[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5r7OTIh.png[/img]
[b][color=Aquamarine]wordcount:[/color][/b] 2,226 (+3)
[b][color=Aquamarine]Midna: level 9[/color][/b] EXP: [color=Aquamarine]////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////[/color] (135/100) 
[b][color=Aquamarine]Location:[/color][/b]
[color=Aquamarine]Warp Charges:[/color] 1
[hider=warp locations]
Virgin Victory teleport room
Top of the Split mountain
Outside the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage
Tostarena Town
S.O.U. Building
Seiran Clinic
Underground Roadway (Seiran Rebel Base Outskirts)
Below City of glass entrance (plate maintenance tunnel)
Vandelay Campus (Alleyway)
Arahabaki’s entrance
Deep Ground - the Source
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[/center]

Midna’s dower line of thinking was pushed back on by the optimistic Pit, and was fully interrupted by the arrival of one of Palutena’s Lieutenants, and that was perhaps for the best. 

Not an angel, this one, Midna noted as she examined Edelgard, but that wasn’t exactly unheard of, as she’d seen a few here and there. Plus there there was, of course, the seekers themselves (or most of them anyway, minus pit). 

Given the professional tone of the woman, it was hard to tell if this similarity was why she had sought out to touch base with them, as Minda might have in her position, or if it really was just a desire to get an idea of the unknown elements of the attack force. Either way, there was no reason not to respond to the request, it was always useful to know where more medical support could be found, and so she did just that.

She introduced herself simply as [color=Aquamarine]”Midna”[/color] because what was a princess without her kingdom, standing and offering her free hand to shake (one holding her helm under it, the other two her new lyre).

[color=Aquamarine]”and I’ve been leading the new Twilight Guard for the past few days”[/color] she explained, nodding her head down to a now rather eclectically equipped squad of angels she’d had with her for a few days now. Night time attrition had been harsh on their numbers, but the survivors had been empowered by the spoils of it, Minda surreptitiously gathering and crushing spirits to produce armaments, trinkets and consumables out of fallen foes and friends alike. An eye for magic picked up from observing Sectonia had allowed her to lightly apprise what she got was good for who, and to avoid any corrupt artifacts such processes produced as well.

[color=Aquamarine]”and I’d say we’ve been making a good team, especially with this”[/color] she strummed her fingers along lyre’s chords [color=Aquamarine]”which will punish anyone who dares attack one of my people”[/color] 

[color=Aquamarine]”as for me, well, I have a few summon-able servants like this thing”[/color] she explained, referring to her flygon who was soaking in the setting sun’s rays, and then added that [color=Aquamarine]”otherwise, I’m mostly destructive rather than supportive. If we end up fighting together, stand behind or beside me, and I’ll blast and slash every foe before us to pieces”[/color] 

Which was, admittedly, difficult to coordinate with a team around, but her troops were now pretty in tune with giving her the space she needed to break whole squads of foes.

It wasn’t long before that coordination was put to the test once more. 

Still, despite her intention of having them be part of the vanguard, the twilight guard was in high spirits, because they were fighting beneath the sun rather than the moon(s) for once, boosting their power significantly compared to what they were used to working with. 

Fortunately, cloud cover would not be hampering that power, because as the princess and her squad blazed towards the tower, flying low, they were shadowed by one of her singing sandstorm swirling around them with them at its eye, obscuring them from the enemy's ranged firepower. Of course, this also made it hard to shoot back, but that wasn’t their concern, as the princess set a blistering pace, diving straight for the platform out front of the castle that led to its [url=https://i.imgur.com/FnHNHuC.png]main gates[/url].

While the ranged forces could do little but pepper the sand with blindly fired shots, the corruption did have flying forces of its own to spare, sending blighted angels and Catchet and Compassions diving down into the storm. 

Unfortunately for them, they were met with a shocking surprise.

