HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Raineh Daze

"Huh?!"

He called back out with about the only thing he could manage as reply, eyes pinning down the shock of white hair a half-beat after he heard his name, in its standard Thalnic form, called out in an accent he couldn't even begin to place. The First and Youngest, naturally— nobody else had quite so distinctive an appearance in the order. Ditto the vocal tone.

If only he could tell whatever the hell it was that tone was saying as it hollered down the courtyard. It was bad enough that his own breathing was getting ragged, but now he could barely make out one word from the next coming out of the diminutive vampire's mouth. Seriously, he hadn't heard any of this in Velt, either...

She seems annoyed.

That much, at least, was clear. And since his legs were starting to burn out, and the wind growing ragged in his lungs...

Alright, what'd I do?

Might as well get this one over with.

As he veered off to close distance between them, he slowed to a jog, then a canter, then a full stop before her, shoulders rising and falling above burning lungs as he began to control and modulate each breath he took.

His gaze met hers, and he made no attempt to hide his befuddlement.

"You... need something, ma'am?"

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

Golden eyes locked themselves upon the Spikes of Aimlenn anew as the procession of knights rode past the mighty steel and oak gates of Thaln's capital, seat of their Order's home and the crown they served. At first light this morn, their jagged sihlouettes had torn into the sky from afar, as if a crown cast upon the city in the faraway horizon. Impressive once you devoted a little thought to it, sure, but nothing compared to up close. Here, he marveled at the way the alabaster towers loomed over everything around them, stretching into the midday blue further than all but mountains.

Human hands, however long ago, had built this. These soaring structures, immense and beautiful in equal measure... made by men. People no different than he, save for what they knew that he did not. He knew of many a fortress city in his long 5 years prior to now, having been on both ends of their high walls of stone as one of many who sold their swords. But, even spanning three countries, nothing could truly measure up to the scale and splendor of Aimlenn. It could house any other city he'd known within its walls, he was certain— a fact that would doubtlessly have him awestruck for years to come.

It was proof of just how big the world really was... as was the weight rested upon his shoulder. Jeremiah's sword had been passed around the procession as proof of victory like a ladle full of stew as their column had rode through Thaln's townships and villages on the return trip, but it had most commonly found itself, tall and hefty as any of them, in the grasp of he and Fionn. Their right of conquest, maybe, as two of the three that had felled the Bandit King personally? Their selfsame responsibility to lug the thing around, instead? He didn't really know.

To tell the truth, he thought, letting the sound of the cheering commoners wash over him. I never thought about what it would feel like being on this side of the fanfare.

How long ago had it been since he'd been one of those kids up at the front, clamoring to see over one another and catch a glimpse of chivalry? Wishing so desperately to capture the storied magic of dragons and demons and knighthood for himself?

"Feels like ages."

His words came at a low murmur, likely only reaching his own ears.

Left unsaid was the fact that it wasn't so long ago at all.

That though he was one of them, he prayed they never became him.

Better the others. Rise to knighthood the right way.

He let his gaze slide over the celebration for a moment, taking it in, before returning its focus towards the path ahead. The figure he cut was doubtless reserved compared to the jollity of Fionn and the gallantry of Serenity, his scarring and tension leaving him little favors. He could never meet so many eyes at once, not nearly so easily. He'd have to learn through more victories like this, he wagered. For now... he'd make do by riding with a strong back and head held high. For all this alien feeling, Gerard wasn't returning a beaten man.

He adjusted the weight of the greatsword in his grip, heavy pommel resting in his palm like the head of a mace. If he were to want to learn his proper parading smiles... he'd need to take the lessons the battle had wrought from him, first. The man they'd slain for this unwieldy thing was an anomaly, but if one of him could exist...

He rode on, into the Candaeln gates before he knew it.

From there, things proceeded without thought. The dismounting and stabling of the horses, the stiffly delivered order to rest and recuperate from their Captain, herself similarly else-minded, and floating to his humble quarters, however fascinating it may have been to have them to himself, and doff his armor. His casual wear, however many of his seniors had talked him into buying fancier things befitting the newfound station, was simple— A black shirt made of simple, sturdy linen, and trousers of treated hide.

This wasn't a social outing, anyway. Those clothes were fashionable, as he understood it. Best not to get 'em dirty.

Soon after, his leather boots found themselves on one far end of the central courtyard, digging into the tranquility as they pressed hard into the grass.

