Wasn't the Black Knight "None shall pass," though?
1
like
2 yrs ago
You ever realize that you haven't changed your status in months, go back to change it, and then wonder what the *fuck* your previous status was even talking about?
12
likes
3 yrs ago
No, no, they clearly are referring to Ohio -- which Georgia is geographically south of, so the theory is still sound.
empty. cold. like always. wanted to move but nothing was left to move and nowhere was left to move to. why? where did it go? couldn't remember. rainfall. heat. burning up. flame inside, flame outside, only there was no inside or outside left. where did it go, then?
Heartbeat. Not hers. Different, but familiar. Warmth flowed down her arm. Right, she had an arm, but there was more there. An elbow that could bend, head and shoulders, another limb, a spine to tie them all together... and a brain to think with.
Now it was starting to make sense, but it was still too complicated. Like trying to solve only half of a puzzle. Too many pieces missing. She needed more, but she was empty.
Hungry.
Heartbeat. Hers this time. Embers sputtered and choking ash burst from the drooping shell of her severed arm, and slowly, steadily, the blade lodged in the wall began to shudder, a high pitched, keening whine emanating from its resonant edge as the stones surrounding it began to crack.
Still dark. Couldn't see. Eyes. She needed eyes. She still had some of those left, right? Not hers. But they'd do. Where did they go again? Ah, it hardly mattered. What mattered was that she could see -- and what she saw filled her with the most exquisite sense of regret.
That one had been her prey. Her feast. She was so hungry, and yet, she hadn't been quick enough. No, rather, she'd allowed herself to be distracted, and now that moment of clarity was forever denied to her, its brilliance fading like the dying echoes of the distant thunder. And now, what was left? A meagre helping of leftovers, hardly enough to whet her appetite... Ah, where were they heading, anyway? The tower? She'd been trying to protect that, but couldn't recall why. Her brains were still mostly smeared on that wall over there. If only she could sate this unbearable hunger, maybe it would all make sense again...
The stone cracked. The sword fell. The arm still "holding" it tensed, as the eyestalks sprouting from its severed end retracted back into the blade, and were replaced by an amorphous, swelling mass. Bone and flesh and flesh and bone and stone and blood and teeth and it all came crashing down together. All as one. All as one.
As a small group of voidlings pushed their luck, taking advantage of Lex and Rain's distraction to sprint for the entrance to the keep, a shadow suddenly fell over them. They hardly had time to raise their heads before a vast indescribable thing fell upon them. The ground shook. The void vanished within a cloud of dust that turned to steam, and the sickening smell of rotten flesh boiling from the bone filled the air.
It wasn't enough. Her prey -- gone. Her body -- incomplete. Her hunger -- endless.
A writhing mass of muscle tissue burst forth from the cloud with all the speed and force of a serpent striking at its prey. A ribcage adorned the end of this hideous limb, opened wide -- then shutting around another voidling like the jaws of a beast. Its body swelled up as the bone "jaws" dug into it, crushing it and dragging it back into the swelling cloud of steam and fetid miasma. Then another tendril burst forth, and another -- countless writhing arms shooting out with all the swiftness of a bullet and the precision of a hawk.
A burbling sound came from within the fog as the steam and vile odor began to clear. Something massive, well over five times the size of a human, could momentarily be seen, silhouetted by the flickering embers that danced amidst the smoke and ashes of the battlefield. That burble split into what sounded like several voices all at once -- some human, others impossible to determine. One by one, this unnatural chorus died out, until only one voice remained -- the voice of a woman who laughed as tears streamed down her face, and she stepped from the fog, sword in hand -- or rather, hand firmly placed within the grasping coils of her crimson sword. Though her old attire had been completely destroyed, she yet remained clad in a ragged mantle -- no, not a mantle, but rather, the skin of her own back, flayed almost entirely beyond recognition, its trailing bulk draped over her shoulders like a sickening, fleshy cloak.
Crying eyes wide and bloodshot, she scanned the battlefield with twitching pupils, as drool dripped from her mouth, and she slowly, numbly, raised a hand with far too many fingers to wipe it away. When she drew back her hand, her lips curled upwards in a smile.
"More."
With a gentle tug, the sword affixed to her arm led her onward. Yes, onward, deeper and deeper into darkness; for though the mightiest peak had already fallen by the hands of another, there were yet mountains to be felled, were there not?
Full Name - Manaka Kokone (真中 心音) Hometown - Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Female -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Awkward Outwardly, most people's first impression of Kokone is probably that of an exceedingly shy, demure wallflower of a girl. Her expressions are stiff and awkward, and usually resolve themselves to an impassive, slightly gloomy sort of look that only grows more forced and uneasy when people are actually looking at her. What's more, she often doesn't seem to notice when she's being spoken to -- or, if she does notice, only responds after a great deal of awkward silence. It's not really clear to an outside observer if she's just spacy or if she's shy, but either way, she's definitely not really the type who makes friends and influences people.
Considerate Despite her complete lack of social skills, however, every so often Kokone will approach someone and start a conversation herself, seemingly at random. And, whenever she does... she's actually surprisingly sensitive to the wants and needs of others? She has an almost uncanny awareness of things people are worrying about or tasks they need done, and seems to make it her mission to assuage those concerns as quickly as possible before immediately returning to her usual aloof demeanor. The contrast between her apparent apathy and sudden bouts of compassion is strange and more than a little unsettling sometimes, but at the very least, it seems like she's a nice person?
Jaded What most people don't realize is that her reticence has less to do with her own inability to express herself, and more to do with her Quirk. Flooded with the thoughts and sometimes even feelings of others every single day, she often double and triple checks out of paranoia to make sure she isn't responding to someone's internal monologue rather than their actual words. This, coupled with her constantly revising her own responses so as not to aggravate any issues her power makes her aware of, tends to be the actual cause of her characteristic demeanor. If anyone else could read her thoughts as easily as she reads theirs, perhaps they'd be surprised at how dry and cynical her assessment of those around her tends to be -- especially for a 14 year old child; but, well, given the types of things she's long since become accustomed to hearing, it goes without saying that her perspective on people in general would be somewhat soured.
Physical Description
Minuscule. Diminutive. Lilliputian. Pint-sized. Basically, she's really, really small. Standing at the meager height of 147 cm (approx. 4'10"), she's dwarfed by... pretty much all of her classmates, honestly. Her minute stature is only compounded by her figure, which is tremendously thin and wiry, with dainty little hands and feet, and the narrowness of her shoulders dwarfed only by the narrowness of her waist. One gets the impression that by putting their hands together just below her hips, their thumbs and forefingers together could probably encircle the entire width of her body; and most of her more physically-oriented classmates could probably effortlessly lift her with a single hand. If one could convince her to dress up and sit perfectly still, she could probably easily be mistaken for a particularly large doll rather than a particularly small young woman.
Her notably petite stature aside, however, she... doesn't really have many particularly remarkable physical traits to speak of. Her face is particularly round and childish, with full cheeks that might show dimples if she smiled, and a rather less cute high brow and prominent forehead. She's neither dazzlingly adorable nor is she disgustingly ugly, but rather looks simply... normal? Her large, thick-framed glasses that serve to frame her face in the process only obfuscate her unusual emerald green eyes, covering up one of the few truly unique "charm points" she might otherwise brag of. Her hair, too, is soft and silky -- but is often bunched and somewhat clumsily braided up on either side to keep it from flapping around too much.
