Fish of Oblivion

Digimon: Fallen Knights

Sasha Koslova

Her suggestion to search for a body of water and trace it seemed well-received, and as Isaac took the lead Sasha was happy to fall in with the group as they moved along. She opted to move to the front: she couldn't be sure of everyone else's credentials, but more than a handful of them looked like they rarely left the house, let alone explored the vast world nature afforded them. So while wouldn't exactly call herself a survivalist, she probably had the edge when it came to experience here, which would give her something to focus on and keep her mind busy for the time being.

"It's impressive, certainly," she said, as Melody began to wax lyrical about their surroundings. She didn't feel too much like talking, but Yurie started on to Isaac about something to do with computers; so while the circumstances were far from ideal, it was at least a lifeline she could throw to anyone else in the group who didn't know their RAM from their memory. "I'm from out in the country, and I've never seen anything like this." Despite the best efforts of the various outsiders who came and went, her little town back in Indiana was no slouch when it came to natural beauty; but even so this particular forest had a wild, untamed feel to it that blew anything she was familiar with out of the water.

Isaac said something about the possibility there was no overarching logic or reason to the state of things here, the likelihood of them just being the result of random chance or some kind of algorithm. She wasn't quite sure she knew enough to entirely rule it out, but something seemed a little off about that all the same.

"Who knows? If those two weren't talking complete nonsense, we're in a whole new world with a logic of its own." Though they'd called it a Digital World, the Angels had certainly seemed like more than computer programs; and again, she was reminded of her dad's old books. They were only able to comprehend things through a lens formed from their understanding of their own world; who knew what this place actually was, what vast history had formed it and led to their abduction here.

She wondered, faintly, if the form of the Angels had been anything more than a convenience. In the stories she'd read, alien beings often took forms suited to communicate with those they deigned to contact, and she couldn't help but recall how the voices of the beings had resonated into her head before they deployed the strange light. The world around them certainly felt real, with the rich scent of the air, the cool breeze moving between the swaying trees, the crunch of bark and vegetation underfoot and the sounds of birdsong in the distance; but could they really trust anything they saw here? They only had the word of beings who seemingly had nothing but contempt for their agency and autonomy to go by, and even if this wasn't a simulated universe of some kind, it seemed oddly convenient that it would be so much like their own.

Before she could dwell on those thoughts too much, however Melody queried the term 'Digital World': wow, had they told her even less than the rest of them? "Apparently so. But remember, that may only be our closest frame of reference for it. We're in an alien world, where life could have turned out entirely different from anything we know. Who knows how this world's history has shaped it, or what purpose anything here could se-"

"GWAGH!"

She trailed off somewhat as Melody let out a sudden noise, looking back at her to,see Azuma- it was going to take a little bit of getting used to, but if she was more comfortable being referred to by her surname, she supposed it was only respectful to oblige her- holding on to her tightly. She stopped in place, squinting at the two of them. She hadn't heard her speak up, and while it was possible it was just shyness, a closer look at her face made out that she was fixated on something. She looked between the two of them, sparing a quick look in the direction that Azuma was staring off in, noting the two eyes staring out at her before she started to make her way back towards them-

She froze. Her head snapped back around in the direction the other girl had been looking in, and there was no mistaking it. Even from where she was standing, those vivid green eyes shone out brightly out of the darkness at Melody and Azuma. A number possibilities rushed through her head, some distinctly less pleasant than others; but as the others kept walking, a thought dawned on her. She didn't know how this world worked, but a wild animal would have bolted or charged by now if someone was staring directly at it. A voice in her head was telling her not to take the chance, but considering the apparent lack of options otherwise-

"Hello?" She asked, softly, as she looked towards the patch of vegetation the owner of the eyes was concealed in. As unwise as it potentially was, perhaps whatever was there was friendly; and if it was, perhaps it could tell them more than those two so-called Angels. "Are you lost too?"

Digimon: Fallen Knights

Sasha Koslova

"Yeah, let's- let's not do that." Sasha said coolly as Cameron attempted to hug her as well. Again, Kat would try and strangle her if she ever found out about this, but she might well end up strangling him if this kept up. Although it seemed more likely the pink-haired girl- Yurie?- would beat her to it. Sasha couldn't judge her for being upset and angry at the situation or exasperated at Cameron but damn. Forget a hug, someone clearly needed a hot drink and a good night's sleep.

Well, she could worry about that later. For now, she had to stay on track.

"We don't know what they wanted our help for, or even if they were telling the truth about anything else." She said to Cameron, before looking around to the others who had weighed in. Admittedly, there was a nagging doubt at the back of her own mind- a part of her that didn't want to turn down anyone in need- but at the moment she found it easy to quell. It was one thing to offer help, and another to be forced. At any rate, It seemed like Yurie and the other Japanese girl present- Yui- were of much the same mind of her, as was the newcomer- Melody- despite her apparent fascination with the strange device that the Angels had furnished her with. Sasha checked her own- they really did look like dad's old welding goggles, but the female Angel had mentioned them having impressive abilities. At least marginally curious, she slipped them over her eyes-

"Oh, wow," She blinked as her vision was filled with a not-insignificant amount of data, almost exactly like a heads-up display from a science fiction movie. Names hovered over the heads of each of them assembled, as well as a symbol that looked like the call button of a phone; and at the top of her vision where her eyes met the bridge of her nose, there were several letters that remained fixed in place even as she looked around. A compass? Well, a map would have been handy, but that was better than nothing.