Try as he might, the battle continued to play over in Gerard's head and leave him with a quiet, brow-furrowing dissatisfaction. For all the skill he'd cultivated in five years, all the craft, all that their advantage in numbers had stacked the deck... Jeremiah had still very nearly killed him, even in the aftermath of the gambit that had done the brigand in. Before that, even in spite of losing a working hand, that monster of a man had been mounting a defense against all three of them attacking him in sequence. He had been freely wielding that giant hunk of steel that their parading had left Sagramore intimately familiar with now— truly knowing how ridiculous such a feat was.

He crouched low, breathing in deep through his nose as fingertips pressed into the earth beneath—

If one of Jeremiah existed, so incredibly powerful... Then surely there were more. As Iron Roses, elite defenders of the realm, it would fall to them to meet such foes more often than not. This was but a beginning. Preluding things to come.

Gerard didn't for a moment believe he would always get so lucky as he did that night, to have numbers supplementing inefficiency in skill.

—And tore off into a dead sprint, each stride chewing through the distance between him and the far wing of Candaeln. High knees and strong swings of the arms would compensate for the flat ground here— He preferred training his explosive step-in, his rushing charge, uphill. That way'd be truer to life, building his legs stronger and forcing his mind to dig deeper into the body.

But that was the crux of it.

If monsters like that existed, he needed the power to leverage those skills against them.

Onward he surged, until he could surge no more—

And then, after a minute's rest and no more, he'd start off again.

Secundi Lux

---

"Wuuuuu-u-u-u-u-u-u-uu-u-u-u-uuugh." Selma rumbled in response to the dinging notification from her phone, nestled within the length of her fingers. Theirs was an all-important job— securing her one true connection to the world outside this room into place, as oft-misplaced as its history with the academy had seen it, and to shield it from any potential jostling from the vibrations beneath. The earth was solid and sure, yes, but even it could rumble, could shudder, could quake."Do-o-on't b-e ma-aki-n me g-e-e-t u-u-u-u-u-u-u-up Ch-i-i-i-i-i-e..."

Emerald eyes squinting, she peered closely at the screen she held aloft, arm reluctantly leaving the worn leather upholstery it rested upon. She wasn't gonna lean forward here, even if the churning motors ended up kneading her back into dough. She had told herself, all through the jelly-legged walk back from today's Operation, that she'd earned this much.

Where she was during all this happened to be not terribly far from Chie, in the grand scheme of things— esconsed within the halls of the Nova Lux Dormitories there was a paltry, quaint little gym, not all too dissimilar to the type you would seen in a hotel's ground floor. Not a place for real serious work, as Selma understood it, but nice enough. Its treadmills could support an urge to run, its small cache of dumbbells a good source for potential zombie apocalypse bludgeoning weaponry, it had the little niceties—

Tap it over to percussion now, I think.

And one BIG one.

The motor buzzed as a thudding staccato rhythm pounded her rhomboids beneath the thin mesh veneer on her back, as though the many millions of feet that stomped upon the base earth, and she, impossibly, seemed to sink in further to the cushioning. A massage chair, frankly, wasn't in most hotel gyms. Not the kinds like the Dorm's was based off of, at any rate— and according to legend around the residence halls, it wasn't supposed to be, either.

She'd heard it was lifted in the dead of night from the finest suites in Palmyra by a graduate with the Elementum of Shadow, a silent heist that made her parting gift to the school that had fostered her. Others called it a gift from an anonymous Duodecim, believing mankind's defenders worked better with proper R&R. Others still claimed it was found in a junkyard and its refurbishment was cobbled together as a group project, made in secret, by the second and third floor residents some dozen years back, kept in secret until properly integrated too well to make removal worth the hassle.

Hell, there was a story about the Academy trying to remove it, too, but being forced to back down at the sudden prospect of the entire wing up in arms against them. That one was her favorite— especially on a day like today, when the weight of a hundred years of robotics research had narrowly lost to every fiber of muscle she had. The kinda beating that workload gave you would be insufferable without some of this tender deep-tissue care.

Her thumb, absently, tapped its familiar patterns along the screen in response to her roomie's query: Something non-committal, as she'd genuinely spent more time hearing how the rumors about them had started permutating, but felt it too on the nose to mention. A joke about how she didn't think batting back a missile would end too well for either the Magi nor the Missile, for one.

What appeared in the group chat...

>weoildnt itb lowr upminthere faxce.?

>god da,mm#it

... Was less witty.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

His blade sank deep into flesh, and he knew it was nearly over. The Bandit King would be dead within moments, steel slipping between his ribs and into soft tissue beneath— and their objective here complete.