Well, at the very utmost, she could at least be said to be passably cute -- but not enough to draw much attention to her when she seems to have made a conscious effort to look as plain as possible. And that, perhaps, is just the way she likes it.
Personal History
Manaka Kokone was born an ordinary child to an ordinary couple in Kyoto. Her father was a salaryman, and her mother an office clerk at the same company. A casual fling became a marriage, and that marriage just as quickly bore fruit -- and then fell apart shortly after. Kokone doesn't know the "why," just that the last memory her mother has of her father is an argument. After that, he disappeared into the night, and neither she nor her mother have ever seen him since.
Supporting a child alone is no easy task, but her mother Ayumu took to it with herculean perseverance. Despite their tenuous financial situation, she ran herself ragged working enough hours to keep their small apartment and pay for Kokone's needs. When her job fired her, she found another job, and with it, their tiny family moved again and again -- to Okinawa. To Tokyo. Back to Kyoto. Then back to Tokyo again. She changed schools twice in her first year, and in the second she hardly lasted a month. All her classmates had Quirks, while she was not only a transfer student and an outsider, still gloomy from the loss of her friends from her old school -- but also apparently Quirkless. She wasn't bullied particularly harshly, but she did quickly find herself ostracized at her second school, and was surprised to find herself relieved rather than heartbroken when she moved again.
Her situation only worsened when her Quirk manifested. It was, perhaps, a cruel sort of mercy that Kokone was a tremendous late-bloomer. Her nascent abilities of telepathy and mind reading only reared their ugly head at age 7, right before she transferred into a new second grade classroom. She was packing her things and getting ready to leave for her first day, only to suddenly hear her mother's voice apparently talking to someone in the next room. She overheard several unsettling things, like "What if they make fun of her?" or "What if I get stuck late at work and can't take her home?" But when she entered the room, there was only her mother there.
Still young and not understanding what was going on, she innocently asked... "Mama. Who are you talking to?" The look of confusion that greeted her only unsettled her more. "I didn't say anything, did I?" came her mother's voice -- but her lips never moved. "Yes you did!" Kokone insisted, and what followed in response was not so much words as an overwhelming, crushing sense of dread.
Was I thinking out loud? No, I'm sure I didn't say anything. But then how did she know what I was thinking? Am I losing my mind? Why is she looking at me like that? I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything so what did she hear?!
She didn't know what to do or say, so before she knew it, she found herself crying and apologizing, not even knowing why. Somehow, this defused the situation as her mother tried desperately to console her -- but all that time, Kokone could hear her thoughts still, and could still hear the worries that took months of feigning ignorance to go away.
"What if she can hear what I'm thinking?"
A lot of things happened after that. School became a nightmare where the voices of her classmates drowned out everything around her. She got used to hearing herself called weird or creepy in people's heads, when those same people would act nice and fake smiles when she spoke to them. So it was that she learned that people were fundamentally two-faced -- and she herself, of course, was no different. She covered up the truth, passing off her earlier slip-ups as the rough awakening of a telepathic Quirk. It wasn't entirely a lie, after all -- it was just a way of sweeping the more unpleasant side of her powers under the rug. Since she could hear people's thoughts, she got used to telling others what they wanted to hear. Feeling their support and gratitude almost made up for the weight of all her lies -- and so, as her sole relief from her own guilt, she grew almost addicted to it.
This didn't help mend her relationship with her mother, however -- which only grew more and more distant as, in a misguided attempt to reduce her beloved parent's stress, she forced herself to become self-reliant from a very young age. She cooked her own meals, managed her own schedule, and did everything she could to take care of herself and their home so that her tired mother could focus all her energy on her work. Kokone didn't even realize until it was already too late that this eliminated the few points of contact they even had to begin with -- and by then, it wasn't uncommon for them to not speak to each other for entire weeks at a time. Ayumu came home late, and left early; that is, when she even came home at all. That was just the way things were, so Kokone had accepted it without complaint. But every now and again, she'd overhear a guilty thought. "What if my daughter hates me? I'm never there for her. I'm just as bad as her father." And no matter how hard she tried to assuage those doubts with little gestures of kindness and understanding, she never truly could.
...Eventually, it was easier to just get away. She justified her decision to enroll in a hero school on the opposite side of the country in a lot of ways. Ishin was prestigious, and all her living needs would be covered. She wouldn't be imposing on her mother anymore, and if she could graduate with a good record, it'd guarantee a path to a good job working as field support or a logistics clerk for a hero agency. She wouldn't end up an exhausted wage slave in a dead-end job like her mom, and could finally start repaying her for all the sacrifices she had made so Kokone herself could get this far. Putting it like that, she almost didn't feel guilty. But really, deep down, she knew that the real reason was just that she couldn't bear to hear her mother's thoughts in the dead of night anymore -- and so she told herself it was for the best, and set out on her journey...
Character Arc
Due to the fear of those around her when her powers first began to show themselves, Kokone has developed a crippling dread of what would happen should her peers ever discover her Quirk's true nature. As such, she begins the story disguising her Quirk as "Engage," the ability to psychically link one or more people. She also claims that, in addition to its hearing limits, her Quirk only works on those who volunteer to enter the link, and that the only thoughts that get transferred to anyone are ones prefaced with the specific name of the recipient -- both lies of convenience to make people feel more comfortable around her power, and to tell her which thoughts they actually want carried over, and to whom, so she can make sure to only send the information people want to be heard.
But no lie can last forever, and as danger begins to stir around the young students of Ishin High, can Kokone really afford not to use her true power? Of course, the possibility she might be outed has always hung over her head ever since she was a child, but it has always seemed to her like a distant eventuality, and one that will hardly affect her anymore. With no friends or loved ones beyond her own mother, would she really lose all that much if people knew and feared the truth? Nothing would change, and she would remain the solitary observer she always has been.
...But what if she were to grow fond of her classmates for the first time since her Quirk awakened? What if she were to make fast friends and staunch allies? What if she were to fall in love? And then, what if all that happiness came crashing down in an instant when those friends realized the monster they'd welcomed into their midst -- an unseen phantom constantly watching their every thought, cataloguing every unconscious sin and judging them for it?
As of now, none can say. But one thing, and one thing alone is certain; when the truth is revealed, everything will change.
Quirk Description
Known by the name of Absolute Telepathy, Kokone's Quirk is an anomaly tied to the sense of hearing. Provided she's close enough to someone that she could hear them speaking at the corresponding volume, she can also hear their foremost surface-level thoughts in her head at all times. Particularly emotional thoughts are like shouting -- easy to hear -- while the listless, unfocused daydreams of those not thinking about any one thing in particular are more like whispers -- barely perceptible unless she's particularly close by. But most of the time, people's thoughts just sound like normal spoken conversations -- and unless blocked by distance, earplugs, or some other form of obstruction, she always hears them, all the time.
Likewise, she herself can also project her own thoughts into the "hearing" of others -- though this, unlike reading thoughts, requires conscious effort on her part. She can use it on one target or many, and depending on how close she is to the target(s), can also send more complex information over the link. From far away, she might only be able to send basic verbal instructions -- but from close by, she could transmit emotions or complex mental images. Also, like her mind-reading, her telepathy only works if the target could hear her. If they're deafened, removed from hearing distance, or blocked off by a sufficiently thick barrier, her telepathy won't reach them. And, since telepathy requires actively focusing on sending specific thoughts and information, while it can't easily "misfire" and send something she doesn't want, frequent use puts her under a corresponding amount of mental stress, and can often lead to feelings of nausea, fatigue, and anxiety that render it difficult or impossible to focus on continuing to use the power.
