Freyd

"Don't worry about it," Freyd replied casually. "Persi's probably already skimming the bottom of the pond, teasing him with her flaring eyes in the darkness. She can be quite the tease... just about always, actually." "I'm glad that I can rely on you to be up during any time of day" Head bobbing with a snort, he was about to deny it when he realized that there wasn't much point. Part of him wanted to rouse a defense about occupational hazards, or somesuch, but Elora deserved better. "Yeah. I'm, uh... working on that. It's not really the sort of habit you can kick overnight." A

Morgiana's words rang ominously beneath the cowl, calling out alarms in Freyd's mind. Few were as intimately versed in the mixed verbiage and double-speak of bare and disguised truths. Even to speak of their dance so plainly was to court calamity. But were they her words or Ali's parroted as disclosure or foreshadowing. She vanished before he could ask. "So," Freyd started, "do you feel like things just got better or worse? I'm still not sure what Ali's really been up to with all of this, and the whole demon metamorphosis things seems far too random to leave unexplained. You might be

Few people knew the interior of Freyd's personal abode, and with good reason. Firm Anima's spymaster had no shortage of enemies, overt and obscure. It was an occupational hazard to which his erratic personality was well suited, yet most just thought him paranoid. Both could be true. His first furtive forays from the Town of Beginnings would only have confirmed it. So much had happened since his face-off against himself. How deeply dipped in foreshadowing that he'd faced off against his gemini during his first quest. Feet dangling over the edge of a carefully manicured opening, Frey

"I guess you can call it my post raid glow up?" Freyd pondered back upon his former fishy self, wondering whether he might have gotten a raw deal on the whole 'raid glow-up' thing. It seemed far more likely that their encounter with... what was his name again? Wutang? Mushu? Who-shen? Taking a page from the disinterested boss' own playbook, he simply stopped caring. Contact with the legendary beast's inner void had only exacerbated his troubling glitchiness and made use of his own shadow-drawn powers less reliable. Perhaps the elements were at odds within him now too? Grandpa woul

He'd completely missed the lumbering giant's approach. Maybe it was merely melding against the surrounding stone, unseen? Whatever the case, Mina's callout roused him from reverie to react, barely in due time. The same club swing that had been aimed for her head nearly caught him in the torso, saved only by dropping prone at the last moment. "Ugzeke?!" Resemblance to the familiar troll field boss was notable, but not all that accurate, especially when the strange gaping maw across the mob's chest belched and spewed forth the most horrid of stenches. "Ugh... not Ugzeke. Worse."

"How far do you think we can run on water before gravity catches up to us?" "I swear that you could make it to the far shore with those crazy Flintstone feet of yours!" Freyd had hardly caught Katoka's words, having only just re-surfaced. The water was crystal clear and surprisingly warm given the climate of the rest of the floor. It truly was a perfect little oasis tucked away beyond the mired edges of a world too often marred by strife. Those thoughts were dismissed instantly. Dreary, dour sentiments clouded in darkness and negativity didn't belong in this place or this moment. Le

'Good enough', Freyd told himself while watching the Jade Hunter fidget with his shield. Jathoom, prone and vulnerable, was also too panicked to look away and thereby sealed his doom. A sudden boot to the back of the head plowed the demon deer's face hard into the ground, most of his antlers shattering into fractal motes from the impact. There wasn't much left to him, Freyd realized and could read from the mere sliver remaining on his health bar. "For what it's worth, and whatever part of Qamaqim might remain within, I'm sorry that it has to come to this." Words said and respect given

Bulging fish eyes swole to the size of saucers as the unintelligible words burbled from his own fattened lips, nearly causing the previous caffeinated drink to fall from him fingertips in surprise. Apparently, Freyd still wasn't quite awake. Mention of his friend's wardrobe change only frazzled him further. For someone who prided himself on attention to detail, to have escaped something so obvious AND forgotten that he'd morphed himself into some sort of anthropomorphic fish was a double blow. Palming his face only added and extra layer of slime over already sludgy skin and worsened what w