So saying, as he felt the sword be wrenched over by the twist of his foe's torso, massive blade swinging high into the air, Gerard neither ran, nor tried to twist himself out of the way. Such evasions were an afterthought. He had the man mortally wounded, but not quite dead. The fury in his eyes told him as much.

Stop the enemy's attack by killing him. Finish the job.

As the mountainous man's body reared up high to bring the massive blade down, Gerard's free hand returned to the pommel of his longsword and pressed it in as he surged upward in his wake. His footing wasn't great, but if he could sink it even another inch deeper, the wound would doubtlessly bleed a death rattle out of his foe. The timing was going to be tight here, no question...

The furious gaze from above locked upon its golden kin below, every bit as determined to see the man they beheld die, regardless of cost.

He was replaceable. Victory was not.

For an instant, it seemed this was where his duty would reap what it had sowed six years ago—

And then, flashing through the corner of his eye, a second sword buried itself into the man's frame. The Captain, darting between Fionn and Knight's Doom, and sending her sword deep into his right armpit, hitting the muscle, the vein, possibly the spine. With a thud and a plume of dust, the massive greatsword crashed to the earth as it fled the dying grip upon its handle.

The Lamplighters dimmed their candles.

As the weight fell into him in time with his Captain yanking her sword free, Gerard felt the pulsing in his head recede even as he fully forced his way up to his proper height with a grunt. He took a moment to glace at Jeremiah's eyes again—

"Damn you... Iron... Roses...!"

—And saw the light truly fade.

He didn't offer a rebuttal to the curse, only a ragged exhalation as he shunted the massive body off. The burly corpse toppled to the floor at long last with a dull thud, the fresh blossoms of crimson spreading across his frame looking almost blackened in the firelight. He hadn't the wherewithal to offer a parting insult, no matter how much the man had earned it. It'd likely have fallen on deaf ears to begin with, he reasoned.

Not like he doesn't know it's him who's damned.

He blinked and breathed deep, savoring the sudden ache in his bones as so much of that ferocious current that propelled him so forcefully left his blood. His thoughts were returning now that the storm of anger had begun to part, and they propelled him elsewhere from Sir Fionn, who he caught a glimpse of racing back across the smoldering log. Back into the fray, hm? He'd be there before long, but first things first.

"Captain," he breathed, in a voice hoarser than he'd expected. "Good kill. I owe you one."

He followed her gaze down to Sir Rickert's stricken form, still lying where both ends of the torso had fallen. Grisly end. From what Gerard had known of him, far too good and just a man to have earned a death so brutal. That said...

"This is what war is, ma'am. No matter how hard any of us try, this is part of it."

They had chosen this life of their own volition, save her and the tradition that stuck her here as their leader. To pledge oneself as a warrior meant resolute acceptance of one's own death. He'd been pleasantly surprised by her ability to keep herself alive thus far... but he knew she'd also need to know how to bear the responsibility of the position without crumbling beneath it.

He did not chide, nor berate, nor coddle in saying this. It wasn't his place to do any of that, as her subordinate.

But as someone who'd seen hundreds of comrades die speaking to someone who'd seen her first...

"Sir Rickert knew it too. We all know we might not see the next day. If we didn't accept that for ourselves, we wouldn't be here."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

The mountain moved. Impossibly, on the back foot and down one of his main levers, the Bandit King wrenched his massive blade over to cross his own body, easily knocking Gerard's low cut aside with the flat.

Unreal.

The knight grit his teeth. That was the sensation of striking a stone wall, not the sword of an enemy soldier— No, not even. With one hand, the wrench of his trunk, and the mass of that ridiculous weapon, he hadn't just checked his attack, he had forced it back— Less a wall, more the winds of a mighty storm. The longsword's false edge bit into the top layers of the earth as it skirted back into Gerard's guard in that instant, small plumes of dust knocked into the air, and despite himself— he marveled even as his fury spiked.

To think this man was their foe... If this much he could manage in so crippled a state, there was no doubt in Gerard's mind that he would have his humble blade snapped clean in half if he went strike for strike with Jeremiah at his height, and his body then torn asunder, just as Sir Rickert's. Even with initiative firmly torn from his grasp, he was still swinging that heap around with the right timing and angle to deflect both— no, all three of them.

"So you're the fools who follow that wretched little bitch?!"

This was more than brute strength. This was skill. This was ferocious battlefield instinct. Proof that his fighting ability was the real thing, even so disadvantaged. An angry bear was no trifle. Three hundred... likely not just empty boasting. Not with the speed, not with the strength, not with the danger. His hatred wasn’t steeped in the blood of the innocent for her, or him, or Fionn— it was for all that their Order was, all that it stood for. That was the root of this vicious rampage. One man, willing to wage his war at any cost.