"Yeah, we can play around with these some more once we have a better idea of where we are," she said, as she pulled them back off. Perhaps it was the stress of the last few minutes catching up, but she was getting a headache herself, and finding their bearings would help with that. Yurie suggested picking a direction and walking, and though the idea of wandering off in some new, unknown world was a daunting one, it wasn't exactly like they had a glut of better options. "Whether we're going to help them or not, we're not going to get much done hanging around here. Let's see if we can find a river: if we head downstream from it we might be able to find a village or a camp, or at least somewhere to set up for the night."

Digimon: Fallen Knights

Sasha Koslova

Sasha's glare at the two Angels deepened as they brushed off the questions, but before she could open her mouth to say anything, her attention was snatched away by the appearance of the mysterious objects. As they took form from the light the Angel had summoned, it seemed hers was one of those among them that manifested as a pair of goggles; though hers appeared a little more heavy duty than many of the others around them, with dense glass lenses and a solid steel frame that made them look a lot like some of dad's old equipment.

She reached out and took them- maybe these would give them the abilities the Angels seemed to think they possessed? The female Angel's words seemed to corroborate that idea, and Sasha was about to press them for details when-

"Fare thee well, humans."

Sasha blinked, and they were no longer in the marble room. She looked around the forest, and between the other individuals assembled there, at first bewildered; and then, as reality sunk in, increasingly furious. Just as quick as they'd been to snatch them away from their lives without so much as a by-your-leave, those 'Angels' had unceremoniously dumped them in another unfamiliar place, beneath an unfamiliar sky- and expected them to get to work?

"Kurva", she spat, wishing she'd had the presence of mind to levy that one on the two who'd dropped them here. She knew their type all too well from what dad had told her when she was old enough to understand. Just like the company that had tossed him and mum aside, they looked at other people and their lives like numbers on a sheet, resources to be allocated or problems to be solved. Well, if they were Angels, may the devil take them. She wasn't going to do their bidding, not without a damn good reason she should abandon her responsibilities to pick up the slack for them.

She looked around. Most of the others were in a similar state of disbelief, but one of them- the one who she could have sworn was little more than a small child- seemed outright enthusiastic about doing the Angels jobs for them. She sighed, reaching out after them-

And then, with a flash of light, a new person arrived in their midst, hanging precariously in midair above the child(?) for a long, tense moment. Sasha froze, her heart jumping into her mouth; but as she saw them fall, she made for their position, catching up to them just as she landed, almost crushing the boy she'd landed on.

"Hey, are you alright?" Fortunately, it looked like it hadn't been too severe a collision; the girl was up and talking again in a moment, at least, and while the boy seemed momentarily dazed he didn't seem outright hurt either. The pink-haired girl who'd been clonked over the head by the Angel caught up to them as well, seemingly less concerned but at least willing to explain what the newcomer had 'missed'.

"Try not to think about it too much. We'll find a way out." She nodded along to the other girl's explanation; presumably if they'd been snatched here as easily as that, it wouldn't be too tall an order to find someone who'd be willing to send them back. She then turned her attention to the boy, still lying on the ground. She offered him a hand to get up, when-

"Look, you can drop the whole stage persona, you know." The pink-haired girl also directed her attention to the boy, crouching down to glare at him at the same time Sasha offered him a hand up. "I'll even sign an NDA if we ever make it out of this that I won't blab you can act like a person who doesn't spike the blood pressure of everyone of age to vote."

"Excuse me?" It wasn't quite as fierce as the glare she'd levelled at the angels, but Sasha couldn't help but stare disapprovingly at the girl; but a moment later, as the meaning of her words sunk in, she turned her attention back to the boy. Now that she mentioned it, and that she was this close, there was something oddly familiar about him. While he certainly looked very young, there were a few telltale signs that he wasn't exactly an outright child; though he was short, his proportions didn't match the profile of someone who was still growing, and while his face and features were soft, they seemed carefully arranged in that fashion. She stared, trying to get a read on him-

And then it hit her. She'd seen him before; and heard the song he'd burst into earlier. He was the pop star Kat had recently become obsessed with, to the detriment of her chores, finances and Sasha's sleep schedule. Yes, it was the face she'd seen pinned on her sister's bedroom wall, and on the TV when she'd caught her staying up late to watch his newest music videos: Cameron Mason.

"... Right." Sasha stared at the little toerag before her. God, this was all she needed right now. "Okay. I don't like the way she just spoke to you either, but I can agree with one thing. Let's be grown-ups here. Let's not go running off to god knows where in a place we don't know and can't trust, and let's keep the theatrics to a minimum." Kat was going to be so mad when she found out she'd met Cameron Mason, but that anger was a drop in the bucket compared to the deep, deep dread Sasha herself was feeling right now.