A presence stalks the halls, visible but unknowable, even to itself. It searches and ponders, reviewing prior choices while anticipating those yet to be made. No certainty abounds and interest wanes. What to do... what to do. No response is forthcoming and its shadow stands idly by for a change. Not helpful. Energy. Energy was a problem last time. "Better do something about it for the next time," it says aloud, but to whom? A simple horn is selected from the list, ornately gilt, yet also functional in shape and size. Handling the sample triggers memories of previous uses, and to good

Bleary-eyed and still struggling with the blissfully oblivious depths of the deepest, soundest sleep he'd allowed himself in longer than he could fathom to remember, Freyd swatted half-heartedly at the insistent UI as it persistently sought to deliver his friend's message. A single eye, or half of one, peered and scowled from beneath the cowl, itself nestled beneath a blanket and two pillows, grudgingly acknowledging the missive and barely registering the contents: something about being fishy and bringing poles for roughness on sixteen. That was about all he got. Add to his persistent

Taking advantage of the spat going on between Morgiana and Jathoom, Freyd slipped beneath the demon-deer's defenses to deliver a series of swift blows that dropped his already hurting health bar firmly into the red. Sword Art delivered, the Whisper spun for effect, knocking the thing's spindly hind legs out from beneath it, enabling his own withdrawal. The mob was clearly on its... his... last legs. Har! Har! 'Let them have their little discourse,' he thought, marveling at how the anime penchant for mid-combat chatter also seemed to run strong in SAO. Part of him felt like he should pa

Watching as the pirate lunged forward to halt the crate's progress, Freyd sensed opportunity. Fortunately, Lady Luck smiled this time around. Taking a chance that Burlock's peg leg was actually targetable, he delivered a swift kick and snapped the over-extended prosthetic in half. "Arrrrghhh!" The Quartermaster toppled forward to fall prone, no longer able to support or balance his weight. "No, it's Yarrrr!" Freyd corrected, not missing a beat to deliver his own, in fist fashion with a solid jab to the back of the man's feathered bicorn. For a second, it sounded like the man's pe

She could feel the tension in his shoulder as her hand landed upon on. The dude was wound up way too tight, but relaxed slightly after the initial landing. "That sounds like good advice, therapist or not. Just hearing your perspective helps. It's like I don't really have a solid frame of reference, you know? It all hits at 110%, and the levy can never be high enough because I just don't know the river. Everything floods, over and over again." He sighed, bleeding away a little more of that built up pressure in the process. "Thanks for putting up with it," he offered with sheepish gratit

"Morgiana," Freyd spoke, but with Ali's face and voice. "Listen to me. Hone your focus. Stay to the task at hand. See what they have become and do not trust them." "Thanks for the boost, my friend," he added, nodding to Hirru before resuming his assault. "No point in taking chances. Let's improve our odds a little bit, shall we?" The ribbons of infinite void wrapped around his hands dematerialized instantly, replaced by another set clad in an unnerving violet haze that trailed vaporous wisps behind it as it moved. The weapon's very nature seemed to be at odds with existence itsel

Listening to Hirru speak to Morgiana, Freyd could understand how it was that the vice-commander had come to the past decisions that had caused him so much grief. It was admirable that he made the effort to reach out to certain mobs as people. Few bothered with such effort, or were willing to consider doing so in the first place. Would that something could be done for Jathoom and Qarinah as well. The quest gave no real explanation for their demonic transformations, providing only the expectation that they be decimated. Such was the prize given to Cardinal's pawns. "I've got this. Let

"It's a shoreline, or a river bank if you prefer." Freyd added sarcastically while pointing at the soupy stillness the Stygian, that might as well have been made of pudding for all the flow the thing ever demonstrated. "Can't you tell?" His grin tried but failed to materialize. "Ugh... this sucks," he added, wiping the edges of his lips with the few parts of his right sleeve that weren't otherwise covered in collateral gunk from the battle. "Turning everything off just feels so much easier by comparison. How do people actually deal with all of this?" Coming from anyone else, it migh

"Predates my own, as well. I've been active since the 11th floor unlocked, but only fought on the front since the 18th. I didn't even go above the eleventh floor until then." "I'd love to hear those stories someday. History gives a lot of context that many of us prefer to overlook or forget. We have too many floors left to go to start losing our memories and forgetting the lessons paid for in blood." Though the words were dour, Freyd's tone was surprisingly optimistic. He'd always thought of himself as the sharp and bloodied tip of the spear, but recent events had forced him to reth