And he was going to turn it all on more innocent people.

The wolf's snarl deepened, as the rushing flood of action filled him again. It washed the awe away, filling him with the purity of the Instant. No more thought. Just purpose.

He had to keep this man from swinging that thing around. Any swipe he took could spell their end. Giving him space was deadly, giving a chance to read tendencies would open the door. Gerard would keep them safe from this. They had him off-balance already— He had to pry open that crack and take him down!

As the Bandit whipped his body and blade back around to block their returned Knight-Captain's thrust, Gerard dipped low to the ground. His grip on the longsword slacked as his left hand came free, sinking into the earth. This was a vulnerable position. Suicidal if he were a duelist. Bent like this, he wouldn't be able to dodge much of anything. If his foe had even a moment, he’d be flattened or cleft in twain. The only thing keeping him alive was the threat of his comrades tearing away Jeremiah’s attention.

"No wonder you lost—"

And, fearlessly, the disdainful growl rising from Gerard's throat called it right back to him. Such considerations made for smart fighting, yes— but as Verloren, they wouldn't be allowed to be an obstacle to the mission. His, at its very core, was a gambler's trade. Skill and daring in equal measure. Where his skills hadn't been enough...

At the next shift of Jeremiah's torso, that free hand whipped skyward, flinging fingers open.

The words had surely reached the vengeful brute's ears, and through them, his mind. He'd rise to it. Gerard knew. The man's hatred, sick and twisted as it was, ran deep enough to stage all this. Salting the wound would do it.

"You talk too MUCH!"

...Let daring shore the gap.

And when he did, a thick spray of dust and dirt would fly into his eyes, taking his vision. Either that or he'd have to block— and put something in the way of the eyes regardless. It would buy Gerard a moment. He wouldn't bet on any more than that...

But such was all the opportunity in the world, and he'd seize it.

His form obscured by the cloud, Gerard's right hand clenched tight around the handle of his longsword. There wasn't any time to shift to a proper grip, nor to return to a right stance. The Instant would pass them by. Jeremiah would bring his heavy blade around and close off the body on this line. The gambit would fail.

So instead, with all his being behind it, Gerard locked his eyes upon the Bandit King's torso and lunged.

With a flash of caught blaze, the wolf's fang streaked through the night.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

free my ninja

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

A flash of steel carved open the billowing curtain of flame as Gerard sailed over the felled tree, sword in hand— and in that same instant that form and shadow emerged from the void between the orange, his being went alight as he took stock of the scene before him, mind and instinct melding beneath the spike of his battle rush.

This brought much into focus.

The Bandit King held a stature that eclipsed even such a boastful title— mountainous, standing taller, broader and denser than any man he'd seen on the field. Built for warfare, for shieldbreaking, for slaughter of the weak. His incredible blade was much the same. It felt almost wrong to call it a sword— it was too thick, too heavy, too rough, too outright big. More a heap of iron, given enough an edge to split plate like an axe. That much weight moving at the blurring speeds he'd caught above the fire would snap his sword in two, and him along with it.

He wore no armoring, despite being a notable veteran of the War of the Flag. It spoke to confidence. Skill? Maybe. Maybe not. Regardless, it would mean that he had no defense for any attacks that slipped past his guard. Muscle couldn't turn aside steel. It'd also mean he'd have less chance of succumbing to exhaustion and overheating in the midst of this blaze, however— an advantage for somebody swinging something so massive around. Getting past it would be a big "if". Reach, speed, and the ever-present threat of certain death.

Its power wasn't to be trifled with. Nor was his. Their combination felled this tree, shore through Rickert's armor— a full harness of far finer make than Gerard's cuirass. No mistaking it: If Gerard was struck, he would join his compatriot.

Somewhere within this eternal instant, he noted the man's face. The gleeful snarl. The boasting rumble in his voice, vowing to make the Knight-Captain a broken toy for his whims, vengeance upon the Order. He took joy in it. The slaughter. The carnage. Treading upon the backs of the helpless, toying with those he saw beneath himself, callously chopping in twain good, honorable men to sate his bloodlust— The King of All Bandits, a monument to their savagery.

"What?"

Everything Gerard had expected.

His quarry's eyes turned, leaving the Knight-Captain as the pair's blurring forms entered the fray, first clocking Fionn. The Veltic man's voice was a roar at this point, screaming some litany in a language Gerard only knew bits and pieces of— But promising retribution. He'd fought on the Crown's side. Even if whispers of the Terror had reached Gerard's band, operating further north... Fionn was staring down a demon he'd known for years. His fury would be unmatched.

