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RE: =WPC 2020= Final Battlefield

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2/27/2020 6:38:50   
Necro-Knight
Member

Aleisha’s inner beast growled with frustration at the lack of blood that was denied her, the lack of glorious crimson staining the tiles beneath them as her blade was both dodged and immediately parried by her second target. The void-born shot Martin a very brief, but no less irritated, look. If the man had managed to hold Silence for only a moment or two longer and not fail completely, she could’ve at least successfully ended one of their enemies. Instead, it seemed she was going to have to do things entirely herself.

The thought of how unreliable mortals were crossed her mind as a ghostly annoyance before her muscles wound tight again and she focused back in on Caeos. He’d given up his coat and donned a set of armor whose dark magic she could practically smell as he moved in on her from a quick crouch, all too eager to die. Unlike her own, this armor seemed far more built for the abuse of war, yet she was already licking her dark lips as she eyed possible points she could peel it open by. Already hungry to do so, her blade whipped back to her side, hovering point-down next to her as it awaited for its next command.

“Tell me, my dear Aleisha,” he taunted her as he lashed out with a mist whose scent of dark magic burned at her nostrils, “do you fear hearing the abyss whispering to you?”

From her crouched position, she released all the energy she’d had wound in her muscles like wrapped wires. Her left leg slid across the smooth tiling and braced beneath her as she kicked, sending her gaunt frame backwards in a back-flip. The void-born brought her knees up to her chest as she reached the arc of her flip, before straightening as she felt her momentum begin to shift downward and landing solidly on her clawed boots about ten feet away.

Always tethered to her will, her weapon drifted to a halt beside her right arm and Aleisha grinned, raising both arms as a performer would before her captive audience. Her other responded with a howling hunger deep in her core. Clearly the darkness in her veins had no taste for theatrics, but what else separated her from the little creatures that gnawed on scraps in the dark? Tongue flicking at her sharp teeth, she raised her voice to reach the naive little man across from her, an amused chuckle broiling from her fiery throat before her words.

“Fear? Oh sweet, stupid child… the abyss sings praises for its queen. It begs for the chance to grovel at my feet now, and I intend to keep it there.”

She didn’t blame the fool for his ignorance, not really. Perhaps where he came from, the void was a wild thing that simply consumed or rampaged over those who could not impose their will upon it. Nulgath had broken her of such naive ways of thinking very early. Everything in this life and the next was a battle of wills. If one could not gain the strength to impose their will upon reality, then they typically developed fear of what they could not control instead. Beckoning her blade to rise and point towards the stupid man, Aleisha swore she had no plans to let these miserable cretins see fear in her.

“I fight because it proves that I’m alive!”

Bringing her blade defensively up between her and Caeos out of reflex, Aleisha spared a glance towards Silence and Martin. The woman was screaming like Martin had just insulted her lost canine companion and to accentuate her retort, had promptly bashed him in the nose with her bare fists. She’d have laughed if it wasn’t simply so sad. Silence pummeled at the shirtless waste of flesh and even as he brought a leg up to retaliate, the void-born had all but written Martin off as any real aid at this point. She needed to make a statement and do it before the Order was left out-numbered.

Aleisha swung her blade around to her right side with another simple tug of her mental strings, tip pointed Caeos like a spear, and tensed her muscles to break into a raw sprint towards the man. A rumble of pure thunder without warning nearly sent her stumbling to the smooth floor and for a moment, she’d thought the storm-wielder from across the battlefield had struck a grand blow meant to wipe her and her allies all out at once. Instead, she was met with a grand response. A decision so finite in its simplicity, yet so infinite in its simplicity.

Two orbs, one from each side of the balanced scale representing the battle she assumed, tilted and shattered upon the hard flooring. She didn’t need to investigate further to recognize portal magic. Before she could wonder at their purpose, two different-yet-united voices split the sound of raw combat.

Knight of Hellfire. Chaos is naught without passion. Yours has not shown through. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of Misery. Your intent wavers. Without intent, there is no Order. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Hellfire and Misery. Caeos and Martin. The powers that apparently orchestrated this grand melee had made their first disappointments known, and as the scale balanced itself back out, Aleisha knew her own orb was still safe, at least for now. While this meant that Caeos was now less than a dead as far as she was concerned, she was possibly only moments away from being alone with the raging woman named Silence. Her first interaction with the wretch had been a near-decapitation, and while Aleisha appreciated that savagery, she had to be sure that great scale tipped further in her favor.