As a final addendum, her Quirk has on some occasions shown the ability to perceive things other than just surface-thoughts, in forms other than sound. Colored haloes and auras representing emotions have sometimes appeared when she touches someone while reading their mind -- particularly when that person is someone close to her who she knows well -- or in moments of intense anxiety where her control over her powers is reduced. With this in mind, it's possible that her abilities will grow to encompass alternative forms of psychic analysis in the future, potentially including empathetic perception or psychometry. But, for the time being, these abilities remain beyond her ability to use consciously.
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D A T A
Full Name - Nishikiyama Izuna (錦山 泉凪) Hometown - Sado, Niigata Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Female -
P E R S O N A L I T Y
"Cool" Izuna tries to come off as calm, collected, and completely unflappable. From the way she walks with her head held high, to the slow, smug way she speaks, to the strangely villainous, haughty, and confrontational way she sometimes acts while in training, it's clear she's really trying to sell her new image as a coolheaded badass who doesn't let anything get her down.
It's just unfortunate, then, that the rest of her personality undercuts this front entirely.
Excitable Truth be told, Izuna is entirely too friendly and good-natured to keep up the act for long. In a new place, surrounded by new things she's never seen before, and with loads of amazing Quirks to gawk at, she can't help but be swept along in the tide of excitement, and her true colors show before she knows it. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you, but... well... her ideas of what things are and aren't cool are pretty strange, to say the least.
Inferiority/Superiority Truth be told, Izuna mostly just wants people to accept her. Unfortunately, she seems to be under the mistaken impression that the only way that'll ever happen is if she manages to live up to her own ridiculously exaggerated and strangely edgy idea of "coolness." Whenever someone talks down to her, whenever she makes a mistake, or even just whenever she's nervous about something, she tends to lapse deeper and deeper into her facade, submerging herself in an invented persona to run away from reality. She's better about it now than she used to be, but, well... Old habits die hard, and perhaps the world has not yet seen the last of the unspeakably radical darkness carried by this bearer of the boundless sea. (???)
Physical Description
A cool beauty standing at a height of 169 cm (5'7"), with luminous silver hair and eyes like pale gold that, despite their brilliance, hide a deep darkness within, that few mortals will ever see, and none can truly understand... Something like that sounds cool, right?
...Well, to call her a "cool beauty" is definitely false advertising, but at least the "beauty" part has some basis in reality. Izuna is tall, with long legs and an athletic build, honed through a tomboyish childhood spent swimming in the sea and romping through the hills in search of rare insects. Her facial features are sharp, but not overly so -- with rounded, dimpled cheeks below to balance out her high cheekbones. Though, sharp doesn't even begin to describe her ears, which are long and pointed, and extremely expressive, perking up when she's excited or drooping when she's sad -- probably a relic of some of the many mutants in her family tree.
And this is precisely where the line between "beauty" and "weirdo" starts getting muddied, as although Izuna has many features of an orthodox beauty, she also has a lot of unusual mutant features as well. When she smiles, dimples appear in her cheeks, yes -- but she also displays some very pointed teeth that definitely don't look human. What's more, despite her outdoorsy lifestyle, her skin is extremely pale, refusing completely to tan or discolor... not to mention that on her back, hips, shoulders, the underside of her chin, and the outside of her arms and legs, that seemingly smooth, pale skin is actually mixed with an almost invisible layer of translucent scales that often retain at least some degree of water from her Quirk. This perpetual dampness makes her body seem to shimmer and sparkle under the light, but also, coupled with the occasional sharpness of her scales, makes it rather uncomfortable to touch. Her hair, too, is a silvery white-blonde that is almost devoid of color, and her eyes have very large, sensitive pupils of an eerie pale yellow hue, which can make it difficult from a distance to tell where her pupils end and her sclera begin. And, like those of a flashlight fish, they also seem to glow in extreme darkness, creating an imperceptibly thin beam of light wherever she's looking to allow her to see.
Strangest of all, however, are her barbels. Emerging from just below her cheeks along the curvature of her jawline are four long, thin tendrils with transparent blueish coloration, marked periodically by lines of glowing photophores that flicker unconsciously between pale blue, warm orange, and dark, vibrant red depending on Izuna's mood. These fine tendrils are also fully prehensile and quite keen to the feelings of air and water currents around them. Furthermore, they also end in bristling, whisker-like tufts that are covered in incredibly sensitive taste receptors, like those of a catfish, or like the tongue of a snake, allowing her to "taste" her surroundings even in open air -- though they're much more effective underwater. She can extend or retract them to a limited degree, pulling them back into a hollow cavity along the side of her jawbone -- but they always remain extruded at least partially, making it impossible for her to fully conceal them -- a fact she's rather self-conscious about. Thankfully, they at least draw attention away from the small, frill-like gill slits in the sides of her neck directly below them, but, well... she isn't exactly happy about how creepy those look, either.
Her wardrobe tends to be... rather bizarre, to say the least. Due to her tendency to randomly emit water from her body, she can't wear most fabrics commonly used in clothing. Cotton shrinks, wool stinks, rayon stains and mildews, and generally, most of the clothes she'd like to wear end up ruined. So, instead, her casual clothes generally consist entirely of waterproof items. For summer, she wears swimsuits, while in winter, she wears full-body insulated wetsuits instead. She accentuates these core items with waterproof windbreakers and bomber jackets for fashion and modesty, or full-length raincoats as a sort of pseudo-dress -- though during the daytime, she tends to keep her hood up whenever possible, as her eyes are extremely sensitive to bright lights and colors.
Ishin Academy's uniform, unfortunately, is non-negotiable. Though she's been given a custom waterproof version, it's very bulky and stiff thanks to its plastic coating, and doesn't have any means of covering her face to hide her barbels and protect her eyes, either. Overall, she rather dislikes it, but isn't quite so rebellious that she'd violate school regulations just for the sake of her own comfort, so she usually just bears with it, even if it looks really stupid and chafes her scales like you wouldn't believe.
Thankfully, it seems like the combat department was a little more lenient with her requests, and she's been allowed to personalize her standard-issue combat jumpsuit to a significantly greater degree under the excuse that unnecessary fabric would create drag underwater and inhibit her mobility. Rather than a full-body suit, it's more like a sleeveless, backless romper or leotard, with the arms and legs removed and the main body of it fitting her significantly more snugly -- a sleek second skin fit for a fishy heroine. Her arms and legs she leaves bare so as not to agitate her scales, and her feet are covered with oddly flipper-like sandals. Over the top, she sometimes drapes a hooded black cape and mantle, meant to cover her eyes when out of combat -- though its real purpose is mostly just because she thinks it looks cool. As of yet, she has no particular special gear or equipment, though maybe that'll change once she gets a budget.
Personal History
Izuna's past is something she'd rather not talk about. Not because it's dark and heavy, mind you -- but simply because just thinking back on her elementary and middle school days makes her cringe.
She was born into a loving family that consisted mostly of mutant-type Quirk bearers, with a loving mother and father, and three younger siblings -- a brother and twin sisters. As the big sister of the family, she felt from a young age that she had to be responsible for protecting those who came after her, which probably sparked the start of her whole need to appear cool and collected. Unfortunately, in practice, that wasn't so easy, as her Quirk and physical appearance didn't exactly make that easy. As a kid, she got in trouble a lot for causing accidental floods due to not understanding her Quirk's passive absorption, much less being able to control when and where she released the water she'd gathered.