They then flicked to Gerard's, ascertaining what no doubt seemed a lesser threat as he landed—

Seven foot sword. Two hundred eighty pounds of muscle.

Three hundred mean dead to his name. Countless more innocents.

Pillaging. Murder. Enslavement.

This Will Not Stand.

—and within them, met the burning Sun.

The target howled as the Captain, so briefly forgotten, slipped her knife into the meat of his arm and wrenched herself free from his grasp. The pulse in Gerard's skull returned, a pounding hammer calling for reprisal, and deafening his thoughts with the roar for combat. He launched forth, leather boots chewing up distance as the last of his reason forged a gambit.

Fionn had rushed to the front of the now-crippled warrior, bringing his pilfered bardiche to bear as he blocked Jeremiah's path to the captain, still recovering from near-strangulation. Loud, imposing, two arms on one to make up for a difference in the size of weapons. Important to deal with. Commanding most of the immediate attention. One angle.

As he rushed straight in, a surging approach that took him towards Jeremiah's left flank, his left hand drew the large, weighty knife from his belt. It was made for utility, hunting, clearing brush, not necessarily throwing—

He would work with it, as Fionn planned— multiple threats made openings force themselves apart as attention split. Fionn was big, burly, forceful and loud. Impossible to ignore.

—But regardless, he whipped it forward, the light of the blaze catching the steel edge as it sailed, end over end, towards the bandit king's top half. He'd aimed for the head, but anything in that area would do. A veteran fighter would notice this, out the corner of his eye. He'd have noticed Gerard too. A flash of danger in the midst of the ferocious assault, coming out of what was almost a blind angle—

It'd grab at his battlefield instincts. He was an experienced fighter, a survivor of a bloody attempt at a coup. He'd have to acknowledge it, somehow, take some form of action. But that could force an opening for Fionn in turn. Caught between the two, he'd need to deal with mitigating their threats in turn. A Second Angle.

High and middle threatened. Important organs there. Heart. Gut. Brain. Dead if he doesn't guard them. Needs to manage disparate attacking directions. Assumedly doable. Fine if he does.
_Vor
Seize Initiative.

Attack a Third.

Even if it kills you, force his defense open!

The knight dipped his sword low as he came upon the larger man, drawing an upward line of across the back of the bandit's thick-set calf muscle and knee. If he could cripple him here, rob him his base, no sword that large could get up to speed. Not even a demon like him.

Not on one leg.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

Lost in the dull roar of the battleground, Gerard made little note of the rising heat at first— between the pumping of blood in his veins, the boiling tar flowed forth from deep within his breast, and the torchlight strewn about by the commotion of the raid, it all was to be expected. Dozens of days on the front lines hadn't taught him any different, especially when his rhythm within the song of steel was a far more pressing concern.

Now that the banditry had time to react to the raid in fuller force, their mustered contingent had produced some tougher nuts to crack within the lot. By Gerard's rough count, one in every three or so that he ran into wore patchwork armoring from the crown's men, and moved like they had fought before— remnants of the rebellion, more than the opportunistic scavengers who'd thrown in with the strongest gang they could find. Between the skills he'd honed over the five years prior and the backing of his fellows, he still tended to make reasonably light work of them, slipping the tip of his blade through soft targets or connecting with jarring blows to the brain via mordhau or pommel strike within just a few traded blows.

But with their presence it couldn't be denied— the knights were hitting the meat of the encampment's troops. They were markedly better than the fodder, that much was clear enough. Even though he lacked the willingness in the first place, each exchange amply reminded him that the gulf wasn't so massive he could be lazy in his work. A long-learned truism— if he slipped, he died. Even here, when he was a cut or two above his foe.

Gripping his sword halfway along its length in his gauntleted hand, he twisted the crossguard 'round the haft of an axe, its heavy blade skirting over the edge of his pauldron as he stepped off the center line and in close, top of his head smashing into the bridge of his opponent's nose beneath an ill-fitted burgonet. The man grunted, seeing stars, and reeled back— a motion that Gerard used to rip the weapon free from his grip entirely, yanking the sword back until his crossguard caught the beard. Arms rechambered as the weapon fell to the earth, the knight wrenched his weapon back down, its point shearing the jugular as he slammed it home behind the pilfered gorget. Gurgling, the rebel fell.

Could that have been the reason the Crown's soldiers had the trouble they did, being totally routed? These men... sharper than the rabble, perhaps, but were they really enough to waylay the fighting men of the garrisons like that? He couldn't imagine it. They weren't dumb enough to underestimate former fighters of the Red Flag War. No. What they'd shown so far...