Finally free to act again without some great deities imposing their disappointment upon her battleground, Aleisha burst into movement. She moved past Silence and Martin, her Leere Messer trailing only a few breaths from her right pauldron, before suddenly shifting focuses. She locked her blade mid-air and reached out to grip the hilt, allowing her forward momentum to spin her around in a quick turn back towards Martin and Silence. As soon as her boots came to a stop beneath her, she channeled a roar of willpower into her void knife, sending its tip soaring towards her target; the direct center of Silence’s spine.

She had no concerns for Caeos now to her left. If he took his failure like any other mortal, he would be dumb-struck long enough for her to claim her first soul and keep the balance tipping towards the vice-like grip of order.

The void is chaos, but those who create order from madness have the true power. In the end, you shall all see this truth. The first of many.
DF MQ AQW  Post #: 26
2/28/2020 0:27:28   
Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer


 The storm took Akordia, bringing a look of grim satisfaction to Ebriva's face. Queen, Knight, or Pawn, the gale served her will and hurled the pale woman away. But as good as it might be to watch her opponent sail over the edge, there was more work to do. With Leaf covered - for now at least - the young woman could turn her attention to the distant scrum between Dark Hat, the Wraith, and the remaining Knights of Order.

Firing into that melee would be delicate work. Thanks to Damascus' insistence on tedious - admittedly useful, but tedious - drill, Ebriva had experience with that. What she was lacking was familiarity. It helped to know how her allies moved, and what style of combat they favored. And given the trio of strangers she was working with… Well, there would be as much luck as skill in not hitting Caeos or Silence.

The young woman's lips quirked into a smile as she pivoted towards the brawl. They'll complain either way. It was a short-lived expression, fading away as her mismatched gaze landed on Yura. There was something about her… the way she was standing… No sword? Indeed, for the moment Red Blade’s hands were empty. Almost as soon as the observation was made, light flashed - red as rage - raking at the Stormcaller’s eyes like a fork of nearby lightning, and then Akabane had the lance in her grasp again. The look in her foe’s eyes sent Ebriva’s right hand to her waist, running along the silk-wrapped chain to confirm what she already knew.

Yura reared back and hurled the scarlet dart, shrieking as loud as the weapon that howled from her grip. Left and right only. After spending so much to protect the River Knight the Stormcaller would have to be stingy in her own defence. Which meant her response had to be fast and smart. The lance shrilled as it came on, a rising atonal cry as the nimbus of heat and light around it grew. Stop it before it reaches you.

Her left foot knocked against the bottom of her staff, kicking it up into a two-handed grip. The young woman clenched her teeth and sketched a swift semi-circular design, will crashing through the rod as the triad at her right hip went still. Specks of dirt and grit rippled along the stave's graven lines as an arc of earth - a perfect slab of stone - thrust up to catch the lance less than half a dozen feet in front of her.

At which point Ebriva remembered something very important: Red Blade’s lance exploded on contact.

“Oh he-” was all the Stormcaller managed to get out, spinning in a fruitless effort to run. Her shoulders hunched reflexively and she cringed as the brilliant javelin crashed against the barrier. The rocky blockage served its purpose, absorbing the furious heat of the dart, but it fared less well against the force of the impact itself. Earth gave way in a scatter-shot blast of stone shrapnel, borne on a gust of seething wind that hurled the young woman to the tile and bounced her once, twice, thrice to a bruised and battered stop.

Her ears were ringing - was that a peal of thunder? - and her limbs felt distant, like they were attached to someone else, or were a set she had borrowed and wasn’t quite used to. Voices, the Voices, were speaking, thrumming along her bones and vibrating between her eyes… But they didn’t matter. They weren’t talking to her. The Stormcaller knew that somehow, and knew just as well that she didn’t have time to consider the questions that knowing prompted.

