Abellio

Oscar had suddenly cut to the quick. As he always did. Lysette sputtered and protested. To an almost suspicious degree. Abellio wasn't the smartest. Probably wasn't the most observant either. But why would it bother her so much if there wasn't a grain of truth there? And he wouldn't deny that there was some small part of him that felt jubilation at the thought of it. But he wouldn't press it. The vibrations had returned, but he would play them off as more of the same. He was just a high energy guy, after all. Abellio struck off of Lysette's attack, his blow landing and lopping off o

Abellio struck the boss again in rapid succession, spearing the creature at the joint as he twisted in midair. He flipped over his sword, using it for leverage as his feet clacked against the creature's shell. Kicking off, he shot down towards the ground, dragging his weapon through the beast's carapace as he did. He landed in a burst of dust and debris. Abellio rose back to his full height, spinning his sword back up into a ready position with a flourish. Two Delay arts had the crab off its game. It was teetering, ready to collapse again, desperately trying to drop a boulder into its maw like

For a second, Abellio forgot that he was in the middle of a fight. He had his hands full in every sense of the word. He could have just... slid her out of his arms. Probably would have been more appropriate. But he really didn't want to. It just felt nice. He realized that he'd done her best to try to help him. Reached out to check up. He felt bad that he hadn't been more responsive. But even after giving her the cold shoulder, she was here. Trying to lift him back up. And it was really, really kind of her. It was like a searing iron straight to his chest. It stuck with him. But

Nothing changed. In spite of his rage and his duplicity, they didn't turn their backs on him. He had been specifically called. Messaged three times. It hadn't been a typo or a slipped finger that added him to the message. They simply gave a shit. And it made him feel worse. He didn't deserve it. Maybe he should just take off. If they couldn't trust him to be honest with what was going on, how could they trust him to have their backs in a fight? And then he felt Lysette's hands wrap around his wrist. Shocked, he looked up and for the briefest of moments, it was like looking in a mirror. Th

Abellio hadn't really been himself for the past few days. After his outburst with the Forgotten Time King, he really didn't feel as if he could look anyone in the eye. He'd used them. And it wasn't like they wouldn't help him in the first place. Quite the opposite. They'd jumped at the chance to do him a solid. The least he could have done was be honest. Lysette had reached out a couple times. He'd responded - curtly. He appreciated her effort, but it just didn't feel right. He'd completely misrepresented why he wanted to take that boss on again. Misrepresented why he'd wanted Lysette to

The final stretch. Just a bit more and his Goliath would be toppled. Abellio seized his previous momentum, spiking the King through the back with his blade. He drove his sword down to the hilt, twisted, and then ripped it out. Again and again and again. Each blow punctuated with a loud "FUCK YOU." The warm glow had entirely faded from his eyes. His gaze narrowed to a steely edge as he vented his frustration out upon the boss. He cursed his weakness. His stupidity. Everything that had landed him at the point where Oscar had needed to jump in and save him. He had been thrown to the sharks a

Abellio should have listened when Oscar said he was going to give him one round to get going before he came out swinging. How the fuck was Abellio supposed to keep up with his entire fucking utility belt? Not to mention that sword. He'd seen what it did to Terra Firma. He shouldn't have been surprised to see it in action again. And he might have said something about it, were he not so focused on the fight. Adrenaline was funny like that. Abellio couldn't keep himself focused on a single fucking thing. But right now, you wouldn't be able to tear his eyes away from this boss. He stepped back in

Oscar intervened at the last moment, pulling him out of the way and taking the hit that the boss had intended for Abellio. The red-head swore under his breath as he staggered backwards, stumbling as he tried to stop his backwards momentum. His foot drove against a stone, providing him enough leverage to stop himself. He took a moment and checked his footing before pushing off of the rock and throwing himself back into the fight. Oscar stood with his back to Abellio, the king's spear cutting into his shoulder. Abellio's hand clamped down on the opposite side, launching himself up and over Oscar

Abellio was back for round two. It almost felt like a grudge match after the last time. True, he still had Oscar there to take all the hits, but he wasn’t going to be sitting on the sidelines either. He was bouncing off of his heels as he always did. And to anyone else, it would look like his normal excitement. But he was fucking terrified. Abellio was throwing himself into the deep end. Forcing himself to face the fears that he’d never once vocalized to anyone else. This thing had almost killed him. Coming back here to fight it made about as much sense as jumping in front of a car a

Abellio didn’t really know what possessed him to go this long without getting a proper weapon. Maybe it was because he was rocketing through the Tiers and didn’t want to bother with it. Of course, that required that he had some future plan sorted out. He didn’t. Skills were bought simply off of the merits that they sounded cool. He accidentally on purpose wound up with a somewhat functional character build. So it was at that point that Abellio decided to actually get some gear. Holding his new sword, he made a beeline for Lysette’s place. He hadn’t seen much of her since Oscar and he

The music swelled. They were fucking killing it out there. As Waldo made the preparations for the next explosive light show, Abellio took the time to actually enjoy the concert. The crowd was slowly growing. One more joined, then two. Then a dozen or so. Abellio bounced on his feet, cheering STY/L on. Whatever magic they were working was working. Peering over his shoulder, he could see the Frontlines breaking their foot off in the boss's ass. STY/L just needed to keep it up. Morale was paramount in times like this. Then he saw Lysette strutting up on stage. She made a rallying cry. A

