'More strange people... Is there some kind of commoner's festival going around?' Lise remembered as a child being told about festivals where unwashed paupers donned sack-cloths and hit each other with clubs in the name of a good Harvest, so perhaps this was it. She watched Andreim spring into action, knocking one of them away with a vortex. 'Ah, perhaps the gods' blessings have made clubs irrelevant. Well, it would be rude to not help them with their celebration, though I don't intend on receiving any clubbings...'
"Do not worry Andreim, I understand what is happening now!" Lise said. The replicating one closed in on them, and Lise responded with her own copies. Rising from her shadow, four copies of shadow butlers dashed forward, seeking to tackle the doppelgangers before they got close to Andreim and Lise. Even with their strength divided fourfold, they would be a formidable defense for any person. "I will occupy these ones, Andreim. Perhaps you can give the original the beating he desires?"
Though, even if they got past, Lise could summon more. And in the back of her mind, she had another idea entirely, if the need arose.
Lise didn't pay much attention to any of the other fights. While she knew many of her family were fond of watching peasants scramble amongst the dirt of an arena, she considered it rather pedestrian. She felt that entertainment fitting for her would have to come from a higher degree of human ingenuity, something that can be considered art. Her most recent purchase of a television had shown her the breadth of modern entertainment, and although she considered most of it base drivel, there were a few things that piqued her interest.
If only she could manage to make them appear when she wanted to. She would have to bring in someone who was more inclined with such strange creations. She was going over the mechanics of the seemingly magical technology of the black glass television as well as the wonders it displayed to her in her mind as the fights continued.
Lise was knocked out of her internal musings when Andreim spoke up. She didn't really have a good grasp on what was going on, but it seemed like one of the peons on the enemy team - or, wait, her team - went and made a mess of things, and someone hurt someone else? 'Well of course they would get hurt, they can't seem to grasp the spirit of a friendly duel and end up making it personal.'
"We're bailing them out? Are they really that important?" Lise groaned. To her, it seemed like a waste of effort. "Or is this a case of sponsoring a fighter for promotional purposes?" Lise had never really paid much attention to the more business-oriented side of Valois-Saint-Remy, but she knew that sometimes lifting a grubby lowlife to spend some time in the spotlight with the royalty was a common tactic that boosted popularity of both participants.
She sold herself on the idea. 'I may have to hire a manager in the future, so I don't have to do this. But for now, it's a necessary evil.' With that, she took Andreim's hand.
"You are so-" Alyona's complaint was muffled by Sasha's body crushing her. Crying out in frustration, she tried to push her twin off of her.
'She's too heavy... I'm gonna die...' Alyona's head spun with the close contact. Her body wasn't a fan of Sasha's positive energy so close to her, and it was making her feel sick. She couldn't push her away with her own strength, so she tried to roll out from under Sasha instead.
Gasping for breath, Alyona finally got out from under her sister. "Get... Away... From me! I'm lucky my skull wasn't crushed!" Her body still was hurting from her fall, and the headache Sasha was giving her was making things much worse. She scrambled to her feet, and backed away from her twin. "And do NOT follow me!"
Eventually she rounded the corner and was sure she was out of her sight. 'That boy left. I wonder if he's Sasha's boyfriend?' Alyona grinned to herself. 'Well, maybe he can spare some kindness for his girlfriend's sister as well.' She walked out to where Kato went, unknowingly leaving a trail of pudding footsteps.
She would have called out to the boy, but just as she opened her mouth she realized she didn't know his name. She couldn't put the moves on him just calling him "boy." And upon further inspection... That entire situation looked complicated. There was her crashed helicopter, two boys, and... something (someone?) else entirely which she couldn't quite describe.
Alyona decided to hang back and see what was happening before inserting herself into this situation. She spied at the group from around the corner.
Alyona covered shielded her eyes from her twin's low-intensity light. "Of COURSE you care more about food than you do seeing me!" Alyona tried to scramble to her feet, but her foot being slick with pudding caused her to stumble. "And maybe you can consider this as some kind of message?! Haven't you had enough sweets for a lifetime?" Just staying near Sasha was giving her a headache just from remembering all of her childhood frustrations. Or maybe the headache was from falling out of a helicopter.
Either way, Alyona was glad she didn't have to start dodging bolts from Sasha. Maybe she'd keep a close proximity until she felt like she could make a break for it.