She sighed, deeper this time, and got back up to her feet. The pink haired girl and some of the others were making introductions. She guessed she might as well bite the bullet.

"I'm Sasha Koslova, and I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't have the slightest intention of running around for those two." She looked around the others, gauging their reactions to what was going on. None of them, bar him, seemed particularly enthusiastic about doing busywork for the Angels. But it seemed like the general mood was more frustration and confusion that could bubble over any moment than anything that would be conductive to getting them home. So she took a deep breath and spoke again. "If they brought us here that easily, it stands to reason we can find someone willing to send us back. Let's get our heads on straight, stick together and see if there's anyone around here who isn't a complete tool."

Digimon: Fallen Knights

Sasha Koslova

Sasha blinked as both another of the girls and the apparently female angel mentioned an email: had she clicked on anything like that? Nothing sprung to mind, but considering the rush she'd been in on the way out of the house...

She grabbed her phone back out of her pocket, flicking through the lock screen; and just as it disappeared, there it was, purple link and everything. She blinked again, and hit the back icon to confirm. Right at the top of her inbox, right above the one for dad's order, was the offending email. Had she really been spirited away to another world because she hadn't taken the time to check her emails; because it had just been there when she was rushing through to load up the receipt on the way to the store?

"Well, that's just great." She muttered to herself. It only stood to reason that that damn phone would be the end of her. She looked up gingerly, trying to get a read on how the others were responding to things-

"Hey!" She just about shouted, the sight of the female angel hitting the other two over the head emboldening her to raise her voice and jump-starting her back out of her momentary funk. She didn't rightly appreciate the language either, but- "You're the one imposing on them, mind your own damn manners!"

She glared at the angel for a moment, with as withering a look as she could manage, before she went back to appraising everyone else's reactions. The girl that had spoken up after her before had bounced back pretty quickly from being clonked and was rattling through a laundry list of words that she could only assume made sense to her. Well, power to her, she guessed. The oldest-looking of the boys, meanwhile, seemed about as accepting of the premise of things, but was asking things that she could more readily understand; right, she'd tuned it out a little, but the angel had mentioned something about drawing the potential out of 'Digimon'.

"Alright, alright, let's just- let's just move past you grabbing us without our knowledge or proper consent for the time being." She could get back to that once she understood things a little more. Maybe they actually had a good reason and a legitimate need for them to be here, however shoddily they'd gone about it. "How do you intend for us to draw out this 'potential'? Do we have some kind of magic in this world, or are you just expecting us to coach you through it?" If they were in another world, it was only a small leap of logic to assume they'd have gained abilities in the transition; but it was still a lot to assume considering how little she really knew or understood of what was being said.

"And why exactly do you need this potential unlocked?" And seeing as they'd spoken a lot about the what without going much into the why, she figured she might as well bite that bullet. As she finished her sentence, she paused, pondering; admittedly, if she had some kind of mystic hidden potential, she'd want it unlocked; she could help dad and the others a lot more. But it stood to reason, if it was urgent enough to snatch them from another world, it probably wasn't in the sole interest of self-improvement. "Why now, I mean?"

Digimon: Fallen Knights

Alright, trying this out. Hopefully I haven't messed up the permissions, hop in and we'll see how things go?

Digimon: Fallen Knights

I can have a look at it when I get back from work if you’re not opposed to the idea?

Also, started drafting and should be able to finish tonight; if not, at home tomorrow and should have plenty of time to get to it.

Digimon: Fallen Knights

@Cleveraptor Oh yeah, given any thought to a Discord? Like I said, might make it easier to keep contact if we're on and off.

Also, work schedule's looking a little uncertain but I'll try and get another doot out some time in the next few days if I can think of something of substance to add?

Fate/Illuminate Histoire

Master: Beatrice LaForet

• Name: Beatrice LaForet
• Age: 28
• Gender: Female
• Appearance:
  
  
  At 5’11” with an athletic figure, Beatrice is the kind of person who draws attention wherever she goes. Her ever-glinting eyes never seem to stay on one thing for long, and in all but the most extreme of cases she always seems to be smiling; though, whether that smile is friendly or portends your imminent dismembering is often a very open question.
  
