Raid #44 [Plot]

Vincent Valentine [Leader]
Kaze

Life?

What was life? What defined ‘life’? What creates life? What was the meaning to life? What was the point?

So many different ways to phrase one pointless question. Endless permutations to a mystery that’s best left unanswered. And why not? Is there a reason for wanting reason in living? Do the sand, strange people of the worlds need to justify their own gloriously pointless existence? Do they think they deserved such answers? Do they believe they have such a lofty place in human history? They believe themselves gods of their own land when they are nothing more than insects barely worthy of scraping off your boot.

For why did life exist? It existed because the world was so messed up, it had to share its misery with lower life forms. Existence was a twisted farce of endless pain, a cycle of grief that never ends for anyone, only with inevitable death. It was a truth that was as obvious as night coming after day yet why do they not see it? Why cling to blatant lies like ‘hope’ and goodness?’ They call him childish for going on a temper tantrum when they are the ones refusing to grow up! They run, hide and moan about life’s hardships because they can’t accept that life was designed to screw them over when they took their first breath. The sooner they accept their lot in life, the sooner all the pain will go away.

Wasn’t that his goal? Returning all life back to zero, creating a clean slate, destroying this feeble, flawed reality. Wasn’t it a noble goal? So why do they want so bad to stop him?

Kefka had no need for a preamble today. No dramatic entrance, no explosive entry, just himself floating in front of the latest Corpse-to-Be, feet touching air not wood. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we?” He started drolly, looking at his fingernails. A slight sheen of magic began to cover the fingers as Kefka stared, that usual mad glint in his eyes growing larger and larger. “You, young vagabond, think you can stop me from utterly annihilating this world. Better idiots than you have tried and found themselves dead at my feet. What makes you so special?”

Kefka floated higher, legs crossed, looking down on his prey. Why did they bother? All this fighting, all this pettiness, why? Why can’t they just bend over and accept the inevitable? Everything dies. Everything ends. There is no light at the end of the tunnel, no pot of gold beyond the cascading rainbow. All there is out there is a yawning heap of nothing. Kefka traced a triangle in the air and Trine manifested in front of the gunman. A dose of Blind from the left, a heap of Silence from the right and, the coup de grace, a dash of Poison coming from behind!

There was nothing worth fighting for and Kefka was here to see that this dog learn that basic fact.

(OOC: Kaze, don't forget to be hit by an attack every once in a while like me and Kefka; it could be plausible that he dodged the explosion and Trine, but if you dodge this next attack then obviously something is wrong. I'm sure you won't though, just reminding you.)

Crimson eyes watched as a chaotic figure arose from the smoke and ash, as suspected, contracting sternly as the last of the light of the explosion died out.

The light of humanity was no different. It shone, flickered, and even faded at times when sin and depravity would override common sense and good nature. It was overrated for such virtues, and for good reason. What would one do if a problem arose that brought down their and others happiness, drama that was brought up to create conflict and disorder, in order to make things right and pleasant for everyone? They would either get rid of the problem... or if it was consistent... confront it head on to eliminate the source. That was Vincent Valentine's charge, to deal with the chaos that arose and disrupted the order of the general populace, and the disturbing miscreants that brought it. It was amusing that he had gone from joining a resistance group to global organization restoring the planet, but that's because he was not alone in his thinking, that many people gave their lives for others without as much as a second thought.

Why?

Why not?

It was the humane thing to do, how humanity learned to co-exist peacefully with one another, not only for themselves but to benefit from their fellow human beings. Humans were not meant to be solitary creatures, but those that chose to live self-reliant without relating to others did not understand the importance of those connections, and if that in itself was an imperfection for the grand design of a social creature in which their world had been shaped by complacency and the sin of human nature, then submitting to the will to let everything fall into total bedlam was a flaw in itself. Humanity was not meant to be perfect, and the ideal of perfection was flawed itself, perhaps even perverted in it's conception; perfection was meant to be something to strive towards to achieve happiness in one's self and others but it was never meant to be an actual goal to reach. The cruelness of reality could never always match it, but it never always descended into it either, for it was humanity's true nature to be capable of both good - the balance of co-existence between one's self and others - and evil, the discord of every person for themselves and submitting to one's dark desires which preyed upon the peace and existence of others. If one were to wipe the slate clean and start again, that in itself was as tragic a thought as it was flawed; for as long as humanity existed, the scale would always be there in a person's heart, to tip either way towards good or evil again. The difference was that in order for humanity itself to survive, society and civilization had been created, and the majority of humanity would always, always lean towards the light in order to maintain euphoria with others to achieve happiness in one's self.

The jester held a hand out and allowed himself to be shot in the hand; and Vincent did not change his expression much as he watched in disbelief, watching as the projectiles were melded into nothing but liquid metal.

That did not mean that what brought content to one individual would always mean joy to others. Hence, the reason why Vincent was here, and wold be here, to stand up against such autocracies every single time. But what was the point of it all, when all the Jenova's, Sephiroth's and Deepground's of the worlds kept popping up, and would continue to do so? If they did, then why couldn't he? Like Nanaki, and unlike them and his enemies, he would live forever until the day he was killed sacrificing himself for others in combat. Like his previous thoughts, he would only keep on fighting because he was one of the few with experience and the power in order to do so, and just because situations and dilemmas kept popping up left and right did not mean he would retire to let others do the fighting for him just yet and submit to his inner chaos. The crimson gunman had been sorry for himself for far too long, and now he had been awakened to preserving his fellow man, woman and child and forgiven for his sins, he was willing to continue to pass on that message to those like him in the future. Even if the adventures, achievements and successes of him and his friends were forgotten in history to be written over by new wars and battles, it did not matter if they won or lost, or even if they made a difference. What mattered was the legacy they passed on, the inspiration and hope they motivated in their fellow man; the message once more that they can strive to shape the world into what it should be as one of tranquility and unity, it's true nature of what it can be even if they only tried to make it the better place that it already was.

Vincent watched as the mage cast a new spell, meteors similar to Yazoo's Comet spell, and so leapt backwards when three of them landed on the deck around them, thinking he had avoided the spell. However, he was not aware of Kefka's ability to bounce his spells, and even if he did he would have had difficuly in dodging them anyway as they rebounded off such a confined space, as the burning hunks of rock collided into him. At the same time, one of them also collided into a gunpower keg next to a canon like the ones dotted alongside the upper deck of the ship, creating a large explosion around Vincent. Pain wracked over his pale skin, but much like the manic mage, he felt it but had endured worse. Using the build of the explosion, Vincent shot upwards from the deck of the ship as he rode out the pressure of the blast pushing outwards, rising above the masts of the ship and their opponent himself. The flames licking at his body dying out but not the pain, Vincent flipped his body upside-down as he pointed Cerberus downwards, allowing gravity to increase the speed of his tri-cluster bullets to slug one round into the psychotic clown's shoulder and another towards his hip to wear down his endurance.