She eventually settled for just sitting up normally rather than slipping around on the table, which was when she came face-to-face with Kato. She narrowed her eyes as she adjusted her skirt. "Hey. You didn't look, did you." The sentence was technically a question, but its delivery was more akin to a command. Alyona hoped that he could figure out the right answer from the way she said things, but she could also just take out her frustrations on this kid if he answered wrong. It was a win-win.
Andras felt the magic as it was being invoked. Though she could not hear the words, she knew what the spell was. Covering her eye with her free hand, her mind raced. At times like these she always felt as if time slowed - As if to give time for her to think of something. She couldn't invoke any normal spell fast enough to react. Her mind went over her cards - Only one would help, yet the conditions for casting were not fulfilled.
There was nothing she could do. She had given the enemy the tools for their own destruction. Andras grit her teeth as the spell cast an oppressive silence over the entire field. She would have preferred to have some kind of speech to give, but she couldn't even sound out much more than the sound of breathing. She didn't need to check her partners, she knew they were equally as affected. And from her understanding of the spell, it was unlikely for any of them to have any real options.
'I've got to do something. What is it that I can do...?' Andras thought of her friends. Even if they were powerless... They'd fight. One in particular would fight just to defy their opponents.
Andras readied her holy spear. Though she couldn't use any new spells, her existing ones were still in effect. She had an enchantment for her strength. The spear would help with that as well. The feather of an angel even had reacted to the law magic cast on her team, boosting her endurance slightly. She gripped the spear hard, the enchantment of unholy strength manifesting as a pentagram tattoo on her hands. It felt strong. She could do this.
Andras gave one last look to her partners. She mouthed the words: 'I'm going.' With that, she stepped into view of the opponents.
Andras kept a grin on her face, her left hand covering the Root. The pentagram on her hand was glowing, as if the Root was going through her eyepatch and hand. She couldn't say anything, or even laugh wildly as she wanted to, but that wouldn't stop her from showing the opponents how a demon would fight.
Andras's first challenger came forward - a massive statue of stone and ice. It dwarfed her in size. It was surrounded by some kind of blizzard. It had a weapon larger than Andras. And it was, of course coming straight at her. Andras dug in her heels and readied her spear. She didn't have the reach advantage, so if she tried to use it as a lance she would be taken out before they clashed. There was another option, though.
Andras tossed the holy spear with her enhanced strength at the moving statue, and quickly dove to the side to avoid the swing of its scythe. Turning back to face the statue, she saw that her spear had hit the target... But it was still standing just fine. It was embedded in the stone, which was quite a feat for Andras, but it was not destroyed. 'Oh no. That means I'll have to-'
Though the statue had missed with its initial swipe, it quickly remedied the situation with a backswing that knocked Andras off of her feet. Had it not been for the various enchantments, she probably would have been knocked out by that alone. She managed to keep it together as she crashed into the dirt of the stadium. 'Good... At least I can do this...' The cold was getting to her, and she didn't really know if she could stand up on her own. But she raised her hand and snapped her fingers soundlessly, looking up at the statue.
The Spear of Heliod was not just a spear that bolstered armies. It was also known for another aspect of its holy deity - smiting those who harmed his followers. With a thunderclap, the light within the center of the spear burst out, forcefully ejecting the spear and cracking the entire statue. As the spear landed on the ground near Andras, the iced statue began to crumble into pieces.
'There.... How about that?' Andras let her head down. She figured it was all over. Her strength was sapped from the cold, and her body hurt all over from the hit. Maybe she didn't look as cool as she initially hoped, but Andras figured she did as well as she could have... Given that she gave the opponents the way to beat them.
The plan was simple. Alyona was finally going to leave this cursed country once and for all.
She had been stonewalled by a few factors: Lack of passport, her stolen paintings needing to wait before any fence would buy them, and her youthful appearance making people skeptical of any business offers. But she had taken the time and finally ran into a deal worth taking. Trading the priceless historical paintings for a one-way trip to an airfield outside of the city, where an unmarked jet would take her to Rhea. From there, she could re-debut herself. It was worth dealing with very sketchy types. Probably some kind of mafia connection. Not anything she needed to worry about, since they seemed to speak the language of money well enough.
The paintings were a good bargaining chip. She managed to convince the 'businessmen' to take her in a private helicopter as well, flying low so she could look at the countryside one last time before leaving it forever. "Finally, I can travel like the royalty I am." She kicked up her heels, resting against the closed door of the rental helicopter and looking at the buildings beneath her.