His instincts said much otherwise— and he was still alive because he'd long learned to trust them. It had to be this Bandit King. The beast and the Jeremiah were what tipped it over the edge. So where in the hell was he?

For that matter, where was—

"LOOK OUT!"

A high voice, piercing the air in time with a deep, snapping crack that took him back to the day he first watched his father gather firewood from the forest. He knew this sound, he knew the rush of air as a screaming blur of orange filled the left side of his vision. He knew the impact upon the earth, a colossal thud that shook the whole camp and he felt in his boots. A crackling line of wood and flame, drawn through the length of the field and tall enough to obscure the speck of blond he'd caught when she shouted.

With it came a wave of heat that buffeted the melee, forcing the combatants to contend with the sudden change in landscape. Caught in a momentary lull, Gerard's eyes narrowed as he watched both forces blossom out from the new boundary that stood. The Captain was now separated from their cohort save a lone figure in full plate.

He bent down, gripping the handle of his last kill's battleaxe. It had good weight to it— even a glancing blow had chewed off a bit of his pauldron. As he rose, he felt the momentary pause begin to fade away, as those awestruck by the tree's falling on the first bite of steel into wood now swung upon eachother again. He knew this sensation as well, the grim purpose flooding his body anew. His old calling seemed inescapable.

He needed to rejoin them. Not just for the sake of continuing his observation of Fanilly Danbalion, not just for the need to be present for whatever new orders she'd have regarding this—

The flash of metal above the blaze froze his blood, the top of an impossibly high arc.

He recognized the sound that came next all too well, as an impossible mass of metal shore through steel, heedless of its construction, or the flesh within. It fell to the earth as though it could never have even slowed.

—But because he knew this was where their target lay.

Jeremiah.

His knuckles went white beneath steel and leather. The shock of cold left as quick as it came, replaced again with a redoubled surge of burning, rushing, furious heat as he vision focused on the spot he'd last seen the Captain. Ahead of that was the log. Ahead of that was as pitched a melee as you liked. A lot to get through in a single charge, possibly too much. He had every reason to believe that the moment he got across, he'd be staring down a foe that just smashed straight through armoring much, much better than his own.

Reon, guide me. Old habits die hard.

The kind of situation you sent in the Verloren for, if such ever really existed.

"FIIIIOOOOOOOOOONNNNNN!" rose a bestial howl from deep in his gullet, furious knot on the brow as he launched forward, boots chewing up distance. "WE'RE ON HIS ASS!"

He crashed through the bandits in his way as if cavalry, furiously cutting, whirling, cleaving, shoving, and sprinting— technical exchanges took a backseat to raw momentum. He knew his fellow mercenary would have his back. He knew their duology. Sword and shield. Those he didn't slay were knocked into the waiting jaws of his fellow knights in Fanilly's division, until his charge took him to the face of the blazing trunk.

Having seen it drink its fill of blood, the knight hurled the battleaxe deep into the burning wood, gritting his teeth and ignoring the waves of heat that blasted his body. Against a sword the size of Jeremiah's, something that could fell a tree like this, it wouldn't have the reach to contend to begin with. Better served biting through the blaze.

Giving a foothold.

Planting his boot onto the handle, Gerard didn't hesitate as his stride pushed off the makeshift stairstep, carrying him clear through the blaze and over the tree in one motion.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@The Otter

He breathed low and deep, letting his mind sharpen as the diminutive Captain's orders floated over the congregation, and he among them.

Before this, he had exchanged the banter with his fellows along the edge of the mounting pile of corpses loosely, a small part of him realizing that it was more than a little odd of them all to be quite so cavalier around the dead, blood spilling onto faces all the while. He'd caught the decapitated head Fionn tossed his way with a bump of the chest and kicked it into the heap once it fell to his feet—a world removed from the time where sight of blood once drove a lump of ice into his heart.

It was true, yes. He had little fear for death these days. His heart had hardened in that respect, long unfazed by the carnage of battle. Warfare was a trade far too unkind for one to keep such an innocence long. Not if they were taking the field. There was drilling, there was training, there was dueling. So much of it you could prepare the motions for— so much of it did have that "dance"-like quality that so many poets romanticized it being.

And yet.

He blinked, remembering not to let his eyes go dry, and slid his gaze over to the back of the winged helmet head of him, just behind the wall of shieldbearers. He was in turn just behind her, within the division that would assault the front gate. Here was where combat would reach its fever pitch— and where warfare would ask the same questions of his new commander that Gerard himself held. They were what drove him to follow her orders for this battle, searching to see them answered.