  Though Beatrice wears her hair long, she usually keeps it tied up in a wild ponytail and dresses in a very casual, practical style, tending towards dress shirts, jeans, heeled boots and a jacket of some description (usually from the men’s section of whatever shop she got it from, fuck paying out the ass for some dinky little thing with no pockets). Little changes about her attire when on the job, besides the addition of light metal gauntlets for punching and proper handling of weapons and spells, and slightly heavier metal greaves better suited for running and kicking.
• Personality:
  
  Beatrice has matured somewhat with age, but deep down she’s the same wild young woman who turned up at the Clock Tower with no respect for anyone and a lot to prove. Though at first glance she doesn’t skew too far from the general expectation of magi to be composed and elegant at all times, further inspection reveals something altogether more troublesome; she’s sharp-tongued, spirited and never quite at ease unless she’s got something to hyperfixate on, whether that be a target to pursue or a challenge to overcome. Her experiences and chosen lifestyle allow her to fit somewhat more naturally into modern society than other magi, albeit no less eccentrically, but she’s almost never at home, always off pursuing personal leisure or a bounty put out by the Association (or both). She doesn’t seem to have much of a direction in life, unlike most magi and their attempts to reach the root of all things through dedication and study, but perhaps her pursuit of ever-greater fights is enough: something to prove to herself she’s alive, something more than a cog in a grand yet steadily failing machine.
  
  Old habits die hard, however, and so too does the inheritance of a child of magi. Although Beatrice places little value on elegance beyond the fluidity it affords her in battle, those who pry beneath her spirited surface will find she has both the pride and acute sadism one would expect of a magus from an old family. While she’s generally mindful of members of the common public, having little interest in meddling with their lives for her enjoyment and little patience for those who do, her relationships with other magi vary from offbeat to outright tense; she vocally considers many of her peers at the Association to be deluded, simpering snobs and wimps at best, and performative sociopaths besides, while she herself has accrued a reputation for being brash, uncooperative and prone to excessive force. She isn’t entirely a lost cause socially- she maintains friendly if occasionally vitriolic relations with other bounty hunters and the handful of Enforcers she knows personally, as well as many of her former classmates and teachers- but her bluntness when dealing with other magi doesn’t help matters, and neither does her apparent love of picking at perceived weaknesses to make people squirm and tip their hands.
• Skills:
  • Extremely Physically Fit: For Beatrice, maintaining her physical fitness is as, if not more important than maintaining her mind and magecraft: after all, reinforcement can only build upon what’s already there. Though perhaps a bit too much of a foodie for her own good, she’s still in very good shape.
  • Trained Physical Combatant: Beatrice has been trained in both armed and unarmed combat styles. While she blends characteristics of various styles, most notable among them are the Dardi school of swordsmanship for the former and bajiquan for the latter; styles emphasising a composed and deliberate form that, much like the wind and water Beatrice finds affinity with, can turn and give way to vicious and powerful blows and strikes in the blink of an eye. During her youth her parents indulged her sportiness with the train of thought that it was a curiosity that could help her return their line to prominence, but as of the present it’s become an essential part of her skillset, helping her efficiently apply the powers she’s worked to refine into a form suited for her split melee focus, as well as to improve her body’s flow of magical energy and the efficiency of her Od consumption.
• Abilities:
  
  Quality of Circuits: A
  Quantity of Circuits: C
  Elemental Affinity: Wind and Water
  Attribute: Compression, Reinforcement
  
  
  • General Magecraft: As befitting a Clock Tower-educated mage of a relatively esteemed background, Beatrice is well-versed in the fundamentals of Magecraft. High Speed Incantation, Bounded Fields, memory alteration, command, shared perception, healing essentials, even geis; Beatrice was certainly an apt pupil, making her all the more frustrating to her teachers, who wished she would settle down and apply herself to research rather than a violent life of bounty hunting.
  • Reinforcement: While well-versed in basic magecraft, Beatrice put in particular effort to learn reinforcement at a young age and has refused to let go of it ever since as she made a name for herself as a brawler. She uses it to supplement her already-impressive levels of physical fitness, providing the perfect counterbalance to her powerful but taxing spells and allowing her to both overwhelm targets who rely purely on their magecraft to defend themselves and help her close the gap with even stronger physical combatants. More than this, however, she makes some scarily impressive use of it in tandem with Storm; besides maintaining the structure of the blade so that it doesn’t warp or break during intense fights, she can apply her Water affinity to outright alter the shape and properties of the sword to allow techniques and moves that would otherwise be impractical or outright impossible with a weapon of its design.
  • Compression Magecraft: The LaForet family’s speciality, which allows them to designate a radius of about twenty meters around them as ‘their territory’ and pull in a selected element within that space towards them. Most traditionally, they used this to pull in and compress prana from their surroundings, both creating tightly-wound pockets of prana that they could then use to quickly cast powerful spells and disrupting the ability of targets to draw from the world around them, a function that they were sure to pass on to their prodigious heir. It does have some more direct offensive applications, such as firing the compressed prana in a form similar to a bullet or shell, but these are of dubious effectiveness when it comes to Beatrice’s peers and the high-level targets she most often concerns herself with. As such, when making use of it in unaltered form, Beatrice tends more to use it to pull targets in towards her, refusing them the luxury or comfort of attacking her from a distance with ranged spells, or conversely to create a distance between them by compressing air and releasing it for a blast of repellent force, allowing her to break off and recompose herself if actually pressed physically.
  • Elemental Manipulation: While historically The LaForet family has used their speciality as a supplement for more traditional spells, and she herself most commonly uses it for zoning purposes in physical brawls, Beatrice has put in the time and effort to figure out applications relevant to her elemental affinities. Though compression magecraft may be unreliable for direct offensive applications in its unaltered form, interfering with nature to manipulate and amplify existing elements is a handy way of circumventing both the ability of targets to shrug off or even absorb raw prana and significantly increase both the destructive power and precision of offensive spells conducted through it. Her most common uses are to draw in air and moisture and use gathered prana to both amplify and compress them to an intense level of pressure and power. From there, she can release them as direct offensive attacks such as powerful blasts of force capable of breaking bones and sending foes flying away or viciously concentrated jets capable of cutting through even diamond, or bind them to Storm and Stress to grant them extended range, cutting power, or even just greatly increased heft.
  • Implosion: An application of the LaForet’s compression magecraft entirely unique to Beatrice, designed to mitigate their traditional weakness against magecraft with a wide area of effect and mystic codes or other such constructs with a high volume, such as the Volumen Hydrargyrum of the Archibald Family. Rather than use herself as the focal point to which her chosen element will converge, Beatrice can use a bolt of focused prana or her Mystic Codes as vectors to designate a focal point; and with shrewd application, she can use it to not only ‘cancel’ or otherwise create breaches in wide-range attacks, but cause any solid or semi-solid bodies the vector becomes embedded in to be pulled violently inwards. The effect requires intense concentration and is extremely taxing to Beatrice in the heat of battle, but strategic use allows her to effectively conduct fights on her own terms rather than that of her target’s.
  • ‘Blinking Strike’: An application of the LaForet’s compression magecraft entirely unique to Beatrice, similar in concept to the art of Fa jin; rather than prana, air or liquids, she can compress her own muscles for a momentary burst of power. If reinforcing the body could be compared to giving it a consistency or strength closer to steel than flesh or bone, this ability could be likened to giving a specific limb or organ the power of a bullet or shell for a split second; reckless or prolonged use of this ability stands to tear Beatrice’s muscles or shatter her bones, leaving her crippled, but effective use allows her to quickly and brutally end fights with a single vicious blow strong enough to punch clean through reinforced steel or, more likely than not, strike a target’s head clean off of their shoulders.
• Assets:
  