In that moment, the pilot sneezed, and biting his tongue painfully, jerked the controls on the helicopter. As the helicopter rocked with the sudden movement, the door latch briefly opened... And Alyona's body, which was leaning against it, pushed it wide open.
Alyona knew that she was the reason for this all. Her aura of terrible luck permeated anything she tried to do. But at the same time, she didn't expect things to go THIS poorly. As she saw the roof of a building coming fast towards her, she reacted as quickly as she could, spearing the roof with her lances. She used them to soften her fall, at least a little. It still hurt, but it wasn't deadly, at least. Using the spears like a gymnastics bar, she used them to swoop away from a direct fall into a less painful tumble.
That tumble, however, lead right off the eaves of the roof, into an outside lunch area. Landing flat on her back, she cracked the wooden table below her. "Oww..." She didn't want to move, for fear of revealing a somewhat familiar sensation of broken bones.
She realized that she was intruding on some people's lunch. Or specifically, her foot was intruding on one pudding cup, and her head had slammed down on another, both of which were mercilessly crushed. She was now face to face with someone she hadn't expected to see ever again. Looking upside down, she recognized the chubby face of her twin sister, Sasha. She could hear a gasp from the other end of the table, where her legs were.
Normal clothes Her demon girl cosplay that she does at times to sell her look.
Biography: Alyona was born as a twin to Sasha. In some cruel ploy of the gods, one twin was given the powers of a holy relic, while the other became a bearer of unholy curses. While one grew normally and healthily, the other was thin and barely grew at all.
Despite her royal birth and family, she was excluded from participating as soon as her powers were realized. Bringing misfortune everywhere she walked was enough for her family to isolate her, and she soon felt resentment towards them without exception.
Despite the family’s wealth, she knew that she would be the last person in line to inherit anything. So she eschewed her family, dying her hair different from her twin sister, taking with her anything she could steal and running away to try and find a different way of life. After all, if all she can do is bring misfortune, maybe she could find a way to use it to her advantage…
Alyona has embraced her life as a walking curse. She is a petty and spiteful person, and assumes by default that people will not like her - so she better get what she can out of them before they realize what she actually is. She also has an insecurity about her body that borders on a complex. Has a childlike fondness for candy.
Powers:
Core Power: Unholy Vessel - Alyona was blessed by a goddess of curses and misfortune. Some would say that the essence of curses is weaved within her mortal form. Her presence brings poor luck to those around her. Perhaps because of this curse, her body is much different from her stockier twin.
Secondary Power: Aegis of Misfortune - Alyona’s existence is a form of curse. Negative effects such as curses have very little effect to her. However, positive effects have a diminished effect on her as well. She’s so used to negative energy that positive kinds make her feel sick.
Secondary Power: Cursed Touch - Alyona’s curses can be extended to others with a touch. If someone is touched by Alyona for more than a few moments, the curses will prevent positive effects such as healing from affecting the victim for several minutes. Extended bouts of contact with her will prevent even natural healing and rest from aiding the victim.
Secondary Power: Contaminant Bolt - Alyona’s ranged attack are spears of pure negative energy. Containing the raw energy of curses, these weapons pass through physical barriers and leave no wounds, but sap the life force from their target. Hits to muscles will make them sore and stiff as though they have been worked without breaks. These spears can return the life force to Alyona, which heals her (one of the only positive effects that isn’t reduced by Aegis of Misfortune).
Relationships:
Sasha - “That girl is so stupid I wonder if all she’s got in her head is ‘holy water.’ Even though we were twins, she stood by and let the family all but abandon me. She’s just as guilty as the rest.”
A bead of sweat rolled down Andras's forehead as she saw the attack that destroyed her angel. 'Haaah... I was expecting something less violent.' The smoke hadn't even cleared before she knew full and well that her summon was defeated. 'I think now might be a good time to open up some more options...'
Andras began to speak as she heard her teammates follow to her position and form up. "Okay, I'm going to cast something, so be- Huh?!" Andras had turned her head just as Aram punched through, or rather into, the wall. "At least let me give out a plan before you attack!"
Andras groaned and grabbed one of her cards. 'It doesn't matter if he attacks right now anyway, I guess. I better use this now and hope we can strike before the enemy can figure it all out.'
She could feel the spell swelling as she began to cast it, the card growing into a blue glow. Andras's voice reverberated through the arena, heard by all, as the card's glow enveloped the whole arena for a brief moment. "The knowledge of magic overflows fourfold... Grant us our Prosperity!" As though flower petals from a fruit tree, the cards fluttered across the arena, eventually distributing to each person in the arena. Everyone got four cards from the Root... Even the enemy.