How thorough was her preparation?

How good a head could she keep above the mayhem?

Was there any merit to the tradition that bestowed this title to her, fate's hands guiding the order so?

War was no dance, it was simply War. It was far too chaotic to be anything else. No matter what kind of preparation one went through, the real thing didn't have that safety net of a controlled environment. It was a mirror, the way it showed you all the holes in what you thought you knew of it. Time and again, it forced you to change or die. He'd rid himself of squeamishness for human blood ages ago.

So, with this being his first time under her command, and her first time taking the field at all... What kind of Captain would Fanilly Danbalion prove herself?

He was a new hire, and she a new officer. He had to know, right off the bat, what he was working with. Even if the circumstances had changed from "mercenary regiment" to "knightly order", Gerard's mind was resolute in this matter. The skirmish from before was just a taste of what was to come. He'd stick to her unit and discover the answers firsthand.

He blinked again, pinning his gaze back onto the encampment ahead. The glow of flame cast red-orange hues over the palisades his former quarry had mentioned, and if his eyes narrowed, he could see the forms of the brigands milling about between them, metal in their hands catching the light every so often. Dim and red... his mind could only see the blood that no doubt stained them.

A pulse of something hot ran through his frame, as the world around him gained sharp focus. Thoughts began to fall away, and with them his concerns of the girl at the front. They'd return later. They'd slow things down for what came ahead.

The circumstances had changed.

He wasn't doing this for something like money.

It wasn't to just put food on the table.

It wasn't against a faceless troop, for a cause he didn't need to understand.

These were pillagers, making merry off the blood of the innocent. Their slaves were tucked away within those walls, beaten, brutalized. Perhaps worse. Remnants of the Cal rebellion or otherwise, these men were bandits. Their brutality knew only one boundary— don't kill those that might be useful to you. The Roses had already confirmed dozens of slaves—

How many hundreds had missed the benchmark, and had their lives stolen in return?

His gauntleted hand rose, taking a grip of white knuckles onto his pommel as he leaned forward and crouched low, awaiting the signal as his blood began to boil, black pitch that shallowed the breath and killed the intrusive Thought with a decisive, pure answer.

No More.

"Iron Rose Knights, charge!"

A high and clear cry pierced the night's cold air, cutting through the clearing as a singular, unexpected note—

And beneath twin points of gold that burned like Lady Reon's own sun, the growl that had risen from Gerard's throat exploded into a rough, bellowing howl, joining the chorus of his comrades as they surged forward. Diving around the palisades, Gerard's powerful legs had charged like this possibly a thousand times— and ever the tip of the spear, the Forlorn Hope fell upon the bandits at their gate, a starved wolf among lions.

That throne was still empty, even as it loomed high within the center.

His blade bit deep into the collarbone of an archer scabbling to nock an arrow, smashing through the oaken limb as though to herald the ensuing spray of blood. Jeremiah had yet to show, even with the knights smashing into his encampment from all sides. What was the big idea? Had the palisades not given ample warning, wherever the hell he was?

Growling, he kicked the corpse free, knocking it into the feet of a spearman, rushing to impale the massed forces. His charge halted, Gerard swung the longsword's blade low, clipping his spinal cord. The meaty thrum of a crossbow off to the side made him throw himself off at an angle, a rightward lunge that carried all but the ends of his hair out of the bolt's way. It brought him in range to grab the spear from the limp grasp of the bandit who'd charged them— and plant it into the gut of a man wearing pilfered maille, holding a shortsword of one of the crown's soldiers. He earned just a little more follow-through, as Gerard grit his teeth.

He didn't for a second trust the supposed "absence" of the lynchpin of these forces. His men would have routed soon without him. Not here in the opening seconds, sure, but certainly not fighting this resolutely, either.

His eyes darted to the side the bolt had come from— Handled. A knight bearing a sturdy kiteshield was bringing his mace down onto the bandit's skull, the crossbow lying shattered in his wake. Too loud to bark thanks— and a distraction would earn either of them a blow that'd actually hit.

The crash of steel as his blade met that of a fellow longsword wielder saw to prove the point, as his rush for the knight's blind spot nearly saw Gerard take his head off. The man's stance suggested former soldier more than brigand throwing in— one of the rebels. Shanil'd love to get a hold of this guy.