  • Storm: Beatrice's primary Mystic Code, a longsword designed to channel the elemental affinities of the wielder into either enhanced physical attacks with the longsword or enhanced spellcasting using the body of the sword as a conductor. The longsword was originally the Mystic Code of a magus who specialised in the creation of similar implements, who became a fugitive from the Association after testing out his ‘masterpiece’s destructive capabilities against members of ‘the common public’, keen to establish whether it made a qualitative difference when it came to the potential of the magecraft channelled through it to kill. Beatrice ended up prying it from his corpse's cold, dead hands after he refused to go down without a fight, and claimed it as a trophy in lieu of the usual bounty from the Association. Besides using it as a focal point for her compression magecraft, she has since refined it to be especially compatible with her own wind and water affinities, coating the blade in either compressed wind to extend its range or compressed water to greatly increase its cutting power. When the situation calls for it, however, Storm has a special relationship with her second Mystic Code, known as:
  • Stress: Beatrice's secondary Mystic Code, a sheath and extension for Storm that allows Beatrice to change up her stance and fighting style to deal with larger or sturdier targets. While Storm was a trophy that she redesigned to suit her needs, its sheath is an original creation of hers that allows her to 'transform' the graceful and swift longsword into a solid, hefty axe in a manner reminiscent of a certain cult video game from the mid 2010’s. While it loses versatility in the process, as the heavy blade and relatively ponderous swing speed of the transformed weapon benefits less from her elemental affinities, the destructive power of the combined Storm and Stress is staggering, with it being able to cleave through metal and bone with Beatrice's enhanced strength alone. But Stress wouldn't be much of a Mystic Code if it were simply a slab of iron, and the ways in which it pairs with Storm are more striking than its form implies. Even when inactive, the sheath absorbs and receives prana gathered by Beatrice and stores it in a rechargeable jewel concealed at the tip of the sheath where the axe blades attach, and while she can use the sword inside to incrementally tap into it for standard enhancements, igniting it all at once affords her bursts of power sufficient to level even the heaviest and most durable of targets. By channelling her affinities into the stored prana, she can greatly increase the axe's destructive potential, water increasing the density and weight of the weapon and wind to placing greater force and speed behind each swing; and if she is able to act and find an opening before the stored prana is exhausted, she can fire off whatever remains as a torrential wave capable of mowing down or blowing away anything caught in its path with a downward swing. Though there is a significant downtime between each use of this function, as a great deal of prana is required to enable it for even a few minutes, strategic use can turn the tide of fights and force even Servants to assume a defensive posture, if only briefly.
• Brief Backstory:
  
  Beatrice is the current head of the LaForet Family, something of a dark horse in the modern Clock Tower. Once fairly notable even among the venerated lines of the Clock Tower, the untimely death of the family’s head and subsequent loss of much of their crest in the early nineteenth century saw them fall into decline and recuse themselves from magus society to recuperate their losses. The process was slow and painful, with a number of unremarkable and even outright unsuitable heirs contributing little in the way of research or inheritance to elevate the family back to its former heights. As such, in that space of time the family grew increasingly distant from the politics of the Mage’s Association, integrating more and more into non-magus society as they pursued more mundane business ventures to accrue the funds needed to pursue their research and keep their lifestyle afloat.
  