Andras could barely keep up with all the new spells. It actually kind of hurt her head just to see so many cards at once. Nevertheless she quickly studied her allies' spells. "Y-You guys have awful luck!" She snatched up the cards, studying them briefly. iThey were all... bad, mainly. "I hope the enemies didn't draw anything too good... At least Aram drew something we can use." She nodded towards Aram. "If the time comes, I'll help summon the hellion."
Andras considered her other options. 'I can also use the fog spell to stop any hits, and grab the flag once I get an opening.' She decided to wait for the perfect moment.
Name: Stella (Actual name scratched out with hardlight knife)
Age: 18
Physical Description:
Stella has a primarily robotic body, though at the core she still is a human. She has messy brown hair that goes past her shoulders. Her robotic body is easily betrayed by the exposed joints of her various points of articulation. She usually carries an expression of disdain on her face, though she is not really aware of it.
Some aspects of her were changed to help make her harder to identify at a glance, but overall she looks about the same as before Proxima. Her hair is much longer than it used to be and her skin tone is much less pale.
While operating, she wears her sneaking suit. In reality, she prefers to wear it all the time, as it covers most of the robotic joints that betray her true nature.
Pardon the art. Probably will get a less rough image down some day.
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Important items:
Sneaking Suit: This skintight suit is customized to be similar to the type that Stella used during her "service." It was designed to cover her joints and minimalize any noise from movement that her new body may have given. On certain spots there are formed pieces of metal giving a slight bit of armor that can be further enhanced with Stella's Hard Light spell. It also features sheathes for her knives and pouches for other tactically relevant items.
Weapons:
Combat Knives: While they can be used as conventional knives, these sturdy weapons are usually enhanced by Stella's Hard Light spell. It was said that they were the only things that she managed to keep until the bitter end.
Spell List:
Mastered Spell: Cloak - Stella is able to use magic to render herself invisible to the unaided eye. This only affects the visual senses.
Mastered Spell: View - Stella's affinity with energies allows her to see things that would normally be impossible. Stella can see electric currents and signals with a large degree of precision - even down to living being's biological electricity. This sight can penetrate most non-magical materials up to 30 feet. Stella can switch this on and off at will, and works even in zero-light complete darkness.
Spell: Hard Light - Stella can create temporarary barriers of hardened light. These objects are hard but translucent, and can be seen through similarily to glass, as well as giving off a bright light. However, Stella is unable to create them without an achoring point of metal, and only at a thickness of a few inches max. Hard Light is as hard as high-level armor plating, and offensively features a self-maintaining edge that can cut through most mundane metals and body armor. These barriers will shatter similar to ceramic armor when stressed, and must be re-made. Because this captures existing light, this spell cannot be used in total darkness.
Spell: Pull - Stella can magnetize metallic objects, even if they are not normally magnetic. However, she must be touching the object in question to mangetize it and cannot control what is attracted to it magnetically. The strength of the magnetization is enough to hold her weight even if she is upside down or on a wall. Due to her metallic skeleton, she can use this skill to walk on metal walls or ceilings.
Spell: Spark - Stella can manipulate and generate electricity. However, this control is fairly weak and cannot be excercised for more than a few inches away from her body. However, she can use this ability to temporarily boost her body's power output, massively improving her strength, agility, and reaction times. However, this cannot be sustained for more than a few seconds at a time before exhausting her electricity reserves. She can also use it to deliver non-lethal shocks to anything touching her.
Spell: Flash - Stella can catch and disperse light into a blinding flash of light. However, this requires a light source of some kind, similar to Hard Light. The light is powerful enough to blind anyone caught off-guard for a minute or two, while those prepared for it will only have impaired vision for a few seconds. Technology or magic that screens bright lights can ignore this entirely.
Misc. Abilities:
Full-Body Cyborg: Stella is only 10% human. This has many implications. Due to this Stella has: -Reduced heat signature -Reduced nutritional needs (about 20% of what a normal human would need) -Metal skeleton (affected by magnetism such as her spells) -Ability to charge off of standard pattern robot charging stations -Ability to regulate her senses manually -Modular body parts that can be replaced if broken or destroyed -Vulnerability to EMPs (They don't kill her outright, but it disorients her significantly) -Increased chance for existential crises
Weapons Training: Stella is trained in use of most standard issue military weapons. In addition, she has mastery in fighting with knives.