Stand up; Yura’s coming. Flogging her recalcitrant body into obedience, Ebriva pushed herself to her knees. Somehow she had kept hold of her rod during the tumble - that had earned her a split lip, and the accompanying runnel of blood down her chin. Faint aches, compared to the throbbing along her back from the blows struck by her own blasted barrier, or the scrapes and abrasions from her collisions with the tile.

The staff rang as the Stormcaller planted it on the marble below her and forced herself to her feet. Between herself and Red Blade lay the spent lance, but Ebriva’s eyes fixed on Yura, who charged over the field at her, sword in hand. “Alright then. Let’s try this again.”
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 27
2/28/2020 16:55:56   
Apocalypse
Member

As predicted, the elf jumped left to avoid the flurry of crystals. Despite her efforts, two of the needles hit their mark - a welcome change from their previous ineffectiveness against the disciple. Though in this case their success was unnecessary as they were but the precursor for the true assault. The brilhado’s missiles paled in comparison to the hellish inferno Yura had rained down upon her in the bloody moonlight. The wounds were gone but the scent of her own charred flesh was not one Akordia could expunge from her memory. Under ordinary circumstances, the Pale Priestess would have granted neither forgiveness nor quarter to the flamecaller. But this realm between realms was far from ordinary, and the two had their lots cast as allies for the time being. Until their alliance came to an end, Akordia would make use of her talents.

That is, if the asinine youth had any sense for the art of war.

Her command going unanswered, Akordia stole a glance at her temporary compatriots: her fellow knights in this crusade. Each and every one of them was still locked in combat with but half of the enemy’s number, trading blows yet failing to achieve any decisive edge or victory. Flaxen eyes flicked back the elf now shrouded in mist, and the brilhado renewed her charge. So be it. The others had seen this as a skirmish; acting on passion and instinct rather than the cold calculations required to wage war. In a skirmish, one only had to pay for their own mistakes. In war, one soldier’s folly was paid by all.

Before the Fallen, Leaf pulled upon her arcanum and slammed her staff into the ground. The marble trembled in response, pushing against Akordia’s feet and catapulting her into the air. A cruel sense of weightlessness took the brilhado as she was hurled away from battle and towards the arena’s edge. Once upon a time this sensation had been desirable- now it was only a stark reminder that no longer could she roam the skies. Muscles that were no longer there yearned to stretch wings that were long torn. Akordia reached out a hand as if to pluck the little elf from where stood, an insect in her iron grasp. If only she could get within reach of her enemies…

A gust of wind shattered the warped perspective, engulfing the brilhado and sending her away from the fight. So powerless. So worthless. The brilhado was tossed head over heels and towards the empty expanse surrounding the battleground. Clawlike crystals frosted the fingertips of her outstretched hand in a futile act of defiance. The ground rose to meet her, and too late Akordia attempted to right herself. Her side slammed into the arena’s edge with a sickening crack. Breath escaped her as gravity pulled her down towards the abyss. Claws scraped against marble, only catching in the last few scant inches of the onyx tile. Dangling over the endless void, Akordia spared a glance down into the swirling mass of chaos below her. The hungry maw of oblivion seemed to rise as if to swallow the Fallen whole. Her heart pounded at the thought. Gazing into that abyss unveiled one eternal truth: it held neither liberation from nor delivery unto death for those who fell. Akordia jolted as her sharpened crystals gave a precious inch. She raised her gaze back up, the din of battle persisting in this place in-between without her. To be lost to both life and death would seal one away from crossing the Veil forevermore. Such was the twisted nature of this place.

Such a fate would not do.

With a growl, the Pale Priestess reached up with her other arm to grasp the sable marble. The ominous and omniscient voices that began the battle rang out once more to shame two of their chosen. Ignoring both the declarations and the ache in her side, she heaved herself up. The crystal stiffening her wounds ruptured new waves of pain across her shoulder. Teeth clenched shut, Akordia transformed the pain into sheer determination. Shedding one’s blood is the greatest gift one can give unto the Mother. Ivory skin ran crimson from the red trails spilling from where her own shattered crystal had cut her. What was a little misery when one owed the Mother life itself? A bulbous green crystal ballooned from the back of the brilhado’s uninjured shoulder as she climbed. It mirrored the size and shape of the stone possessed by the elf, with emerald droplets glistening at the end of its many spikes. A makeshift ranged weapon to buy her time to close the distance. If her “allies” would not treat this as a war, then so be it - the Ravenous Seeker would hunt alone.