  This, perhaps more than anything else, is what set the stage for Beatrice. Born in London in the late twentieth century, her talent and the quality of her own magical circuits weren’t fully comprehended until significantly later into her life than if her parents had anticipated their daughter to be the harbinger of their line’s renaissance, and so the environment in which she grew up in was vastly different to that of the heirs of other magus families. While many such children experience some version of reality outside the immediate sphere of magus society, Beatrice’s parents were so fixated on their research that they took an extremely emotionally distant approach to their daughter, neglecting to be involved in much of her upbringing but consequently giving her freedom to do as she wished so long as she kept up appearances during social occasions and kept up with her lessons. As such, by the time they started paying enough attention to realise her potential and thus arrange for her to be enrolled in the Clock Tower, she’d grown into a wild, energetic girl who was in and out of trouble and was more than happy to throw a punch in a situation where magecraft was forbidden or impractical.
  
  Whilst she proved an apt and capable pupil, and a competent and powerful magus with a willingness to prove herself, it became increasingly clear that she was a deviant too difficult and capricious for either her parents or the faculty to control. While she would complete all work and assignments on time, it was always to free up her schedule to go and test out some new application of her magecraft in the duelling grounds or pick fights with other students who gave her or her handful of friends grief for their ‘common upbringings’. While her martial inclination proved conductive to her development and the continuation of her family’s magecraft, the aggressive and boisterous personality that accompanied it didn't do much to endear herself to others in the Clock Tower, nor did it foster any real respect or regard for the institution in Beatrice herself. If anything, she resented the institution and her parents for uprooting her from the identity she’d forged early in her life, reducing her from ‘Beatrice’ to simply the ‘LaForet scion’, just another piece in their absurd long game to fight back against their inevitable decline. Indeed, by the time she had graduated, it was clear she held scarcely more than naked contempt for the politics and goals of the Clock Tower. While she did assume the role of family head in response to her father’s pleas, she refused to be his pawn and chose to distance herself from the society he had treated her as nothing but his ticket to rejoin, instead opting for an active career in the field. While there weren’t any vacancies in the Enforcers at the time, there was never any shortage of rogue magi to hunt down, and so she elected to take up the life of a bounty hunter, which would afford her a regular supply of targets whose foolishness and recklessness endangered those around them to hunt down and hone her skills and unique brand of magecraft against. Perhaps some day, she could see herself settling down and carrying on the family’s legacy, but she would do it on her own terms, and until then she had a journey to undertake, to make sense of this strange existence caught precariously between the mundane and fantastic.
  
  As of the present day, Beatrice has been working as a bounty hunter for around seven years; a lonely existance, albeit one fast-paced enough to keep her mind occupied. Though she didn't take part in the conflict directly, having been occupied pursuing another high-priority target at the time, she became involved in the efforts to dismantle the infamous Greater Grail of Fuyuki when one of its leaders, a friend of hers from her time at the Clock Tower and a survivor of the Fifth War, provided her with a list of individuals who had attempted to prevent its destruction. Over the course of a few months, she worked her way through the list, hauling a number of them back to answer for the acts they had committed in Fuyuki and eliminating those that she couldn't detain. It was when she got around to her very last target that she saw them: they had a number of strange, eerily familiar symbols etched into their arm. They predictably refused to go without a fight, and upon returning to London to hand the body over they were identified by her old friend as Command Seals, the mark of one chosen to participate in the Holy Grail War.
  
  Despite the best efforts of Lord El-Melloi and his team, the conflict was set to recur again; and while Beatrice may have had little time for the politics of the Clock Tower, she was acutely aware of what was at stake if they let events unfold. Regardless of the authenticity of the new Grail, it was at least functional enough to have provided its chosen with Command Seals, and every day spent hemming and hawing about what to do was a day that risked another tragedy like the Fourth and Fifth Holy Grail Wars being allowed to unfold once more. So after confirming with her friend that she had no intention of relinquishing the seals,the grudging agreement was made between herself and the higher-ups of the Clock Tower that she would travel to Sako City as their unofficial representative, to ascertain the nature of this new Grail and prevent the conflict from escalating as it had before.
  
  In truth, however, her choice was as much selfish as it was professional. Though it was all but certain that this war was another damn fool’s errand, the purported wish nothing more than bait to attract sacrifices for the purposes of those who had set it in motion, the fact that many of the world's strongest and sharpest would come to make their play for it was nothing if not intriguing: and beyond that, perhaps this fateful providence would finally yield her the personal truth she was seeking.

