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[Empiricist]

Faith
Push. Harder. Harder.

It's difficult. Against something else, it wouldn't have been a problem. You could use a beam blast them to smithereens. Pretend like there's nothing wrong, even as fear wells up in your stomach. Tell the world it's all alright, tell yourself it's all alright. Well it doesn't work here, because what's pushing back is part of you too, your doubts, your fears, your frustration. Ah yes, frustration. That's the kicker isn't? That dark energy, the curses, the negative emotions, they're part of you too, the side of you that you hide, well tried to hide anyway. Fear, rage, desperation, they're all negative emotions, emotions that will naturally arise when overcoming adversity, volatile, overwhelming, numbing. And sometimes, that just what you need to break through. The problem here is well, if you generate those emotions when you're overcoming something, what happens if their energy is precisely what you're trying to overcome?

Well, simply put, it doesn't fucking work. You dig your heels and force it? It just adds to the crushing pressure. Add more outward pressure and you get more inward pressure. It all comes back to this same tumultuous unstable equilibrium.

...An equilibrium huh? That's a thought. And no, not that zen balance of two internal forces bullshit. No no no, we're talking practical terms. A balance of two forces, collecting within them, an awful lot of energy. Like a star, radiation pressure and gravity, counteracting one another. What if you kept pushing, not trying to break through, but just to trap more energy inside this?

Your shield burns brighter and brighter, gold and purple roiling across the tumultuous surface, prominences of energy both positive and negative erupting, flaring and settling all across its surface. It's not exactly easy maintaining it, but you are maintaining it, this shifting barrier of energy born of your conviction. If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster eh? Well, you'll pass on Kipling's offer to become a man, but you'll happily take a shield outta this whole deal.

[Powder Miner]

Faith let out a long breath, but didn’t dare to move her hands to wipe the tears off of her face because she kind of didn’t bother moving her body at all lest the balance in the shield around her break and something destructive happen. ”Aha... um... okay, this kind of went places I wasn’t expecting. Um... Shef... so... this is a shield. And it’s around me not the plate but like this is new and we should test it. But it’s like... a careful balance... of some stuff... that is really volatile together, so like... maybe back waaay away before you shoot it?”

[Strider03]

The fact that Faith's magic came directly from emotion made a certain amount of sense, Shef had known it was affected by it--who wouldn't know by now--but not the extent to which it was entirely based on it.

He stared motionless as first the girl started to tear up, and then began to surround herself with that solar shield. It kinda reminded him of those false color images of the sun, and that was not reassuring.

So Shef took a step closer. "It's unstable, volatile, it's emotion based, and not to the purpose of this exercise? Christ, sure, let's do this, it'll be fun. Now. Hold it together." He channeled his will into that statement, a will to plant roots and weather the onslaught of storm and waves, to succeed and triumph over, and to wield the clashing forces. To find a way to make this work.

This was for his own safety partly. She could easily hurt someone at hundreds of meters, and he didn't really care to experience that right now. But more importantly, if this just utterly failed, he didn't care to have Minato murder him. He took his paces backwards.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Minato, meanwhile, concentrates on trying to reinforce the shield from afar.

The Shield. The very concept that Minato resounded with. Not a tool of war, not a weapon, but a bulwark to protect others with. The Shield was a poor weapon, but it was what it stood for that Minato utilised. The Shield was the left hand of a knight, one half of a knight's prowess. A knight was supposed to be loyal, to protect others, to place others above themselves. That was why Durandal resounded with Minato so much; Durandal might have been a sword, but it was a sword whose legend had been in the service of defending others, whose final wielder had died in the service of holding back an incomparably larger force from his country. It was what Minato wanted to be; the dignified, unmoving bulwark, the knight that slew the dragons that preyed upon the weak.

Rho Aias and Durandal. The unbreakable shield and the sword of the very model of knighthood. All of Minato's other weapons were weapons that resounded with parts of his personality, but not nearly as much; the Luin Celtchar his hot-headed nature, the chains of Gleipnir his desire to hold back the demons that plagued his friends, Gungnir his unerring, direct nature. The weapons Minato could master, they were the ones that resounded with him the most. That was how Requiems worked, as far as he picked up; they worked from the spirit, from the mind, and Minato's spirit had manifested as weapons because he desperately wanted to be a knight, drawing from the very models that he idolised.

But what use of a knight was he? He couldn't protect Faith from humiliation. He couldn't protect Noriko from her suffering. God knew what Yuki was going through. He was hotblooded. Impudent. Perverted. Rude. Nothing like the knights he idolised. What good was he?