Hauling herself up onto the ledge, the brilhado rose to her feet and reached back to pluck the newest growth from her back. It came free with a crunch, spilling minute portions of acid onto her. Akordia lobbed the sphere up in the air, jade droplets scattering from the spikes as it spun over and over. A lofty throw, its flight would last for a few precious moments before it would come crashing down on the earthmover. Akordia sprinted forward, determined to not let this act go to waste.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 28
2/28/2020 23:04:33   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


 A wet glob of blood splattered against Silence’s black mask as she turned her cheek. Martin’s muscled arms rose, grasping onto Silence’s final punch with a dead-man’s grip. A grapple, just like every time before it.

This time she was ready. Ghostblade danced through the air and prepared to strike down the man for his arrogance. But he was faster. From his skin sprang a serpent of darkest midnight, no eyes to reflect Silence’s sudden twinge of fear. The snake coiled around the girl’s arm, it’s cold scales slowing her resolve and causing her mental blade to falter. White fangs glimpsed the light for but a moment before they were plunged into pale skin.

She shut her eye and screamed as the snake faded away, liquid pain shooting through her blood like lightning. She thought it would fade, that the pain would only last a moment, but it stayed. It thrummed through her being, a fire ceaselessly raging on the point of impact. It invigorated her, throwing her mind into overdrive to predict Martin’s next move through her shut eye.

He had struck high. So next he’ll strike low. Her eye shot open and her mind commanded her blade, swinging down to remove the Serpent’s leg as it rose to crush her own.

And then all stopped. His leg, frozen mid-kick. Her blade, suspended just inches from it. The scales that lit the arena had moved. They had tipped, first one way, then the other, dropping two orbs of light from up high to the checkered floor. Emerald and crimson chimed melodically as they struck the tile and exploded to create paths home. One and Many spoke in unison, commanding all to listen.

Knight of Hellfire. Chaos is naught without passion. Yours has not shown through. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of Misery. Your intent wavers. Without intent, there is no Order. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Dismissed. No glory. No purpose. No freedom. No victory.

The emerald glow in Martin’s eyes dimmed. The rage was… gone. In those endless eyes, Silence thought she could see something far deeper. Pity? Sadness? She thought of their bout in the glade. He had offered her a choice. She had chosen violence. Not him. He had simply joined her in her dance. And now their dance was over. It was a shame… perhaps things could have been different, had these forces not plucked them from their lives to meet on a battlefield. Had Silence not been so desperate to rush into battle, searching for the life lost within her. She flashed a small, sad smile to him, whispering one last time in a mournful breath. A breath filled with respect, and well-wishes towards wherever he went next.

“Goodbye, Martin.”


But even here, in this odd world between worlds, there was balance. If a Knight of Order was dismissed, so too was a Knight of Chaos. And if Caeos was gone…

The Demon! Without a partner, where would it naturally go next?

Her body, still racked with the ever present pain of the Serpent’s final gift, would have been far too sluggish to react. But her mind, fueled by the same fire that slowed her form, wasn’t. Sonata’s ethereal blade spun to serve his sister’s command, desperately swiping through the space behind her back and colliding with silent, demonic steel. But Aleisha had been just a hair faster, the tip of the blade dipping into Silence’s flesh before her rushed parry could knock it aside. The blade drew a line of red across her back, parallel to Yura’s. Two bleeding trails of pain that would forever mark her weakness.

But this pain was nothing compared to the ever-growing inferno that persisted on her snake-struck arm. She spun round to face her opponent, her eye aglow with life and joy. In the distance, she saw Yura charging towards SIlence’s allies. Silence would have liked to keep the focus on her, so that Leaf and Ebriva could best Trueknight whilst unhindered by a second foe. But the growing decay on Silence’s right arm and the blood dripping from her back told her there was no way she’d be able to handle two opponents. She was only still standing because of the adrenaline that shot through her veins with every pulse of pain she felt. Pain left from that man’s malice-filled snake, right before Order deemed him unworthy.

