The Entire plot of VS. All cut-scenes, most bosses, break arts for all weapons and tonnes of extra notes.
♪ Retrospection, Rosencrantz, Kiltia Temple, Last of Rosencrantz ♫
A Quickening Within the Dark's Ancient Capitol -
Jan Rosencrantz. A former Riskbreaker, yet a man still true to himself and his pragmatic Machiavellianism. Human to the core, he used everyone and trusted no one in the pursuit of his desires. Of all the people wandering around Lea Monde, groping after the Dark's promise of power, Rosencrantz's motivation for wanting it was perhaps the purest of them all; simple greed.
So Ashley mused muzzily as he watched his chest part company with his waist, the two chunks flowering into a black ash that scattered throughout the Chamber of Reason.
Making conscious effort, Ashley gathered his wits and tried to stand. "I give you the City, Riskbreaker!" Sydney intoned, aiming one slender hagane claw of one empty, eldritch metal hand right at Ashley, "All its power-- all to you! Make haste! Join me! Already your powers are close to readiness! Come!"
"Keep your cursed city!" Ashley shouted right back, pent up anger and frustration suddenly welling up and spilling out.
Sydney never had any plans to kill him. No, Sydney was testing Ashley, tossing him into Lea Monde's monster-infested mazes to see if the Riskbreaker made it out alive or not With each beast he killed his weapons mastery grew and the Dark's roots sunk deeper into his soul. Sydney was training him, using repeated limit-pushing battles to force Ashley's potential into a continuous, sharp growth. And Sydney's ultimate motive: an Heir to the Dark. He needed a successor to the Wellspring, and Ashley was it. The Dark was the last thing Ashley ever wanted, and he was sparing in the use of what he did have. Reason enough, according to Sydney, to give the Riskbreaker power equal to that of a god. Consequently, Ashley --long since stained black with the Dark's touch-- would receive the only escape allowed from a gruesome incomplete death. As Sydney's successor, he would inherit Complete Immortality
Everything Rozencrantz, Guildenstern, the Cardinal and the VKP were searching so desperately for, and Sydney was handing it all to him on a silver platter. Ashley didn't want it. Any of it. The Dark was no miracle. It couldn't sate his desire by bringing back his family or the simple, quiet happiness he'd known. It couldn't even tell him if he'd ever really had a family and a happy life in the first place. It certainly couldn't change his past. No, the Dark was a saltwater drought that would parch a throat further for every sip taken.
"Where's Merlose?!"
At least Merlose, he thought. If he could do nothing else, he wanted to bring Callo Merlose safely out of this fairy tale turned waking nightmare. He'd failed once before to protect his family, and even if that memory was no more than a warped lie it did nothing to change the guilt ridden self-loathing that ate at his heart. This time he would not fail.
Almost as if he'd heard the whole of that inner monologue, Sydney smiled a mysterious little smile and turned his back on the other man. Striding out of the Chamber, he casually threw over his shoulder;
"You may be able to save them-- your wife and child. Should you meet them, repent Ashley, repent!"
A multi-pronged barb driven straight into his deepest pain, all the blood drained from Ashley's face in a rush. A second later, his tired brain finally processed the meaning of what Sydney had said.
-----he could save Tia and Marco?
He had to know what Sydney really meant by those words. Shoving himself all the way to his feet, Ashley started after the blonde's retreating figure. He'd gone no more than three steps when something interposed itself between him and his quarry.
The living statue. Carved into the likeness of an ancient, foreign goddess of war, it had been in a convenient place at a convenient time for Sydney. Using a small bit of the power coveted by everyone excepting himself and Ashley, he'd brought the stone demoness to life.
She'd been waiting patiently for the chance to strike, body torquing in a strangely snakelike, hypnotic fashion. Three beautiful faces looked out from atop two sets of shoulders, four arms each holding aloft a huge, wickedly sharp weapon. For all that she was just a stone likeness of the old goddess she would not be easy to destroy. Not easy, but not impossible either. Sydney would not have given her life if he did not think Ashley capable of taking it from her. His strength had grown to the point where he could go toe to toe with a god and win--- just as Sydney knew it would.
In pursuit of the immortal bearing the mark of the apostate, the Riskbreaker clashed with the Goddess of Slaughter. Dark slammed against Dark and the air itself trembled.