[hider=midna level up]
Storm Sands (Flygon/Urbosa): Midna can cause the grains of her sand attacks to swirl such a way that they generate static electricity. This gives her basic sand attacks an extra sting, causes sand tombs to apply the paralyze effect (slowing movement and potentially interrupting 1/4 of actions) while swirling around a foe, and turns sandstorms into thunderstorms that periodically blast anything within them (that is not immune to electrical damage) with bolts of lighting.
[/hider]

Thunder roared and foes with charred fell from the clouds, easy pickings for feather bows to spin and snipe with shimmering enchanted bows, killing the weak, and slowing those still mostly intact so that the vanguard could simply leave them in the dust.

Ahead of them the vague shape of the tower seen through the sand grew closer and closer, prompting her melee troops to pop spicy [url=https://i.imgur.com/BOKUqxl.png]empowering draughts[/url] and vials of shimmering [url=https://i.imgur.com/nfDlqT0.png]liquid fortune[/url] right before battle was joined.

 When it was, Midna’s sandstorm washed over the landing pad, blinding and thunder striking its defenders, before blasting upwards to clear the skies just in time for the princess and her troops to make landfall.

Leaping from her flygon, the princess dove down with a cyclone kick charged by her storm, smashing into the shield of a corrupted angel, and then crescent moon slashed a serrated knife through the visor slit of the stunned foe. She then dropped to the ground surrounded by its ashes, summoning and sicking her beast legion on a foe to her left while her flygon dove down upon another to her right, and her feathers dove down to take the foes behind her.

That left those before her, more corrupted angels holding the bridge from the platform of the front gates, covering for a retreating enrapture. 

Just where she wanted them.

Her shadow hand whipped forwards, grabbing a charging corrupted angel, before smashing it to the side, knocking two others clear off the side of the platform in the process, before hurling her grabbed victim after the enrapture. Then she lunged forward with the knife she had charged, her electrified blade meeting the searing hot sword of another foe only for them to be struck by the lighting stored in the blade.

[color=Aquamarine]”stupid as always”[/color] she taunted it before she grabbed the foe’s shield with her free hand and pushed it aside as she kept their blades locked, then slashed a dragon clawed hand across the former feather-shield's throat, briefly pausing her lyre playing to do so, before kicking the dissolving body back into the final of the 6 who had stood in her way. 

It stumbled, promptly got a serrated knife tossed into its shoulder and then Midna was on it, cleaving the gunblade revolver out of the twilight realm in a two handed slash, hacking it into its side. A moment after there was the sound of a gunshot as Midna triggered the gunblade’s strike enhancing shockwave too late to make proper use out of it.

[color=Aquamarine]”tch, still not getting that right”[/color] she complained as she deflected a clumsy retaliatory sword blow with one of the metal ‘horns’ of her lyre of all things, and then flicked a machete out of a portal to finish off the final melee fighter.

At least the final one that had been on the ground. They only had moments before more started coming from above though her electrical cloud cover, or, worse, tried to get around it. Plus there was still the enrapture, now turning after finding the front gate bared by its fellow slightly smarter corrupt angels.

Both it and said gate were going to be a problem.

She dealt with both in the same way.

Behind the gate, the commander of the tower had set up a perfect killing field made up of a ring of barricades made out of furniture overgrown with corruption,  ranged troops placed behind them, the gaps between held by constructs and the skies above by corrupted angels. Mindless as they were (the Affinities who had barred the door had bid a hasty retreat), they had not left their posts since positioned in their posts, nor did they tense in nervous anticipation for the inevitable breach.

They also didn’t react to the sound of revving blades, nor the brief moment of grinding stone before the gates (and part of the wall) exploded in response to Midna cleaving and shredding through them using the titanic dead end express.

The flying rubble and wash of electrified sand that rushed in did however do plenty to throw their aim off, burning arrows striking rubble or shields as the princess and her melee soldiers rushed through the breach. Ahead of them, two portals opened, unleashing mdina’s darknut and wolfos for a few moments, each titan splashing through a barricade before vanishing just as fast to let the soldiers through.

The ambush was thrown into disarray in moments as feather shields and swords stormed the barricades while feather bows entered and turned their arrows to the sky to slow and weaken the enemy fliers before they could dive down into the fray.