Whether he knew it, meant it or not, Martin’s last gift would be her strength.

As she stepped forward to face the Demon, she promised to repay it, and remember the lessons he had taught her. A mental command, and Ghostblade blade swung around to protect her. But Silence did not charge forth. Not this time. Her mind raced, remembering everything she had seen the creature do, predicting every last possible action it could make next. She could not afford to be careless, as she had been over and over again in these battles.

By giving the Rageborn the first move, she would grant it the chance to make the same mistake Silence had, and feel this same pain that racked Silence’s every moment before she struck it down.
Post #: 29
2/29/2020 14:50:11   
roseleaf320
Creative!


 ”That’s the third one this week she’s turned away. The forest is dying. We need to adapt.”

“She gets like this all the time now. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me she’d pushed Emilia off those falls. What! You know I’m right.”

“If Emilia was still around, things would be so much easier.”

Leaf heard their whispers. Everything she did, they’d whisper about. She’d pushed them down, pretended she didn’t understand what they were saying. Surely they were angry about the human in their territory. Or this year’s rains. But now the whispers were restless. They clawed at her mind, threatening to block out every other thought in her head. It was never the humans or the rains. It was always her. Each color in the sea of Chaos above her was a tribe member, a loved one, and each hissed at her, screamed at her, urged her to jump. She was unnatural. She was just like the humans, molding nature to satisfy her every whim and pleasure.

And now her whims and pleasures had forced the elements around her to become violent. The crystalline woman had been thrown into the air, just as Leaf commanded. It was so easy. Order was probably laughing at her right now, watching her use the very thing she despised to push people around. At least Ebriva seemed to like that, as well. She ran towards Akordia, taking advantage of their enemy’s vulnerability in the air. As she left, she made a pointing motion towards Leaf. Some kind of cue? Did she want Leaf to do something? She couldn’t possibly think Leaf would understand- but a dark mist began to flow from her staff, sinking down from its upper branches to cover the air around her. A kind of spell. Perhaps the mist would provide protection. Leaf began to step forward, and the mist moved with her. She would ensure she didn’t get in Ebriva’s way. But she had her healing from her Pearl now, and she wanted to get close enough to her allies to be able to use it. To lend them some protection as well. At least she could use the Pearl without commanding the ground below her. She loathed the very thought of using Order’s stone again.

Her family doubted her. They thought she wasn’t protecting them. But here in this world between worlds, she was fighting for them! She was chosen for Chaos! She would win for them. And then she would go home, and they would cheer. The tribe would never need a human ever again.

They wouldn’t cheer for you. But they’d cheer for Emilia.

As the realization hit her, a spear came flying from the fight on the other side of the battlefield, aimed towards Ebriva. But Leaf was too far away to send the Pearl to her in time. A loud crack dispelled all other sounds from her head. The spear seemed to have hit its mark- and exploded. Leaf watched as Ebriva skidded across Order’s stone, while shrapnel fell to the ground around where she’d once stood. I wonder if I could do something like that…

Leaf felt the chequered floor reverberate as each orb fell in turn. First emerald, then scarlet. Each opened a portal, their contents clouded from view. The scales were restless. She had not been the first to go- Eythyr must approve of what she was doing. But when it didn’t, would her orb fall, too? Where would it send her?

Could it send her to Emilia?

As the voices of Order and Chaos made clear their decisions, Leaf couldn’t help but giggle. She should stop clinging to a human. Emilia had been a hell of a diplomat. But the tribe wouldn’t need that anymore once Leaf won. She would rid the forest of everyone that tried to control it. To change it.

But footsteps reminded her that she was not alone. Akordia had risen from her leap off the field, seemingly having pulled herself up with brute force. Another round of crystals hurtled towards Leaf, this time becoming a single green ball. Like Pearl…

Green liquid dripped from its surface, dotting the ground around her. She watched, entranced, as it sailed high above her vision to land at her feet. Then, just like the spear, it burst.