No. He refused to let doubt pull him down. He needed to be a rock.

He had to keep going.

He wasn't a knight yet. But he could be. The power to improve, even a little bit, and be better than the man he was a moment before.

He funnels what he can into reinforcing the shield, golden lines forming but sparking out, his power waning as the distance increased. He knew his power wouldn't quite be enough, not yet; he'd only just started learning how to project from afar. But he had to give it a try.

Otherwise he couldn't become strong.

[Empiricist]

Minato
Yeah uh, one problem with those sparking lines - they're sparking out a couple millimeters from your fingertips. Right uh, you don't actually use anything from like more than five feet away. Furtherest you really got were the false regalia you got to orbit you, but those still didn't add too much distance. You identify the problem here quickly, currently, in trying to follow your instincts, you're trying to project your magic out linearly, but to reinforce something you need to make it instead appear at the target point, sort of like how Shef wills his portals into existence where he wants them to be rather than having to launch them, the issue here is, you haven't done this vectorless shit before. And even with those remote regalia, they were connected to you in a way, through the Gaia Driver. Some Awakened have a sort of instinctive sense for doing this, not you though, it is, one of many luxuries you find yourself lacking, and like the ones before it, something to be overcome through both determination and judgement.

So the first question you need to answer then, is where the devil do you start?

[Twinwolf]

"I think I've got this, yeah." She smiled at Yuki being Yuki. Her modus operandi might be not unlike the antagonist of a slasher film, but most slashers didn't shout at the top of their lungs like that. "Are you ready to give it a shot?"

Yuki nodded rapidly, taking one of the plates and trying to... well, kinda trying to apply her shield to it but inside? That kind of feeling? It was weird working with something that wasn't alive but she was going to try.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Minato concentrates a little more, trying to project his magic. He, however, can't quite yet grasp it; it wasn't like trying to use his magic normally, which felt like a natural extension of his body. It was like trying to reach out with a limb that he didn't have.

"Hm. I can't quite grasp this whole thing right away. This....normal?"

[Empiricist]

Faith
Shef barks and order, and you obey, bolstering the volatile shield with renewed vigor. The hell was that? Shef's not much of a motivational speaker, or really any kind of speaker, so why then, why did his words seem to resonate with you? A shot rings out, the bullet streaking through your shield and pinging off the plate. Experiment successful.

Yuki
You think you might have a grip on- and the spear just punched straight through, guess not. Sol takes the damaged plate "Behind you."

You turn around and well Luna's bearing down on your right now with her Regalia, a brassy lance-like implement styled after a clock hand being currently brought down upon you in a cleaving strike. It's fast, too fast to dodge.

Minato
"Well, you don't really use any ranged spells do you? So it's only natural it won't feel really instinctive. Hmm, let's try this..."

Right so the instructions and exercise goes as follows. First you are to try that whole channel Regalia into bodypart trick like you did with that kick against the Man of Steel, but instead of channeling Gungir into your foot, you're channeling Rho Aias into your palm to catch a punch. Once that starts working, you'll move onto to channeling it into a plate that you hold.

[Powder Miner]

”Whwh— uh— okay! I guess that worked! I’m...” Faith has the distinct feeling that something had happened that she didn’t understand, but since she didn’t understand she just kind of waved it off. Everything had worked out! ”Okay, um, why don’t you try taking shots until it breaks? Not too fast please, though, I don’t wanna get shot.”

[Strider03]

" 'Course it worked. Ten shots, stopping sooner if it fails, three seconds or so between." Shef does his job and shoots the girl--well, the plate that Faith is holding.

[Empiricist]

Shef and Faith
Right so the bullets just slam against the shield, flattening and ricocheting off against the plate as gouts of energy rupture from their points of entry. The shield holds. The energy supply remains topped up. The limitation of the defence however soon exposes itself - it's exhausting to maintain, it requires constant output to sustain and constant output is quite draining. The shield flickers and falters right before the seventh bullet, and honestly, it feels less because of the six prior bullets and more the having to maintain it for twenty whole seconds thing.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Minato does so, trying to channel a Regalia, any Regalia, into his fist. Yes, Rho Aias would do for now. Clenching his fist and concentrating, he manifests Rho Aias for a brief moment, the shield's outlines forming in golden lines over his fist, before the outlines constrict, squeezing the shield down, shattering it, before covering his fist in the shards as they melted into a light, shimmering aura over his hand.

[Empiricist]

Minato
"So, do you know why that failed?"

[IamanElfCollaborator]

"Not particularly, no."

[Empiricist]

Minato
"Me neither! So let's try it again!"