"WE'RE FIGHTING MARV?!" Freyd never managed to get in a response before Katoka tagged the mob so hard that it was sent careening along the shore, even through solid stone. "Wow... you really have come into your own. Nice hit." Watching the battered form of his first friend in Aincrad laying beaten and shattered amidst a pile of dregs and flotsam on the shore, a pang of something caught in his throat. He'd plowed through Marv before under such circumstances. Last time it had been a quartet of Marvs splintered and spawned from his own escaped gemini, hunting it through the

As the final blow was cocked and ready to release, a change came over Freyd's figure once more, his face still buried deep beneath the charcoal softness of the cowl. In one instant his clothing loosened into a cloak tinged crimson with blood, a glint of light reflecting on vitrous surfaces within. Then, shifting to patterned cerulean blue, his stature shrunk be speed increased to blazing intensity. In the same moment, locks of verdant hair flowed loose over pointed ears and the lilt of distant carefree laughter broke through the din of battle. Blazing fury of gold scented with honey, came

"ENOUGH!" Malevolence swelled and burst with dark power, sending Freyd flying like a rag doll and impaling him on a number of jagged crystals on the far side of the geode, broken during the course of their combat. Drawing all of its remaining vestiges together, Shadow pulled back to deliver its pounding strike, driving its giant fist into Freyd's face and burying him in a grave of razor blades. "Ha! Hahahaha! That's more like it!" Stupidly strutting around and thrusting his junk forward like some hormone addled adolescent, Shadow's pitfall had always been an over-abundance of ego. O

Like mirror images the two figures matched each other blow for blow, each kata predicted and paired by its counterpart with total perfection. "You can't win, Takeshi. You're only human. You will grow weak and tired. I am relentless. I AM INEVITAB--- Ackkk.... *cough*.... hurkkk.." "You talk too much," Freyd replied, having delivered a quick slash to the throat while his opponent drifted into the age old trap of monologuing. "And Takeshi is long gone." Confusion furrowed the figment's blazing eyes. Could it have misjudged or misread? What was this thing that it was actuall

Where only one was revealed, suddenly a dozen more sprang from the first. Freyd had used the very same trick to distract and confused, and wasn't fooled in the slightest. Despite their shifting forms, he found the target he sought and struck straight at the chest and heart. An equal number of Freyds appeared in silhouette all around as he matched figment for figment and turned the trick against its user. His blow met substance, where his opponent's went wide. The Whisper bore a Cheshire grin of satisfaction on his face as half the enemies shades disappeared with his blow. "So that'

All the while that Freyd and the disembodied voice had been speaking, Persi had been on the prowl. Her nose had an uncanny knack for finding and rooting out everything from field bosses, to dungeon bosses, and even raid bosses. This one was a special case, and she had encountered his scent before. Somehow, she sensed where the right swirl of vapours had gathered and pounced at the critical moment, denying Malevolence its ambush and driving its straight into Freyd waiting strike. The cloud lurched away, gathering into the form of a gangly, lanky boy, perhaps just a few years younger than Fr

"Change, you say?" The voice was masculine, but sounded hollow like it was being projected into the geode's void from elsewhere. "Oh, I know all about change. So many times have I changed myself, and all for the betterment of this world. And what have I gotten in return? Scorn. Hatred. Disdain. You're all too kind!" The speaker cackled madly, breaking pitch and sounding ominously familiar to Freyd. "So what are you supposed to be," Freyd taunted, "the thing Shadow shat out before he died? Are you the Sauron's anus of Malevolence, is that it? Because we've dealt with you before-

Two giant forms bearing horned heads and eyes like twin orbs of liquid fire stepped forth from the roiling mists. Each hefted a smoking battle axe in its hands, the haft of which alone was longer than Freyd was tall. If these were meant to be his champion friend, he could not make out the distinction. Too much detail was obscured. "Have you come to pay homage at the altar, pilgrim?" They spoke in unison, but with strangely calm reverence given their appearance. "Have you come to pay homage," They asked again, firmly and in a sterner tone this time. "Depends, I guess. Who w