Leaf was burning. She couldn’t hold up her own weight, not when her feet were screaming. The bottom of her dress had caught some of the acid, burning small holes in its silken material. But its opening had allowed for much of the splash to head straight to Leaf. What a useless garment. She would be a fool to give up now to such a simple trick after all she’d been through. Leaf pulled the Pearl towards her, letting it graze against her feet, but the healing energy would not prevent the fall that had already started. She let her momentum carry her, and as she dropped to her knees, her staff followed.This time, she issued a command, demanding attention and obedience. Go. End the crystals’ barrage so I may win.

She would not be gentle anymore. As Order’s stone responded, it formed not a blunt wall, but a series of spikes. Roselike thorns shot from the ground, honed to sharp, devilish points. If she was to win, she would have to cause pain. It had taken her too long to realize that. And what better way to do that than to force Order to turn against its champions?

That kind of power… even the greatest resolve could not keep her doubts from whispering in her ear. Could someone this unnatural, this controlling, really protect the forest- and nature’s Chaos?



Post #: 30
3/1/2020 19:45:34   
Kooroo
Member

“... Fast forward about a week, and the little missus storms into the middle of town with the entire Imperial Military right behind her. She gives off some big speech about the right of succession and then ‘boom!’, martial law for all. And that’s how it’s been for the last three years,” Hiroki yawned and then stretched his arms.

Toyama stared at the boy, dumbfounded. “How old are you again?”

Hiroki didn’t respond for a few moments, trying to sidestep the question. Eventually, he reluctantly replied. “I moved into town maybe twenty-ish years ago.”

That earned him a raised eyebrow. “You’re… you’re much younger than you look. But, uh… So you didn’t hear anything about the royal family before you arrived?”

“Not really, no. Never followed it. The empress died shortly after I settled in. And then about a year later, the emperor stopped doing… well, everything. No more Divine Authority or public appearances. He just left everything to his ministers and his firstborn, Taiyane, to handle. Then she disappeared to Lords-know where and he followed about three years ago.”

“... I can see why you think poorly of him.”

“The only thing he managed to accomplish once I arrived was being labelled a recluse. And then he passed over the reins to a teenage dictator. The Resistance soldiers refer to him politely, but you’ll be hard pressed to find someone in town that actually likes the man,” Hiroki adjusted his glasses and then crossed his arms. “So, enough with the history lesson. What’s this got to do with Yura?”

“Well, I want to clarify something first. The rumours about the emperor are true. He was indeed killed on that night of fire and lightning—”

“Great.”

“—By Lady Kurouji.”

The young-looking man frowned and lay on his side, propping his head up with a raised elbow. “I… well, she seems ruthless enough to do that, I guess? But even then, for her t—”

“Lady Yura is the emperor’s third and youngest child.”

That statement was immediately followed by a heavy silence. Toyama prayed that his charge would forgive him if he made it back to her alive. There was a good chance that she would change that once she had learned what he’d done, but it didn’t seem fair to keep it from Hiroki.

For his part, the young-looking man just kept frowning. “But the empress died about twenty years ago. She died giving birth to her second child. There’s no way she could have had a third. Unless you’re implying that she's in hiding, or that there's some other conspiracy going on.”

“He remarried,” Toyama replied simply.

“... Come again?”

“The emperor. He married again, shortly after the empress’s death.”

Hiroki squinted at the old man. He stared long and hard, and then let out a resigned sigh. “Alright, fine. Back to the history lesson then.”


The figure was a young woman. A tall and beautiful lady, wearing a fancy dress. As pretty as the lady was, Aoi couldn’t help but think that she looked sad, gazing out forlornly over the lake by herself.

The small, pink-haired girl walked up to the woman and introduced herself. It was the polite thing to do after all. “My name is Aoi! That means blue! What’s your name?”

The woman blinked and didn’t reply, so Aoi waited patiently. Eventually, the woman told her name and said that it meant ‘purple sound’. What a pretty name.

They stood there in silence for a moment before the lady turned around to leave. Aoi asked her where she was going but the woman didn’t respond. A bit rude, but she’d forgive the sombre lady. She followed after her, tailing the woman as stealthily as a young child could, over the open and rocky plain. Aoi had a good feeling about following her. Maybe she knew where Yura had gone?


It soon became apparent to the flameborn that Zensen hadn’t quite reached its mark. Yura had already broken into an all-out sprint by then, but the sudden realisation forced a snarl, and she quickened her breakneck pace. Kimizan shrunk as she crossed to the next tile, shortening to its standard length as the alabaster white marble changed to a deep, abyssal black.