Looking like a fish only made things worse, and she got made fun of a lot for her creepy "whiskers" and big "dead fish eyes." In hindsight, she probably could have gone to her parents for help -- but they already had their hands full with raising her younger siblings, and, at any rate, she was the big sister; she wasn't supposed to be a crybaby who couldn't even stand up for herself. So, rather than lashing out or seeking help, she just kind of tried her best to pretend it wasn't happening, and endured it. She learned to print out individual page copies for all her textbooks, and got them all laminated so they wouldn't be ruined by her Quirk. She stopped wearing normal clothes and switched to swimsuits -- at least then she wouldn't get called stinky or get made fun of for the state they ended up in. When people didn't want to do things, they'd push things off on the stupid fish -- but that was fine. Her teachers liked it when she took care of little chores, and they'd give her the praise her classmates never did. She became a lifelong class rep despite her mediocre grades, always shouldering the burdens nobody else wanted to bother with.
In hindsight, even if she didn't really enjoy the job, it wasn't so bad -- since it was through her duties as class rep that she ended up staying behind late enough one day to meet another girl who was bullied for her Quirk -- a bright and angry child named Saika. The two of them ended up becoming a rather unlikely pair of friends, and it was, perhaps, Saika's "scary" demeanor that ended up inspiring Izuna's half-baked plan for a middle school image change. Maybe, if she could change how people saw her, they'd leave her alone, too! But a fish wasn't exactly scary... so, then, instead of a fish, what if she was a dragon?
...The less said about this period of dark history, the better. Suffice to say, she made a complete ass of herself, the teachers who had always thought of her as a good, studious girl were extremely disappointed in her, and her parents and siblings ended up hearing about the whole thing, causing her to quickly bury the persona of "Mizuchi, the Darkwater Dragon and Bearer of the Boundless Sea" and do her best to pretend the whole thing had never happened. The world just wasn't ready to understand her vision, or to appreciate her aesthetic. That, or maybe, she was just never really cut out for being cool, or confident, or a worthwhile big sister, or... or anything, really. After all, she was just a big dumb fish. What could she do?
As it turned out, that question got answered in a way she never expected. Her island home was struck by a typhoon, and flooding rapidly forced everyone to seek higher ground. Pro heroes rushed to the scene, but aside from the local Speedster Hero, Macha, they weren't able to do much -- and even he was hard-pressed to accomplish anything more than rushing people to safety one at a time. At least, until he was approached by a small child who offered him a plan that sounded just crazy enough to work.
"My Quirk can store up a bunch of water inside me! If you carry me to the other side of the island, I can release it into the air there as rainclouds, and it'll all blow back out to sea!"
It was a stupid plan, to be honest. Using an unlicensed child as a bucket to stop a flood could only bring trouble -- but Macha was a native of Sado, and something was better than just watching the whole city flood. Still, he objected. What if she couldn't handle the water and drowned?
"It's fine! I'm basically a fish anyway, so there's no way I could drown!"
With this concern out of the way, the plan began. The speedster hero dashed back and forth across the entire width of the island over a dozen times that day, braving the howling wind and the driving rain while carrying a small, dripping child on his back, who, for the first time in her life, was able to protect her family, like a real big sister.
The incident was resolved with only minor damage to the city, and the other heroes helped to cover up Izuna's involvement. However, in private, they praised her for her ingenuity and bravery, calling her all manner of things she had never expected to hear. These people were heroes. They fought bad guys, and stopped natural disasters, and saved people's lives. And they were thanking her and saying she was cool.
Maybe that's why, when she applied for high school the very next year, she found herself standing outside of Ishin Academy, bearing letters of recommendation from a local hero and from her teachers, and carrying on her back the weight of a big, big dream she'd never have dared to dream before...
Character Arc
Izuna's character arc is a fairly straightforward underdog story, coupled with a secondary plot as she tries to define her own identity and decide who she really is. She's a nobody with a big dream and a lot to prove, but has some big hurdles to overcome to do it -- her lack of confidence, her sense that she needs to be something she's not to succeed, and the like. She's taken her big first step -- but if she wants to keep following this path, she's going to have to face herself in the mirror, and decide that she can accept the person she sees there. It's nothing fancy, but hopefully it'll be a fun, wholesome romp with lots of cool moments as she gets to make all sorts of friends, find her footing, come out of her shell, and really shine.
With enough determination, even a lowly carp can become a magnificent dragon.
Quirk Description
Known by the name of Rainbringer, Izuna's Quirk is a rather odd one. Whenever she comes close to water, she can passively or actively pull that water towards herself and, by touching it, store it within her body utilizing some form of pocket dimension, similar to a teleporter Quirk. She is then subsequently capable of altering that stored water's properties -- temperature, physical state, velocity, and even more esoteric aspects such as its surface tension -- and releasing it from any part of her body. Though it's a strange Quirk, it does have a tremendously wide range of potential applications, limited only by three crippling factors.
Firstly, though there doesn't seem to be a hard "upper limit" to how much water she can store with Rainbringer, the more water she has, the harder she has to focus on keeping it all contained within her, or on emitting it from precisely one part of herself instead of just her entire body in general. Should her concentration lapse, she'll spring a leak, and water will begin steadily trickling out of her storage from all over her until she gets it under control again. The more agitated or flustered she gets, the harder it becomes to concentrate, and thus the more likely she is to lose control and cause a small flood around her. Even if she doesn't fully lose focus, it takes a lot of mental energy to make sure she just releases the water from the part of her body she wants to emit it from. Eventually, she may be able to master her Quirk enough to fire ultra-precise streams of pressurized water from a single finger, but right now she's basically limited to just blasting it from her whole arm at once over a wide area, limiting the amount of concentrated force she can bring to bear.
Secondly, her Quirk only works on things she recognizes as "water." This means that, for example, water vapor in the air works, since the only way she can directly see or perceive it is by observing steam undergoing condensation, which turns it into a liquid form -- therefore allowing her to recognize it as "water." However, even though she consciously knows that ice is just frozen water, it's not something she perceives the same way as liquid water, and therefore can't be stored.
And thirdly, she's obviously limited in how much water she can employ by how much water is in her surroundings, and how much she has stored up. Even in a desert, she could still use her Quirk well if she'd prepared by storing gallons upon gallons of water in advance -- but if she hadn't, she'd be effectively Quirkless. Conversely, when fighting underwater, near the ocean, or in a rainstorm, her effectiveness skyrockets due to the near-limitless amount of water at her disposal.
Evenly matched though they might have been in a vacuum, neither Fianna nor the Ogre was alone. While she'd originally intended to rush right back into the fray to push her advantage, it seemed that her allies decided to take this moment to intervene, even as she had already begun to dash towards her prey once more, rapidly closing the distance. The tiny hunter who'd called out to her before launched into the beast in a flurry of slashes and flames, and when she was at last caught in the beast's grip and hurled back down to the earth, the shieldbearer joined the fray as well, smashing the creature's legs and bringing it to its knees.
Her every instinct wanted to fling her upon the fallen beast -- to rip and tear its flesh away and feast upon the power within. But what little remained of her sanity held fast to the frayed thread of her consciousness, steering her away from this melee. If she dived in now, both her wounded allies might get caught up in her rampage -- and the last thing she wanted to do was fell a fellow Hunter -- particularly not those who were acquitting themselves so valiantly against such a mighty foe.