Servant: Archer

• Name: Caspar, Der Freischütz
• Class: Archer
• Appearance:
  
  
  Archer is certainly an attractive man, standing at an impressive 6’1” with silver hair, sharp golden eyes and a countenance both rugged and yet somewhat boyish. However, his experiences have left their mark on him and telltale signs of desperation are starting to shine through his otherwise composed, appealing features. Though he conducts and carries himself with poise, any unexpected challenges or roadbumps will gradually unravel that and expose the terror lurking beneath his calm facade.
  
  When summoned and when active in battle, he wears a black version of the formal attire he wore in life, an Early Modern European military uniform curiously and anachronistically supplemented by a highwayman’s coat and tricorn hat decorated with a red feather, with a dusack as a sidearm for close combat encounters. Outside of combat, his dress sense tends towards business casual, appropriate to the ‘professional image’ he wishes to project.
• Personality:
  
  By and large, Heroic Spirits are a varied bunch- for as many as there are that are undeserving of their fame or status, there are as many whose seeming unworthiness obscures a far more fascinating and admirable character.
  
  Archer is definitely in the former camp. Despite presenting himself as a slick professional, with the charisma and eloquence to match, this superficial charm conceals a cowardly individual wholly aware of his unremarkable nature, who would rather take easy victories and recuse himself from anything that could cause him stress than push to improve himself or help another without immediate benefit. While he doesn’t seem terribly at odds with his apparent insignificance in the grand scheme of things, and possesses a frank (if rather self-serving) estimation of his own capabilities, this facet of his personality is continually undermined by desperation to prove himself as worthy to or show up those who look down on him. Whilst he doesn't seem opposed to not being 'the best', willing to settle for being a big fish in a small pond for the sake of a comfortable existence, there is a burning spark of ambition inside of him that deeply resents those who would spurn him or exercise authority over him. Essentially, his self-worth is based on a fragile sense of pride that is challenged by others refusing to play along with his games and if not for his unremarkable nature being exemplified in his non-existent Rank in Independent Action, he would be all too happy to trick his Master into their own demise so that he could take off from it all and live his second life in leisure.
  
  But Archer didn’t get where he got in life by being entirely reckless or bereft of impulse control, and when given the opportunity to hatch a scheme, he can be terrifyingly cunning. Though an unremarkable individual, such a status is not always a negative when dealing with individuals whose ideals and neuroses have made them the stuff of legends; there is a certain shrewdness and practicality to his means that make him difficult for more high-minded individuals to properly reckon with, a knowledge of how history hinges on more than ‘big names and bigger guns’ that allows him to perceive elements and factors that would otherwise go unnoticed. Indeed, the story of Caspar is one that rarely ended well for anyone but him, and time will tell what this strange new coda shall append to it...
• Stats:
  
  • Strength: D
  • Endurance: D
  • Agility: B
  • Mana: B
  • Luck: D
  • Noble Phantasm: A+
• Class Skills:
  
  • Independent Action: The capacity of Servants to subsist without a Master.
    
    • (N/A): Despite it being a Class Skill, Archer is afflicted with a curse that prevents him from functioning without a Master unless very specific conditions are met. If he is cut off from his Master, both the Grail and an imperceivable demonic force will act to claim him, tearing him apart and killing him instantly.
  • Magic Resistance: The ability to cancel or diminish the effects of magecraft used against oneself.
    
    • (C): Cancels spells with a chant below two verses. Cannot defend against magecraft on the level of greater magecraft and Greater Rituals. Despite his relatively modern nature, Archer had enough experience with the supernatural in his life to obtain an intermediate rank in this Skill rather than a mediocre one.
• Personal Skills:
  
  • Charisma: The natural talent to influence others and command troops. Increases the ability of allies during group battles. A rare talent.
    
    • (D): The Servant is naturally likeable. They can inspire people to whom they are capable of ingratiating themselves.
  • Clairvoyance: Superior visual perception. Supplement long-range aiming and increases dynamic vision.
    
    • (D): Can see the world more clearly and in greater detail than any modern human could hope to, and see an object at a range of up to a mile away with no noticeable difficulty. The world also appears to move somewhat slower to him, allowing him to follow objects that would be difficult to keep track of with the faculties of a modern human.
  • Disengage: The ability to withdraw from combat.
    
    • (D): The Servant can reliably withdraw from combat and will return all skill conditions to their initial value, but retains any inflicted statuses.
  • Magecraft: Knowledge of and proficiency in modern thaumaturgy.
    