Gerard struck again, whipping his blade around in a zwerchau to strike the temple. Meeting with an oberhau, his opponent rushed forward to choke the space, forcing a bind—

And ran his knee into the heel of Gerard's boot, as the knight's rear leg lashed out in an oblique kick moments after he gave a half-step of ground to reset distance. Trick he learned from a man the Faceless had picked up from Chauntressy— their term being "Chassé Bas". Its effects were immediate, as the unexpected attack to the legs hyperextended the rebel's knee, killing his base as he cried out in sudden agony—

And couldn't react in time to stop Gerard's blade from rotating back into the Plow guard, a short oberhau of his own that split the skull. his eyes narrowed, darting along the field, before he set off to rejoin the front being pushed by his target— the Knight-Captain, now in the eye of the storm.

This was the rhythm through which they experienced this loud, bloody, and unforgiving world. A constant give and take of force and space, awash with smoke, steel, and screams. Impacts on the blade, seemingly echoed by the pumping through his skull. It was a place of action and reaction— of naught but ebb and flow.

He fell in, eye catching Knight-Captain Fanilly, Sir Fionn, some others—

—And cast his blade, and all the blood and black fury behind it, into the maelstrom.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@Psychic Loser@Raineh Daze@Psyker Landshark

"Interrogating him— was about as far as Gerard got beneath his furrowed brow before Dame Morianne's chastisement rolled on, heedlessly forcing the rest of the younger swordsman's words back into his throat. Her reputation as "abrasive" (to put it more kindly) had far preceded her, but... "murderhobo" was admittedly a new one. He supposed this being his first expedition among the knights would have earned him at least some ribbing about his previous line of work, but he had to admit he wouldn't have expected her to know or care about it. Not in the least thanks to being so long-lived and well-traveled...

Hn.

As her verses floated through the air in dulcet, saccharine tones, his grips upon the bandit tightened as he cast his confusion aside with a frown. If she wanted to handle extracting information via the arcane means she possessed as opposed to his more straightforward brutality, then that was fine— the point of the matter was to get this pig to squeal.

He watched the eyes beneath him, alive with fear of his reprisal, slowly give way and glaze over as the elf cupped his chin, voice smoky and flirtatious. The pools of brown had dulled out fully by the time she offered the reward, like covering the light with a foggy glass— and beneath his weight and grip, he felt the man's body follow suit, slackening with no resistance left to offer.

Wrapped completely 'round her finger. Impressive stuff... and on a small, primal level, scary when he considered that there were others out there who could feasibly do the same to him. He was just a farmboy at the core of everything— no reason to think he'd be any more capable of resisting an attack that his arms couldn't parry, that his legs couldn't dodge. He had no conception to begin with of how he'd defend himself from magic that attacked his very will.

As newly minted member of an elite Order with a storied history of standing against Witch-Queens and rogue sorcerers and other threats a common soldier like him would find fantastical... he quietly thanked the Troubadour for showing him his limits here, even if she'd not meant to.

He had a feeling he wouldn't manage to dodge magical foes for the entirety of his burgeoning career as an Iron Rose.

"Point taken, Ma'am." he breathed with an assenting nod, rising after a moment to extricate himself from the bewitched bandit. "I'll leave him to you." He made it to a half turn away, towards the growing pile of bodies, and paused, thoughtful expression playing over his face as he listened to the wavering words continue on from the charmed reprobate. He spoke of palisades surrounding the encampment, with a watch tower looming high. Good information for sure— with only Morianne to thank. It looked like she really did have the easier way.

He did respect her highly, as he would any of the knights ahead of him in this retinue. That much wouldn't change no matter how many times she yelled at him. Her personal affectations could run totally counter to his own so long as they served the same cause. He knew how to be a professional, if nothing else.

Buuuut...

"If you're gonna smooch him, wipe your mouth after. Don't know where he's been."

Crack for a crack was fair play his whole life. He knew how to survive among a maelstrom of jesting barbs, too.

He began to walk, scooping up the body next to his feet and dragging it along in the direction of the pile. Paladin Tyaethe had been doling out orders while the interrogations had gone on around her, and by now had roped every free hand into pulling corpses onto a singular spot along the stone of the road— piling up the dead until the heap stood as tall as she did.

Probably cremation, if he had to guess. Dead bodies lying around meant two things: Disease and Scavengers. Growing up near a forest taught him the dangers of drawing hungry beasts to a road— and he knew any soldier here would at least be aware of the havoc the undisposed dead could wreak upon either side of a siege.

Chucking the body roughly against the pile, Gerard about-faced in time to catch the disquieted mutterings of Sir Renar in his ear. He had to imagine that the man hated the busywork to bring all this on— he certainly had no qualms with getting his hands dirty.

"They not do this in your banneret?" he asked, beginning to drag another corpse by its ankle.