So, instead, she leaped into the air, kicking off the fallen ogre's shoulder and jumping over it, towards where the retreating survivors of the guard platoon were desperately trying to drag themselves out of the fray, still harried by the half-dozen or so void goblins that remained. Retreating as the guards were, they weren't likely to get in her way... and while these lesser creatures were hardly prey that could sate her hunger, they'd be ample fodder to prepare her for her next tilt at the ogre.
One of the goblins was mid-leap at a fallen guard when a shadow fell over it, and a massive blade skewered it cleanly through the torso. Its ribs cracked and caved inward as the flesh ran off them, liquefying and all collapsing inward towards the blade that had erupted from its body. By the time she landed, it was already little more than an emaciated husk that crumbled into dust as she continued to follow the momentum of the hefty blade affixed to her arm, landing on the tips of her toes and hopping forward with each swing like a crane above the surface of a lake. It was an uncanny, yet graceful dance -- more the movements of a bird of prey than a human being, as her whole body followed behind the weight of her weapon.
One goblin turned, and was reduced to a fine red mist as her massive sword carved through its upper body. She stumbled forward with her momentum, but hopped upright once again, turning a full circle to decapitate two more enemies attempting to flank her. Their black-tainted blood gushed like a fountain into the air, even as she raised the blade high overhead, bringing it down like a guillotine to split her next victim vertically, before lunging through the crumbling halves of his body to skewer a fifth foe hiding in his shadow. Her birdlike pirouette ended, and her blade came to rest on the flagstones below, drinking deep of the blood that now soaked them.
A cry split the air as the final goblin leaped at her from the left, its jaws opened wide as it lunged at her throat. She didn't even turn to face it. With a squelch, a greenish-hued "arm" erupted from her empty socket, its ten-fingered hand clenching around the goblin's head mid-leap. The creature's cry died in its throat as its skull popped like an overripe grape, and its headless body contorted and ruptured, its bones compacting and muscles twisting as it was sucked into a vast, toothy maw that opened in the palm of her new hand, devouring the creature in a single gulp.
That took care of the petty distractions, then. Which meant all that remained was...
A sickening squelch split the air, and Fianna blinked in momentary surprise as she turned to see what exactly had caused it. It seemed that the ogre, not to be outdone, had used its own head as material to summon a replacement arm of its own, either severing or liquefying the corroded limb before grafting on a black, shadowy appendage that dripped and oozed with unnatural ichor. It seemed that in depriving it of one arm, she'd only given it the means and the inclination to replace it with a significantly more deadly one. Perhaps this was how her own enemies felt... Well, not that it mattered.
After all, each of them had two arms again -- so it was still a fair fight. Or at least, it would have been... if the creature was paying any attention to her. Unfortunately, its focus seemed to be entirely elsewhere -- specifically, on the still fallen young Hunter who had set it ablaze just moments before. Her wounds must not have healed yet, and, laying prone as she was at the bottom of a small impact crater, she was a sitting duck.
Well, whatever. Weaklings died. That was nothing new. While its attention was elsewhere, she could strike its already-wounded back, and perhaps even reach its heart this time. The girl would make a perfectly suitable diversion for her to achieve a quick and decisive victory, and then she could feed. There was no time for hesitation or sentiment, so --
"Shut up."
She sprinted at the ogre faster than her thoughts could be twisted, giving a loud roar to draw its attention as she slid between its legs and coming up on the other side just in time to raise her sword. Its shadowy arm came down, claws extended, ready to rip the girl behind her to shreds -- only to find those same claws deflected by the crimson form of Amaryllis as she trapped them in one of the large grooves along the weapon's dull spine. Bracing her newly regenerated off-hand against the back of the blade, she wrenched its first strike aside with her newly increased leverage, even as a large tendril of goblin flesh erupted from her tailbone, coiling itself around the body of the young Hunter behind her and tossing her clear of the crater.
Then the ogre's other hand struck home, and where once had been standing a white haired huntress, there was just a spray of crimson droplets and a few twitching pieces of meat and bone. A crimson sword, still attached to a sticky mass of gore, was ripped free by the resultant explosion of viscera, and flew high in the air, spinning end over end before sticking sideways into the wall of the tower overlooking the courtyard -- where it hung motionless, the "limb" still grafted to its handle flapping limply in the wind...
Julian had scarce sat herself down when she heard movement from the neighboring rooms, noting with surprise that despite how early she herself had awakened, it seemed she'd only barely been first out of her room. Emerging in ones and twos, the rest of the squad awoke in various states of preparation. First to arrive were Dot and Elon -- the taciturn Valeforian boy in the middle of what appeared to be some sort of dispute, and the shorter, raven-haired Dot merely nodding along and awkwardly trying to put whatever the argument was behind him. It didn't seem to be too serious -- at least, not compared to the little discussion she'd had with her own roommate -- but she nonetheless gave Dot in particular an understanding, wry smile as she waved silently in greeting to the two of them.
Just a few moments later, a by-now fairly familiar shadow fell over her where she was lounging on the couch, and she craned her neck back to look up at the towering young man who cast it. "Ah! Good morning!" She shot up a cheerful grin while wracking her brain to remember his name. She'd never really been good at that sort of thing -- or, rather, she could never really remember the names of characters in books particularly well, at least. She wasn't sure about people, since aside from Emma, she'd never really --
A sour taste rose up in her mouth, and she shook her head slightly as she sat herself up, as if that would help her forcefully dislodge the uncomfortable memories that threatened to take root there. As if the dreams weren't bad enough, she couldn't stop thinking back even when she was awake... Despite that, though, she merely shrugged at Signar -- right, that was his name! -- Signar's question.
"Eh, as well as ever. Those bunks are pretty tiny, though." She gave another one of her usual nervous chuckles while slightly rubbing her forehead, which must have knocked up against the wall at least three times as she tossed and turned during the night. "How about you? That bed they rolled in for you must be at least a little comfier."
Around this time, another door opened -- not that of any of the individual rooms, but rather, the front door of their suite, and in strode their illustrious royal commander, his pale locks still dripping with moisture. He must have gotten up even sooner than her to bathe -- a deduction that was made quite easy by the fact that she hadn't seen him go, and on account of the flowery scent that had wafted in the moment he entered the room. That, coupled with his somewhat dangerous appearance, almost made her forget that it was proper manners for a soldier to stand up and greet her commander even if said commander wasn't a royal. Those languid eyes, that silky hair, still shimmering with the faintest hint of moisture... Seriously, he might have been a prince, but wasn't this level of sparkliness just unfair? She could hardly look directly at him even as she jumped to her feet and gave a hasty salute.
"Good morning, Captain! Er, I mean, Your Highness!" She stammered out with... well, at least it was an attempt at discipline. "...Wait, which is it?" Trailing off into muttering as she pondered which role took precedence in this situation, she thankfully didn't have time to make a fool of herself since their squad's Third Seat at that moment decided to do that instead. Bursting out of his room like a blue tornado just as her own stonefaced roommate went to wake him -- and nearly running the jerk over in the process, heh -- the doglike boy Kaiser began to dash around the room making a tremendous racket before darting past the prince and out the door, evidently making a beeline for the mess hall. Well... she couldn't exactly fault him for that. The food last night might have been nothing special to all these spoiled nobles, but by her (extremely low and half-starved) standards, it had been a veritable feast, and as it would happen, she was still pretty hungry herself.
The third Valeforian -- Zen-something or other -- stumbled out of his own quarters a moment later, evidently still pretty rattled by the unexpected noise a moment earlier. The blonde gave him a small wave and a grin. "Mornin'! Seems like we'd better hurry up or our Third Seat's gonna get all the food." Ordinarily, that'd be a pretty stupid joke -- but seeing how he'd managed to snarf down his portion on the prior evening even faster than her, and she'd been quite literally famished at the time, the threat of Kai devouring their breakfasts before they had even arrived somehow seemed a lot more believable.
