum]

I will serve her until the world is safe. Then I can go back to my sister and live a normal life.

[alwaysimpaled]

That's nice and all. Just saying you'd probably be better off if you were serving yourself first and foremost.

[armum]

I was selfish; I committed countless sins. Etro made me see my wrongs and now I am righting them. [Or trying to.] I can't be selfish again.

[alwaysimpaled]

Y'know what, I'll bite. What were these sins that were so horrible to put you into servitude to this goddess? Because I'd be willing to put money on them not being as bad as you're convinced they are.

[armum]

I killed. I murdered. I thought I was in the right for doing so, but each time I did it, I brought Etro grief. She loves humanity and I stood against her, unknowingly, as a l'Cie. Yet she was kind to my friends and myself. She freed us of our brands - we were no longer slaves, no longer l'Cie - and gave my friends a mighty power.

What could be worse than murder?

[alwaysimpaled]

There's a saying in my world. "The only thing evil needs to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Murder isn't something done lightly, but that doesn't mean it's not necessary for the greater good.

Hell with it... In my world, around 2000 years ago, there was a Demon that had forged a great empire that had united most of the Demon world under his banner. Not content with just the demon world, the emperor - Mundus, the all seeing - set his eyes on the human world. With the help of cultists that his envoys had brainwashed into his service, Mundus stood poised to march his armies through and slaughter every man, woman, and child in his path.

That is, until one of his generals - a Dark Knight named Sparda - betrayed Mundus. Standing at the edge of the two worlds, Sparda murdered his own kind en masse, to protect those that didn't have the power, resources, or warning to repel the invasion. History has since venerated him as a hero. A demon with a heart, and is often used as an inspiring tale of hope. If a demon general like Sparda could change and do what was right, so could anyone.

My point is, if you had good reason, there are things far worse than murder.

[armum]

I would not use that argument with the dead. [She respects his point of view. The story about Sparda is similar; at the time, she had thought she was doing right by herself, her sister and, yes, her friends too. But perpetuating strife only breeds more chaos. She should have found a better way.]

I have spent my life fighting. I did what came naturally to me and I stood against a goddess who only wanted peace. With every death I caused, I injured her; I worsened the state of the planet that Serah and I call home. Even if I save my sister, where will we live if our world ends?

I must follow a new path; I must acquire all the knowledge I lacked before.

[alwaysimpaled]

[Dante shakes his head.]

Conflict is just a part of human nature. You can't have peace without conflict. And really, a world devoid of conflict would be a world devoid of individuality. Because people are so different is what causes the inevitable clashes of ideas and ideals.

Really, a world without conflict is what you call a zoo.

[armum]

Calling the end of a world conflict is a vast understatement. [Dante, are you listening?] I'm not speaking in metaphors.

[alwaysimpaled]

Neither am I. I've beaten back the end of the world on multiple occasions. It may be a bit of an understatement, but not an incorrect one.