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Personality:
Stella is shaped by her loss of a childhood. She never really had a chance to develop as an individual, so now that she is given her freedom she is unsure of herself. Her method of coping with her situation as a child soldier was to retreat within herself behind a guise of an emotionless killer.
The irony of acting like a cold robot all of her life up until Proxima is not lost on her. Now that she is free from the Commonwealth's child soldier program, she turned her focus towards revenge. Her suppressed anger at what was done to her has manifested into a cold and cruel agenda to kill every individual that had a hand in her lost childhood. While she tries to bring back her old emotionless guise while fighting, her emotions now have a habit of slipping out.
Her grim outlook stems from a life marked by fighting, pain, and death. Perhaps she could be taught about the other things life could offer her, in time.
Short Bio:
Stella is fairly silent about her past before being drafted. She was said to have had fairly strong promise as an athlete, even at an early age. In particular, she enjoyed gymnastics. Maybe due to her potential, she was abducted and drafted into the child soldier program.
Without much of a choice in the matter she was trained to fight. During the entire time she was trying to find a way to escape - but there was no opportunity at all. She would end up killed if she even tried.
In the waning hours of the war, Stella was ordered to fight in the pivotal Battle of Proxima. As the tides turned against the Ascendancy, Stella found her chance. Stationed in an outpost threatened to be overrun, she took her chance to slay her captors and desert - though she sustained horrific injuries as a result.
Due to luck, or maybe the amount of fight she had put up, but Stella had survived long enough for the Rau've to descend onto the wreckage of the outpost. She was recovered, but her body had sustained so much damage that it was unlikely she would live without immediate action.
Stella had considered herself dead. She didn't have time to come to terms with the idea, but she had accepted that it was coming. But she awoke, somehow. Her body felt cold, and she couldn't feel her own heartbeat in her chest. She had been asleep for a long time. Even after waking, it took her a week to be able to move all her limbs.
Her body could not have been saved, she was told. But her mind was still intact. The part that could be saved was housed in the shell of a humanoid robot. An artificial heart pumped synthetic blood to keep her human brain intact.
Left to come to terms with her sudden change, she could only come up with one plan of action. She knew the party responsible for all of her misfortune. The ones who had stolen her life, and forced her into despair, and then shot her in the back when she turned to run from a fight she couldn't win. She joined the rebels the moment she was able to after waking.
(I could go line-for-line with this song but I feel like that might be going overboard. But to summarize: Stella witnessed what a real war is, and doesn't have much hope for the future. All of the Acheron album has a lot of thematic overlap with Stella's character but this one is probably the most dramatic.)
Stella grit her teeth. Now it was bringing up Proxima. 'Bastard.' She figured if she thought it hard enough, maybe it might prod into the cloaked figure's mind just as it had done to her. She wasn't a fan of having her knives stolen. At the same time, maybe Stella's overall anger that she had kept down was boiling back up now that she had a clear threat to work towards.
Stella didn't have much time to work over the situation, so she went with something she knew would work. Magnetizing the floor the knives were passing over, she made sure that if there were any metallic objects passing above it, their trajectory would be deflected to the ground. Amongst the illusion copies, her true knife pulled downward and clattered against the hallway.
Reaching out her arm, she called the knife back to her with magnetic force quickly. She didn't want to leave her knife out in the open, even if she had one to spare. As it touched her hand it turned invisible with her, seemingly disappearing entirely. Stella was ready for another attack when the wind burst from the runes.
She was already magnetically attached to the wall, but in order to stay on without being thrown she had to increase her grip. Almost clawing into the wall, she managed to stay on. At the same time, she couldn't advance forward to pursue the cloaked figure. "It's getting away!" She shouted, though she doubted that anyone could hear her through the wind.
Partially due to a natural human instinct, and partially due to her strong magnetization, Stella ducked her head down to keep the wind off of her face. In that moment, she could have sworn she saw something strange amongst the streaking wind. A crystal, and it was using some sort of magic as well...
'Yeah right.' Her eyes were giving no errors, so it must have been her imagination. She stayed put, riding out the wind until it was all done. Stella knew when she would bring her head back up, she wouldn't see anything like that at all.
Noctis
Nallore
Cleveraptor
Silent Showers
Sky Blue
Danyel
Xiro Zean
Izurich
Dion
Sp00ki