So... seeing as one of their officers had already run off, and the Prince himself had already said he was leaving... that meant it was fine for her to go too, right? So, she slipped past Rossweine in the confusion and out into the hall, peeking back through the doorway and calling back one final time before darting off in the wake of the little blue bolt of destruction that had departed a moment prior.
"I'll save you a spot in line, Sig!"
One good turn deserved another, after all -- and since he'd been so welcoming to her the day before, she could find the magnanimity within her to repay him with a small favor or two. Who wouldn't be happy getting food a little sooner? Nobody, obviously. So, with a broad grin, she merrily trotted her way down the stairs and along the corridor to the neighboring building, where a delectable meal no doubt awaited...
Blood and vile black ichor steeped the stones of the inner wall as the grey huntress carved her path. Voidlings scrambled over the ramparts, only to be crushed in her massive fist or hacked and hewn asunder with a few quick blows of her massive blade. The wind howled, the beasts cried, and Fianna hunted.
And yet, another noise reached her over the din -- screams of a decidedly human nature. If they were coming from inside the courtyard, that meant the main gate must have crumbled... ah. That explained why her prey had suddenly decided to make itself scarce. With a new, easier route into the citadel, they were rushing in through the ground level to get first crack at the helpless townsfolk cowering inside the walls.
What an utterly pathetic farce. These were truly the strongest monsters in history? And yet they ran cowering from her, accepting their defeat in exchange for prey that couldn't so much as lift a finger to defend themselves. Such a blatant display of mediocrity could only remind her of her old life's enemies -- the cowardly nobles of Midnos who hid behind their wealth and armies and oppressed the weak with impunity -- and the unwelcome memory threatened to sour her good mood.
...Then a rock hit her in the back of the head. She lurched forward from the impact alone, but didn't even seem to notice the cracks in her skull as they sealed themselves shut again. A faint trickle of blood ran down her scalp, staining her silvery hair in crimson, but she felt nothing, and ignored it. Turning instead to the source of the unexpected projectile, she raised her blade to cut it down, only to be disappointed even further when she recognized what -- or rather, who -- had thrown it. Ah. That explained everything.
"That was... unnecessary, Quinn. As is your offer of assistance. If an enemy is inside the keep, then..."
She exhaled slightly, a fog of mist forming before her mouth and obscuring the expression she wore for a moment. Yet, the faint, uncharacteristically shrill giggle that she gave meant that her face could only have worn the brightest of smiles.
"Then I'll get to enjoy another delightful hunt."
She spread her arms wide, the weight of her massive sword counterbalanced by the weight of her equally gargantuan mutated hand. Then, she took a step back --
-- and tumbled, grinning madly, off the wall and down towards the courtyard below. The wind took her, and though her numb skin could hardly feel the gale whipping around her as she fell, her hair, skirts, and flowing sleeves trailing behind her like the tail of a comet, the sense of free fall helped her to imagine what it must have felt like, and how exhilarating this would all have been were her humanity still intact.
But that joy was lost to her now. Right... there was only one thing that could make her heart beat anymore, and it was waiting for her at the bottom!
Halfway down the rampart, she kicked off the wall, twisting in mid-air and throwing her entire body into a corkscrew spin, throwing everything she had behind the weight of her sword. Below her stood a towering figure -- a gargantuan behemoth of black ichor and pure rage. Her prey. Like a hawk diving upon an unsuspecting fieldmouse, the blood-soaked comet descended from the sky, just as the giant beast recoiled from being deflected by the shield of another combatant upon the ground. An ally? She had no time to consider such things, so if there really were Hunters yet holding their ground at the entrance, she'd leave the defense to them... and focus entirely on this one strike!
With the force of a thunderbolt, her blade connected, sparks flying as the tar-like coating of its infested body hardened to the consistency of diamond. The jagged edge of Amaryllis tore along the surface of its shoulder and back, but though she ripped through its outer shell, she couldn't reach bone -- much less its heart. Her strike deflected, she slid down its back, carrying through the remainder of her slash's momentum -- reduced though it might have been -- to deal a long, shallow scar down the length of the creature's entire torso. But if this hindered its movements at all, it didn't show it, as it turned and wildly slammed down its fist repeatedly, not giving her any time to recover her bearings from the impact of her landing. The first swing, she turned aside with her blade -- though her knees almost snapped just trying to stand under the mighty impact -- forcing her to roll aside as the second strike landed home. Furious now, it gave a loud roar and took a new approach -- spreading its palm to try to encircle and grab hold of her, so as to crush her like a particularly noisome insect. Without enough time to recover her balance -- a difficult task, given the bulk of her limbs and her precarious, muddy footing -- she instead resolved to meet this attack head-on, and extended her own massive arm in response. As the ogre gripped hold of her, so too did she grasp firmly onto it, grappling with it like a sumo wrestler as it tried to force its weight down upon her.
More flesh, more power -- liquid life flowed from her arm down the rest of her body, and even as she was forced to the ground, her already deformed arm swelled up even further -- muscles bulging, skin tearing, bones stretching to their limits and beyond -- then burst like an over-full pustule as she brought down her sword-arm to sever it cleanly from her body, squirming once more from the giant's grasp like a lizard shedding its tail to escape.
It wasn't as if the ogre had time to worry about catching her again. After all, that limb had been made from the bodies of the spider-like creatures she had slain -- and when it exploded, it had released every last bit of their venom -- enriched and refined with a little bit of help from Amaryllis -- drenching the beast's entire arm in sickening yellow-green bile. It howled once again, trying in vain to grasp her -- only to lose control of the appendage entirely and end up swinging its twitching, afflicted limb every which way in a frenzy as the tar coating it, then its very skin began to violently wither and necrotize.
Fianna rose to her feet, and giggled to herself, grinning as she lurched from side to side, her body's balance readjusting to the distribution of her weight once more being localized entirely on one side of her. Slowly, methodically, she raised her sword once again, and stared down the ogre.
Well, they both only had one working arm now, so it was still a fair fight, right? Thinking that way, this had only gotten more and more exciting! She could already feel the familiar madness taking hold, and she embraced it wholeheartedly.
"Hm? Oh. Oh. Umm, no, I don't know why it's called that. Haha... Human names for things sure are weird, aren't they?"
The wolverine stared back at her with eyes unblinking and teeth bared, and the young woman got the feeling that her question had probably made it angry. In hindsight, this probably hadn't been the right animal to ask for directions to the local tavern, but unfortunately, she hadn't exactly had the luxury of choice. Few creatures dared to venture this close to human roads, and after spending so many years in the Argent Vale, she'd forgotten the ways and paths that used to be second nature to her.
"Look, um, I'm sorry to bother you -- just don't worry about it. I'm sure I can find my way there myself. Thank you for your time!"
Bowing, she left a small sliver of dried meat to hopefully appease the insulted wolverine, and then made a quick getaway before it decided to take out its anger on her. Just because she could communicate with animals didn't mean that she necessarily got along with them any better than she did with people, after all.
When one thing was lost, another took its place. That had been one of the first lessons her esteemed grandmother had taught her, and in light of that, it wasn't as though Aethra had even wanted to come back here anyway. All that was probably waiting here for her were somber memories and disappointment, and the best possible outcome would be if she was the only one who had remembered her promise in the first place. If everyone else was going about their lives happily, without a care for what had happened when their home and their innocence went up in smoke... Well, it might have seemed callous, or as if she was attempting to chicken out (since that's exactly what she was doing), but she really did think that would have been for the best.