Unfortunately this is where Midna’s plan truly made contact with the enemy commander, as a pair of sycophants who had been clinging to the roof above the door, high up enough to avoid both rubble and sand, dropped down right into the bow's ranks once their front-line had pulled away from them.

Cries of alarm rang out as two of their numbers were cut down by the assassin’s descending strikes. The subsequent strikes were less lethal without gravity on their side, allowing the feather staffs to keep them alive, but the move still left Midna’s ranged core into disarray as archers scrambled to get clear or struggled to get a shot off without the risk of crossfire. 

Midna, ears drowning in the sound of battle as well as her own words and music, was deaf to this crisis. 

Her troops were not however, nor had their order of battle been wholly unprepared for this, as a pair of the rearguard who’d been positioned to hold the entrance from attackers coming in from outside turned and entered the fray. The swift feather swords darted between the bows, one delivering a deliberating strike with a golden blade to prevent an assassin from chasing after the bows, another parrying a sword blow and earning the offending assassin a barrage of musical bolts from Midna’s lyre.

It was that automatic retaliation that informed her of the crisis ongoing behind her, the princess spinning with a curse and sprinting back to help. Using Roxas’ flowmotion style she leapt off of the barricade she’d been to secure on, wall jumped off one of the remains of the shattered gates, launching herself clear over the heads of the bows to give the assassin a taste of its own medicine.

[color=Aquamarine]”Get away from them!”[/color] 

Her serrated knife cleaved into the base of one of its broken wings, a dragon clawed foot dug into the small of its back, and then she slashed her war fan down its spine. Her beast legion simply phased through her allied troops in order to follow her, the invisible untouchable chimera allowing its claws to interact with the physical world just long enough to cleave into the other assassin.

Tables turned on them by the flanking attacks, the pair of foes went down to sword strikes and a flurry of arrows. It did not, however, end there, as a pair of vengeful spirits ripped themselves from the bodies of the corrupted angels as they fell. One was cut down by a feather sword, but the other slammed right into Midna as the assassin dissolved beneath her, jaws biting at her chestplate, not at all perturbed by the electricity flowing through the armor.

She slammed into the ground,  arms smacked to each side, weapons clattering to the floor, Yet before they could find out if she could get her claws into it before it could swap from trying to bite through her armor to finding a softer target, a rune engraved shield smashed into it, emitting a flash of light as it knocked it aside. It flew up and attempted to swirl round to strike it again, only to be nailed by a glowing arrow from one of the feather bows.

[color=Aquamarine]”Thank you again”[/color] Midna said, as she was helped to her feet by the same feather shield who had caught her during their first night time engagement. Behind him the rest of the rearguard was rushing in to help, while behind them, a second platoon had arrived to make use of this largest of breaches into the tower, and in doing so had removed a need for her own to guard their rear.

And just in time too, because even as their front-line were securing the barricades, a counter assault came rushing in, pinning them against the very barricades they had just claimed.

[color=Aquamarine]”Goddesses preserve us, we need to get in there!”[/color] Minda cursed before rushing back to the front lines who’d been without ranged and magic support due to the drop into their back-lines, her troops charging alongside her. Feather staves raced ahead along with the melee fighters to make up for lost time, delivering a burst of healing to those fighters already engaged, while feather bows rose up and to fire over the tops of the barricades at the counter attacker.

With their formation reformed, and reinforcements right behind them, the Twilight Guard held the gatehouse against the retaliation strike, securing it as a point of entrance for the rest of the attack, but after that they had to pause to catch their breaths.

And count their dead.

For being the vanguard, it could have been oh so much worse, but still, each death had her cursing whatever it was that had allowed the corruption to be more coordinated here than it had before. 

She didn’t get long to do so before the next crisis, as the reinforcements who had arrived and then pushed past them ran into trouble. Specifically, as Midna raced ahead of her troops on wolfos back in response to the cries of help said troops had heard, they had run into entrenched Affinities providing musical fire support for the hulking form of Belief.

[color=Aquamarine]”Pull back, focus on the smallfry!”[/color] Midna called out to the troops as she charged into the fray, her own troops hot on her heels, because [color=Aquamarine]”This thing’s mine!”[/color]