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Abellio never realized just how much work went into making all those cool effects you saw at concerts. I mean, sure. He was improvising. Waldo was bringing in the whale oil and dousing preset piles of wood. But that was the easy part. The timing. The punctuation of the verses. It was like he needed to be everywhere all at one time. And, to make matters worse, there were Shamblers slowly trickling in through his barricades. Perhaps he should have spent a little more time on those, but time taken away from the stage was unacceptable. He’d been on a time crunch. They’d been holding. Been h

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Abellio wasn’t sure what they were waiting around for, but the heat was starting to get to him. He wondered why Oscar wasn’t just killing the thing. Abellio remembered that he had mentioned trying to get an Extra Skill and failing repeatedly. Sure they had met the requirement by now. But the he saw Terra Firm begin to turn red. Veins bulged with power, black eyes turned crimson. And he realized that this was what they had been waiting for. The creature shot off like an arrow towards Oscar, kicking up dust in its wake. Before Abellio could even process what was happening, it had sank its j

"Dude that was insane," Abellio said. Oscar never failed to amaze him. He just had a mind for combat. Though, that was to be expected given the man was Level Fucktillion and had several raids under his belt. Those Frontliners were clearly made of nails if Oscar was any measure. Abellio had to wonder where Oscar placed amongst them. "Are all the Frontliners as good as you?" Oscar shook his head. "Most are better, actually. I'm firmly middle-of-the-pack." Abellio tilted his head to look up at the man, an expression of pure incredulity on his face. No way Oscar was just avera

Abellio watched as Lydia fell into Terra Firma's trap. He was about rush in when he felt a burst of wind to his right. He looked over and saw that Oscar was gone. Turning his attention back to Lysette, he saw that in the time it took him to even process what had happened, Oscar had rushed to her aid. There was never a more clear difference in their skills than that very moment. Not only had he recognized the problem, but he'd thrown himself into the fire before Abellio could even twitch. The man's arm had looped around Lysette's waist, just as Abellio did. With insane speed, he snatched her ou

Abellio had crossed over to stand closer to Oscar. It was a bit boring being in the outfield. And boredom would lead to errors. He knew himself well enough to know that if all he had to do was stand there and twiddle his thumbs, he would find a way to fuck it all up. Standing next to his friend, Abellio ducked as Terra Firma got away from Lysette just long enough to take a chomp out of Oscar. Despite the ring of teeth marks in his chest, all Oscar did was bring his knee up to the creature's jaw and send it somersaulting backwards toward Lysette. "So uh... What's up with that, you think?"

He just watched. Lydia was embarrassing the thing. The way she moved, there was no wasted motion. She dodged as easily as she attacked. She wasn't doing any real damage, but that didn't matter. She was going through the motions and fucking killing them. Abellio and Oscar exchanged glances, clearly neither of them had expected this particular development. Abellio's lips parted to say something, but he thought better of it. A rare display of restraint, that. He merely shoved his hands into his pockets and watched Lysette work. It felt uncomfortable, being the calm one. But it was just like Oscar

Abellio could only watch on in shock as Lysette threw herself at the boss. When she came screaming out of the sky like a missile and dropped onto the thing's head, Abellio couldn't believe it. Where did that come from? He'd never done anything nearly as cool before. "JESUS TAP-DANCING CHRIST LYSETTE! WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?" She swiveled her head toward him, her face a mixture of both pride and embarrassment. A faint smile graced her features, which Abellio thought was an upgrade over the tears earlier. Maybe she didn't notice the creature start to rally but he did. Takin

It was Abellio’s turn next. He stepped up to speak to Abdullah and accept the quest. “WE MUST SAVE MY FAMILY!” Oh. Abdullah launched into the same explanation. If she were being honest, it kind of killed the luster. The first time had been terrifying. The second was… less so. In fact, it made the first less terrifying. The same word-for-word explanation with zero deviation. It set her more at ease about the situation, oddly enough. Abellio couldn’t be bothered to pay attention, instead looking around at the scenery as Abdullah tried to be terrifying for the second time. Finally,

“Are you-” Abellio began to speak. Oscar held up his hand to silence him. Neither man made a move or a sound. They remained still, concerned eyes falling upon her. She hated that they saw this. But she couldn’t muster the wherewithal to do anything about it. Lydia recoiled in on herself, bringing her chin and knees to her chest. No one liked girls who cried. They were ugly. She was ugly. Just as she’d been during those exhausting late night rehearsals. Just as she’d been during the piercings. The tattoos. When those sleezy executives invited her to their private meetings.

Oscar gave a pleased chuckle. “I’m down to scrap, but there’s three things I’m not man enough to fight,” he said, beginning to count them off on his fingers. “Mother nature, badass women - generally, and street food vendors in their native country. I’m just gonna lose every single time.” He gave a light shrug. “I’m cool with second place.” Lydia tucked into her food, eating perhaps more quickly than manners dictated. But damn, she was hungry. And she hadn’t had anything nearly this good since she got here. She wasn’t eating nearly as fast as Abellio. The man was halfway through his b

“Oh fuck you!” Abellio had suddenly stiffened up. His tone was defensive with a small flash of anger appearing on his face. “You got women hanging all over you literally all the time.” Oscar shook his head, that smile never fading from his face. “Oh yeah, I hit ‘em with a ‘wanna do a quest’ and then drag them out to the least romantic place I can think of. Fuck off man. At least they know what they’re signing up for.” Oh. He was a player. She should have known. No man looked like that and didn’t use it to his advantage. Lysette suddenly found herself doubting the quality of company t