...But, hesitate though she might, sooner or later she found herself peering out from between the trees down at the door of the Lying Wolverine, an inn without a town left to frequent it, watching as a pair of travelers as out of place as she herself stepped through its decrepit door. This was the place... and a promise was a promise. She tugged at the hem of her hood, pulling it a little further down over her face in a futile attempt to reassure herself. The silver hair that spilled out from underneath -- the horns that always used to snag on the branches overhead -- the eyes that burned like twin coals of hellfire. Even if those she had once called her friends saw her, would they recognize her as anything other than a monster? The mere thought of having to face those looks of fear and disgust again made her want to slink back into the forest with her tail between her legs.
...But a promise was a promise, and so she found herself rooted to the spot, unable to bring herself to emerge from her hiding place, but also unable to turn and go and forsake the word she had once given, so long ago...
(Aethra will enter in my next post and otherwise will just be watching everybody's characters as they go in, but if anybody wants to take a shot at spotting her beforehand, I rolled a stealth check and got an 18, with a +2 from DEX making 20.)
((Due to IRL circumstances, Izurich is dropping from the RP. Since it's still early on, I'll be retconning scenes involving Liese and the enchanted door of Dot's room, and slotting in a new character to replace them.))
Timeskip: The First Morning
The rest of the evening had passed largely uneventfully. Despite tensions between certain members of the group, most had been too occupied settling into their new quarters and feeding themselves to pick any more fights with one another, and even after returning to the dorm room, at least one of the contentious persons in question -- a small blonde who definitely wasn't just trying to avoid having to talk to her roommate at all -- had turned in early, so not much had happened.
Their squad's final member had arrived late in the evening -- a last minute addition to the roster, though whether this Elon fellow had been hand-picked based on his family's connections or his own talents with magic, who could say? Regardless, as fellow foreigners, it seemed he had been placed alongside Dot for the time being.
At any rate, most of their fellow trainees had seemed of like mind to the Baker boy -- turning in early in preparation for the start of their training on the morrow. A few stayed out a while later, mingling in the common room of the barracks, but for the most part, the night was quiet, save the distant rumbling of the falls.
...Then came the morning.
Julian awoke in darkness, and for a moment, her heart sank. She'd been having a dream of some kind, and given the ache in her chest and her racing heart, it probably hadn't been anything good, though the details escaped her. That wasn't all, either -- not being able to see anything, hardly able to move without scraping against the wall of her cubby-like bed... it took her a moment to remember where she was before her momentary panic subsided, and she thanked her Stars that she hadn't screamed. This was seriously going to take some getting used to, and the last thing she wanted was her roommate knowing how afraid she was of this dark, cramped space.
Even so, she couldn't exactly get out of bed just yet. Moving quietly, she tried her best not to make any sound, so as not to arouse Nathaniel's suspicion as she blindly fumbled about with her hands in the impenetrable gloom, doing her best to re-tighten the bindings around her chest, then slipped out of her tunic and into the cadet uniform she'd snuck into her bunk the night before. She couldn't afford to change her clothes anywhere she might be seen, after all -- so this was her only chance to get herself dressed without blowing her cover.
Thankfully, she'd woken up early -- even moreso than she needed to. Upon opening the latch of the shutter covering her bunk and hopping down onto the cold wooden floor below, she peered out the window into the courtyard to see... pitch blackness. The moon's light could hardly reach between the walls, and the sun hadn't yet begun to crest the horizon. Even so, Julian found herself wide awake, and didn't feel any particular inclination to stuff herself back into her narrow bunk to get any more rest. So, she just headed out into the common room and tossed herself down on a large sofa.
Maybe in another hour or so they'd be called to assemble, and then she'd have her first real taste of knight training. Would they be fighting with swords again, she wondered? Or maybe they'd practice with bows? Spears? The idea of learning how to fight seemed exciting regardless of the weaponry involved, and, though she still couldn't quite shake Nathaniel's contemptuous words from the prior afternoon, she awaited whatever surprises the day would bring with unshaken resolve and anticipation...
It seemed the battle had already reached the city's keep by the time the blood-soaked huntress arrived at the foot of its walls. One of the gargantuan Voidspawn attempted to scale the rampart, only to be immolated by a shrieking blast of fire from the pinnacle of the citadel, while another was ripped to shreds by a small figure that she was pretty sure called her "granny" for some reason. Well, whoever the brat was, they were at least right about one thing, though -- she had neither the time nor the inclination to dawdle here and let her prey be taken by another.
Seeing as the tiny huntress who'd called out to her had already launched herself into the midst of those enemies still on the ground, Fianna instead turned her bloody-minded gaze towards those that were now fleeing from the eviscerated husk of their fellow, scrambling desperately up the wall and out of reach. She exhaled faintly, her breath condensing into a cloud of vapor in the frigid air as, absentmindedly, she clenched her off-hand into a fist and raised it to point towards the beasts on the wall.
A disgusting series of loud pops and squelches split the air like gunfire as the air pockets within her knuckles suddenly expanded, the bones of her fingers erupting from within and launching themselves like so many tiny darts into the bodies of several of the Voidlings -- piercing them through with surprising force as tendons of muscle drew taut in their wake, reforming her mutilated fingertips into wire-thin tendrils that, with a mighty tug, ripped her victims down from the wall, and into the waiting blade of her sword -- cleaving five of the abhorrent beings with a single blow. Their bodies sloughed off the blade like water, dripping upward back along her "fingers" and into the stump of her arm, which swelled up like a balloon, muscles re-knitting together and their surface hardening into a chitinous shell, from which all too many digits extended like the legs of a centipede.
Glancing back, she noted that whoever had called out to her looked to be handling the remaining voidlings at the base of the wall just fine on her own. She opened her mouth, fumbling momentarily as her battle-clouded mind tried to recall how to properly form words.
"Leave these... to you."
Raising her newly improved arm, she shambled up to the edge of the wall, then brought her gargantuan, misshapen limb down like a hammer, plunging its many legs into the stone. They writhed and skittered, piercing like pitons into the cracks between the bricks and "walking" upward, while the apathetic huntress dangled below, until she reached the top and dragged herself up as, with several snaps and cracks, the many sharp limbs condensed themselves into a more recognizable, albeit still-clawed facsimile of a human hand, joints splitting, merging, and warping into four "fingers" and one "thumb."
What voidlings had avoided being picked off by her earlier attack or by the girl at the base of the wall, she quickly finished off with a few deft strokes of her sword. Their oversized mandibles couldn't even pierce the hardened armor of her shieldlike arm, and, as they had offered no danger, also offered no real sense of reward as she saw them crushed to dust beneath her mighty blade. More... she needed something more. And so, she began to stalk along the wall, searching for a foe that could truly remind her she was alive...
A deep breath. A sense of tightness -- of weight -- built within her chest, and with it came an old, familiar ache. Pulsing deep within, spreading outward -- a chill that wasn't cold and a heat that brought no warmth. Something unseen was pressing down upon her lungs, forcing out the air again and again, making her body feel unbearably heavy even as her head felt so light it seemed as though it would fly off.