    • (C): Capable in the fundamentals of magecraft, with a particular affinity for spirit evocation and the use of curses. Though Archer was a fairly unremarkable mage for his time, his abilities are powerful by modern standards and he’s quite capable of using them to interact with spirits and bind curses, with applications ranging from soliciting spirits evoked by other mages to fight for him instead to using curses to increase the power of his bullets or his dusack.
• Noble Phantasm(s):
  
  • Name: Schweig ~ Hush, so that nobody hears!
  • Rank: C
  • Type: Anti-Unit
  • Appearance: A beautifully ornate silver rifle created by Caspar to serve as his Mystic Code in life, designed to require little to no maintenance and operate more discreetly and reliably than the early flintlock firearms of Caspar’s time, and to amplify his otherwise unremarkable skills in magecraft.
  • Effects: Schweig’s absorption into the legacy of Der Freischütz has elevated it to the status of a potent Noble Phantasm, the legend of the phantom marksman crystallising within it and granting Caspar abilities beyond his capabilities in life. Not only do bullets discharged from it approach the power of the strongest modern munitions, befitting the weapon of Der Freischütz, they are discharged with barely a sound and are immune to negative conditions such as wind pressure, gravity or velocity decay so long as they remain within a certain range of Caspar, obviating many factors that may cause him to miss his mark. Furthermore, the legacy of Schweig’s creator hasn’t been entirely displaced from the rifle’s structure, far from it. Reflective of Caspar himself, a striking malice dwells beneath the rifle’s beautiful surface and structure, and not only perfectly conducts but amplifies curses to afford bullets fired from it additional effects and power similar to projectile curses employed by modern magi, albeit at a level and proficiency beyond all but the most talented practitioners. Furthermore, while it is not required to fire them, this nature is what makes Schweig the weapon best suited to make use of the Freikugeln; as its nature feeds and guides the curses inside the bullets, allowing them to be used safely and kept under their user’s control until they hit the chosen target.
  
  
  • Name: Freikugeln ~ Hell’s mouth swings wide, to accept him or you!
  • Rank: C+ ~ A+
  • Type: Anti-Unit
  • Appearance: The six silver bullets Caspar obtained in his deal with Samiel to survive the Thirty Years War, physically unremarkable save their alluring luster but engraved and endowed with a dark power that speaks to those around them.
  • Effects: While they are of a powerful substance that affords them the physical power one would expect of a C-Rank Noble Phantasm, the core essence of the Freikugeln is closer in nature to the cursed modern magi utilise as Gandyr bolts than actual bullets. Much as the spirit known as Samiel assumed the form of the Black Huntsman as such that his infernal existence would be comprehensible to hunters who would seek a bargain with him, he wrought these powerful curses into a form that they would know how to make the best use of; and though Caspar himself could have used them in alternate capacities, his skills in marksmanship and magecraft alike allows him to make use of their form to devastating effect. Striking the target isn't an absolute guarantee, as there's a chance to prevent them from connecting with the right tools or preparations, but each Freikugel will nonetheless respond to their user’s intent upon being evoked and fired and pursue their mark with deadly accuracy and tracking. They will alter their trajectory, ignoring any and all external factors and disadvantages and even phase straight through physical barriers and defensive Noble Phantasms of inferior rank to strike their target, first as a physical projectile and then as a deadly curse that burns them from within; and while the physical body of the bullets can be destroyed by an attack of equivalent or greater rank, the curses within them will endure and maintain the pursuit until they strike a living target. Against Servants, the utility of this Noble Phantasm is mitigated by Caspar's poor Luck and the relatively low destructive power the Freikugeln possess, a merely average C-Rank for both the physical impact and the following curse, but against Masters, this is amongst the most deadly Noble Phantasms, as even if the impact of the bullet doesn’t kill them the curse inside them will almost certainly finish the job.
    
    If so inclined, Caspar can give the Freikugeln to others to use, as he did in life when he gave his last bullet to Max in order to trick him into making a deal with Samiel. Despite their particularly effective partnership with Schweig, they seem to be able to adapt to and be fired from any manner of gun; but in doing so the curses contained within grow more volatile and dangerous, exacting a great toll from their user to evoke and maintain control over them. Furthermore, although Caspar was only granted six bullets in life, the legend of Der Freischütz grants him one last ace-in-the-hole in the form of a ‘secret’ seventh bullet; the very one that Caspar requested as a means to have Max fall into despair, and what ultimately claimed his life. Endowed with an even more lethal curse that affords both impacts the dreadful power of an A-Rank Noble Phantasm, this bullet is directed by the lingering will of Samiel himself rather than that of Caspar or anyone he fobs the bullet off on to, and will choose its target in a way that is guaranteed to bring nothing but trouble to him. In return, however, whatever is struck with the bullet will serve as a sacrifice to Samiel in place of Caspar himself, lifting the curse over him and granting him A-Rank Independent Action to sustain him until he is able to obtain the Grail.
    
    Provided the aftermath of the shot itself doesn’t spell his doom, anyway.
• Alignment: Neutral Evil
• Changes:
  This version of Caspar was a member of a dying family of magi, whose line ultimately went extinct with him upon his death. This was mainly to flesh him out, but it does inform a lot of the character and mechanical details; though he was a poor magus, what abilities he does have are fairly potent by modern standards, and he knows his way around the type of people fighting in the Grail War.

Digimon: Fallen Knights

I think you're fine on that front, still early days so no harm in giving the others a chance to catch up? Hope you're feeling better soon!

Digimon: Fallen Knights

@Cleveraptor Out of interest, have you considered a discord server for the RP? Might make planning and keeping in touch easier, especially if any of us get busy IRL and don't get the chance to/forget to check the guild.

_Would

@Cleveraptor