HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR

"That's real brave of you, but pretty damn foolish, y'know?"

As the woman's hand rose, alight with elements bent to her arcane will, so too did that of Gerard, clad in shaped metal. Any monkey with two specks of gray between his ears to rub together would understand that she needed to be dealt with immediately— to allow her to blast them with the wrath of storms unimpeded was tantamount to suicide. It was an afterthought to him that she had been given the chance to surrender— it came as no surprise that it wasn't taken. They were in too deep to be argued back.

Nobody in this chamber was so foolish as to not have readied themselves for force's entry into the equation. Hell, if one wanted to speak with honesty, it was already far, far behind them.

A flash appeared before him, the gleam of tempered steel, spinning towards the witch with all of his might behind it as his arm whipped down and forward. His knife, large and sturdy as it may have been, was not particularly balanced for throwing. He himself was not a particular specialist in the dangerous art of throwing knives at people. The distance between them was enough that she felt quite safe in gloating as she began to cast. Chances were that she would be able to stay out of the way without incident, with all these factors working in tandem.

Within his next breath, Gerard burst forth with longsword in hand, a loosed arrow within the knife's wake. He knew little of the nature of magic in even a general sense, let alone its many schools. He knew nothing of whether or not this woman required arcane incantations, specific motions, or certain materials to ply her trade. He was a total stranger to the realm of wizardry.

He was no stranger to warfare.

The fact of the matter was that it didn't need to be accurate, it didn't need to be a direct threat. It simply needed to be distracting. Something to snap her attention off the knights that would secure the little girl, towards a more immediate problem. In that moment, her mind would not be set upon blasting away the Captain. Her reflexes would take over in some respect to the whirling, gleaming blur headed her way from just out of focus— and that would be his opening.

The sound of leather boots upon old stone were a staccato thunder as he surged forth, ravenously devouring distance between the silver-haired woman and he. The mage hadn't gloated without good reason— fast as even he was, there was ample space between them for her to see him coming and adjust her aim to him, should he have not rattled her concentration so thoroughly as to cause the spell to fizzle in her hand. To put things plainly, he was staring down the point of a spear and charging it. A tall order for anyone whose only method of attack from afar was already spent.

That doesn't matter, though.

Even if I earn a bolt for my trouble, that's the point to begin with.

Every second I can make this woman focus on me is another my fellows can use to focus on him.

So long as they have the opening they need...

I'm not afraid of what I must do.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

my intent’s to let Caas get a post in before I proceed with operation rushdown

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

I like to keep it spicy.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

beginning to sweat in multirole

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

I need to stay airborne. I'll look over it tomorrow and see if I have something i can squeeze a post out with, but otherwise air superiority maintenance is priority.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR

"Captain! Path's open!" Gerard called, a moment after his fallen quarry took his last shuddering breath. His own came in short bursts, unintentionally forcing his voice to resonate in the cavity of the upper chest— his call became a rough shout. Doubling back after pulling his blade free of skull, blood, and brain, Gerard scanned the ground, amber searchlights trying to focus upon— there. A small trinket upon the ground, catching the dim light in just such an unnatural way.

He ran a three and a half strides and scooped up the talisman the man had brandished, moments before little Tili's knife had made a home within the hinge of his elbow. Whatever it did, this alien arcane focus could not be allowed to fall back into the hands of the enemy. Deny them their strengths. The very basest of a warrior's principles, one that extended to all levels of combat— from man-to-man to nation-versus-nation. At a guess, it commanded the reanimated dead that the Captain and Knight Serpenta had been bogged down by. Perhaps not the key to their twisted mockeries of a second life at their cores, but likely that which directed whatever ghost lied within the machine.

Could he use it against its former masters?

No.

As a man of faith he would not stoop to it, and as a man of practicality, he could not waste time chancing it. He probably would need to turn his back upon the Goddesses if he wished to harness this power, turn towards something blackened, turgid, evil. It would be a trifle in exchange for something unforgivable. He was wholly unwilling.

He dropped the trinket, its garnet glittering as it clattered again to the floor—

And crushed it beneath his boot, grinding his heel into the stone tiling until he heard something give before setting off further down. Whatever was happening down there wouldn't stop itself. Hopefully his fellows could rejoin him soon, but as it stood now, he needed to take this opportunity he'd earned. To gain more ground for them all.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

keeping my cards close to my chest because this is a hodgepodge team of military, non military, and actually just civilians

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

I would respond right away, but beyond that and sharing Adam’s camera feed there’s not much for Kon to do yet. My Roleplayer^TM Instincts^TM tell me I should wait until I could provide more substance, even if we account for leveraging my Nepotism Card

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Fantasy Knight RP

Still around. The week has, in particular today, been nuts. State’s on fire, finished a big campaign, health scare for cat— whole rollercoaster.

Advance on Distant Proxima (Mecha RPG)

---

<<Not quite,>> the expeditionary force's resident Serb replied over the comms, cycling through Merlon's sensor suite from his lazy circuit of the LZ's designated perimeter some five hundred meters up. All told, the descent into atmosphere was as smooth as one could ask for— the shield had been rated for Venusian Entry burn, to say nothing of this, much less oppressively dense as it was.

To tell the truth, between the winds and the desert in the distance, he hazarded a guess at this being roughly similar to the feeling of operating in the khamsins of Egypt— simple enough, after you learned to stop letting turbulence spook you. Naturally, the winds that tossed around dusty soil at surface level were a touch stronger half a click up, and rather than listen to his Orbital shift with the buffeting gusts he elected to simply ride them when able. Atmospheric flight the evidently rare luxury it was, it may as well be used to loiter with mobility— perhaps it was old habit, but he much preferred circling to hanging still in the air. The wings on the Bedwyr's back facilitated it regardless, ailerons responding to stabilizing microadjustments thanks to fly-by-wire.

<<Something different, actually.>>

Especially if his attention was going to be planted squarely on the ground for the next few minutes. Thermal imaging outlined everyone and everything in a healthy red thanks to reentry burn, so he hadn't passed over it during the drop— opting instead for geiger, spectroscopy, polaroid (for some reason), and biometric. Once they had determined that there were plants to the north, largely inert silicates in the soil, and no lens flare to worry about...

<<Stojanovic to Landing Team. Be advised, Merlon's picking up multiple hot spots on the ground, incongruent with the topsoil temperature. LZ is full of them, no discernible pattern. Heat is probably radiating from some below-ground source. Stand by for region designation.>>

On the way down, he had made sure to set up a datalink with each craft in formation, the target identification software piggybacking off of the signal used for IFF communication. As far as Konstantin was concerned, he was playing the role of AWACS for this mission— offering those on the ground as clear a picture as they needed to do their jobs.

One by one, those on terra firma would find the soil beneath them begin to light up as a field of thin-lined boxes labelled as simply "HEAT" blossomed onto their HUDs outward from the zone's center, each congruent with a location, size, and depth of discrepancy.

High above, the Bedwyr continued its loitering.