Another deep breath. It was alright. His words might have stung, but it wasn't as though she'd lost everything -- or even lost anything yet. She just needed to stay calm, and smile, and do her best in the days ahead. The Prince had complimented her, right? Well, it wasn't exactly a compliment, but he'd seemed supportive enough when Nathaniel was trying to goad her into a fight just a moment prior, so she could probably go without forcing the issue. And her squadmates seemed nice enough, too, her roommate notwithstanding! Signar had been a little rude about her size, but she hadn't forgotten the way he had tried his best to reassure her. Right... He'd already noticed her panicking before, and had gone out of his way to comfort her. If she kept this up, he'd think she was pathetic, right? A boy might let his feelings show so easily, but Julian Baker wasn't supposed to be a boy -- "he" was supposed to be a man among men!
That was why she couldn't afford to show an unsightly face now. It was fine. Everything was fine. Her disguise, her future, rested on being accepted as one of them -- and that would never happen if she let herself get rattled so easily. So, she just needed to breathe. Breathe.
The phantom pain in her chest disappeared as quickly as it had come, and slowly, she drew out her lips into a smile. The hand she'd clenched over her heart loosened its grip, and slowly, calmly, lowered to her side. One more deep breath, and then she started to turn around. Her face looked perfectly normal -- she was sure of it. She'd just go on and get some lunch like nothing out of the ordinary had happened--
...
Why was there a hand on her shoulder?!
She twitched with a slight start, and spun about, already reaching down to her belt on instinct with her dominant left hand to draw a weapon that wasn't even there, even as she reached up with her right to shake off the assailant's grip -- Only to stop when she came face to face with the enigmatic blue-haired boy, who gave some sort of cryptic comment before quickly stepping back and letting her go. She took a step back, too, on instinct, and stared him down with the momentary look of someone sizing up an enemy before a fight, before suddenly remembering that she needed to smile, and snapping her face back into its usual grin in a heartbeat.
"Ehehehe~," She chuckled nervously, raising the hand that had gone to her belt in search of a knife on instinct to scratch her cheek absentmindedly, and hopefully cover up her rather embarrassing reaction. "I appreciate the sentiment, but... I think there's more to being a knight than just fighting, you know?"
Stuff like dreams, and honor, and protecting the innocent... Not just blindly fighting whatever enemy stood before you, and seeking victory without knowing the cause. A knight was supposed to be more... hero-like!
...Of course, all these thoughts ran through her head without the slightest sense of irony, but she did realize a moment later that he'd probably been trying to console her. But, well, there was no reason for that, because Julian Baker definitely wouldn't be hurt by mere words! Definitely not.
...A loud rumble broke the awkward silence between them, and she averted her gaze, rubbing her stomach. Right. Food. That thing she hadn't been able to have for the last several days. Probably should get on that.
"Right, well, uh... I dunno about you, but I'm half-starved, so how about we go along with this whole lunch idea and get some grub, yeah?"
She gave another chuckle and another awkward grin, then hastily shuffled past Kai and out into the common room where the others were gathering. It wasn't that she hadn't appreciated his gesture, it was just... something about him felt strange. The way he'd managed to sneak up on her without making even the slightest sound, or the way those wild red-bronze eyes of his had been sizing her up just now. His hair, bearing, and manner all felt just the slightest bit uncanny, and she couldn't help but wonder just how much he'd seen through...
There is a certain kind of beauty in disaster -- in watching a grand edifice come crumbling down to the earth, leaving only dust and ruination -- in the crackling of flames as they devour everything in their path -- in the creeping of darkness that swells and surges in the fire's wake -- in the momentary flash of striking lightning, and in the anticipation of the coming thunder. And with that beauty, there is a certain clarity -- for when that blinding bolt lights up the sky, suddenly, even in the darkest of storms, even through the driving rain and howling wind, one can see as clear as day the true state of the world around her. There is quiet. Stillness. Peace. A single instant, frozen in time, the raindrops all hung suspended in the air like glassy beads of dew upon the strands of a spider's web. Then comes the thunder, and all is cacophony and madness once more.
Ah, the tempest -- the sweet, sweet tempest -- a symphony fit for devils, composed within the blackest pits of hell! How it roiled and sang, how the lightning flashed and the fire crackled and the rain chilled one to the very bone -- how the beasts roared and the people screamed and it all came crashing down. How little it mattered who lived and who died -- who fought and who fled -- who was good and who was evil! Yes, indeed, beneath that brilliant beam from the heavens, all were of equally little consequence -- mere pieces in a game played by gods and fools and understood by neither.
The stroke of a sword was much the same. The mounting tension, the blade upraised -- then descending in a flash to cleave whatever sorry fool happened to lie beneath it. That single moment of resistance -- of exhilarating struggle -- and then suddenly all would give way, skin tearing, muscles rending, bones cracking, blood spilling, voice screaming -- was it her enemy or her who cried loudest? Meaningless. For the deafening thunder came, and the world's madness once again took hold. That beautiful instant was gone forever, and mere memory could never do it justice. Another! Another flash of lightning! Another brilliant light to provide meaning once more to this blasted wreck of mud and dust! Another masterful stroke, another foe to slay -- onward, stumbling over the fallen, the weight of her blade leading her ever onward, deeper and into the darkness that she might cut the very night itself apart! Higher, higher still -- there were yet mountains to be felled, were there not?! A brighter flash and a louder din, that she might once again taste the sweet nectar of victory -- that gorgeous moment when all was made silent once again.
Ah, how her body writhed with hunger. How her throat clenched with thirst! A dull, aching pain that spread from her core to her arm and from there to... what exactly? That unknown weight that pulsated and tugged at her unseen strings. What was it again? Ah, yes, her partner.
"...That... way?"
Another tug, more urgent, more insistent. Her muscles unraveled and coiled like a thousand serpents, the massive crimson thing drawing her onward as she shambled desperately after it. She must have been fighting for quite some time, she supposed -- otherwise, she would never have felt so tired. It was strange, though. There had been others with her when she started, right? She had been ordered to protect something... Right, the ferry. The people... they needed to get to safety. Father was... No, Master Fray was counting on her. But then what were these beasts? Where did her comrades go?
"The flowers... Master...? Everyone is gone..."
...No, rather, they had all been gone since a long time ago. Once again, she'd been ordered to sacrifice herself to protect others. And once again, she and she alone had survived.
The haze of battle was fading, and a different kind of clarity began to take its place. The beat of her heart, and the heart of her partner, began to slow, clearing the adrenaline from her addled mind.
The southern front had already collapsed. She supposed that any survivors must have retreated to the keep -- to the hearth. Those towering, shambling forms she could see writhing over the walls, and the unearthly howls that carried even to the blasted, blood-soaked crater in which she alone stood among the mangled, half-chewed husks of her prey suggested that the strongest of her foes were now doing the same, hot on the heels of whatever allies she might have had left.
Then in that case, her -- no, their course of action was obvious, wasn't it? Wherever Fianna the Bloody went, disaster would follow. And wherever disaster arose, Fianna the Bloody would cut it down. Those massive beasts, perhaps, could sate the hunger that seethed within her bosom. Merely thinking of what she would feel as her blade sank into their tender flesh sent shivers down her spine.
And so, the pale maiden, still soaked in the blood of the slain, shouldered her vicious blade, and shambled towards the keep, all too eager to meet whatever cruel fate awaited her there -- for all she could see was the flashing lightning, all she could hear was the booming peal of thunder...
Yes, indeed, there is such beauty in disaster -- all the moreso for an inconsequential Hunter with nothing left to lose.
Carlyle
Noctis
Lemons
mickilennial
AlteredTundra
TokyoPewPew
Kaithe Dame
Cyadical
Damycles