That was another problem with the Lance; it was incredibly messy. As pretty as the gigantic pillar of flame was, seeing whatever was behind or around it was next to impossible. That, and the aftereffects of throwing the ancient artifact were always a painful distraction to deal with.

In this case, that scum-sucking churl had raised a small block of stone to catch Zensen, which had sorta worked. The witch was alive, but the blast had thrown her a fair distance. The rubble lying around might have left some nasty marks, judging from the way she was gingerly picking herself off the floor.

This was her chance, then. She’d have to make the most of this opportunity and cut the two-tone down before they ended up performing an encore of their fireside duel. The other caster, Leaf-Wind-something-or-other, was a potential concern, but she seemed distracted with something on the far side of the chequered plane, where Truenight had been dropped from high.

Hopefully her blackened ally had survived. Yura felt a pang of guilt for leaving the towering woman to fight the pair of mages, but there was a practical reason to wish for her welfare as well. If Truenight lived, then might’ve been able to distract the Leaf woman long enough for Yura to finish off the lightning-totting bean sprout. Of course, thoughts and prayers could only go far, and Yura wasn’t really into that sort of thing.

A peal of thunder reverberated through the plane, followed by two echoing pronouncements that each rejected a Knight. Both voices were all too familiar; they were the voices that had announced the names of the Knights of each opposing force, though they now spoke as the one and the same. That was… different, compared to the stories of the Heavens and Hells that she had grown up with, then. Everything was pretty black and white in those old myths and tales. Perhaps these two opposing forces were more alike than she had thought.

”Two sides of the same coin. Two inseparable concepts that seem different, but are actually the one and the same. It’s a foreign proverb, but it fits in with our society. It could also—“

Yura gritted her teeth and pushed the memory of Toyama’s explanation aside. It was one of the few lessons that she remembered vividly, but it pissed her off. Something about that concept irritated her on a fundamental level.

Knights of Hellfire and Misery, huh? Both titles made Authority sound charming by comparison, but Yura’s had struck a nerve with her. Maybe they had some other meaning to who they belonged to, but she couldn’t remember which title had gone to which person. None of her allies had seemed particularly cheerful, so ‘Misery’ could’ve fit practically any of them. And what about the Chaos Knights? Which one had Hellfire been?... Probably one of the guys in black.

Even though the starting announcement had been especially loud and pretentious, Yura was innately bad with names. Friends were a different story, but enemies came and went like the sun. She’d only managed to remember them as… well, the drab lady in the cosplay get-up, Leaf-of-the-way-too-long-name, and then Caeos/Kaos/Chaos—or however you friggin’ spell that—of Chaos.

Then there was Stormcaller Ebriva. E-bu-ri-ba. That rolled off the tongue nicely. Granted, its shortness wasn’t the only reason Yura was able to remember it so easily. She recalled it just as clearly as that struggle amongst that flaming battlefield. The bolt of sizzling lightning as it had struck Kimizan, the crackle and surge of electricity as it had coursed through the flameborn’ limbs. The caress of the flames, as it had eaten at her clothes and that look on that two-tone twit’s face as she’d swung her staff at Yura’s head.

And the smirk. That scum-sucking smile and the chortle that she’d loosed as Yura ran towards her.

That was the name of the one who’d plagued her and the Ninjabit in that blasted hellscape. Stormcaller Ebriva, the Chaos Knight of Onyx. A name worth remembering once this was finished, after Kimizan had relieved the woman of her blood and her life.

The black, polished stone underfoot shifted once more to bleak white as Yura crossed over to the next tile. The smouldering, spent Zensen lay before her, but she ignored the Sacred Lance and skipped over it. There were people back at home who would have cursed her for such a sacrilegious act, but she was hardly going to lose any sleep over it. They probably would’ve already fainted as soon as she’d thrown the damned thing. There would be plenty of time to pick it up after she dealt with the sparky little cur who was pulli—no, had pulled herself to her feet, with the aid of her staff.

Yura glanced sideways to check on the energy lobber’s ally. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the towering Truenight charging at the smaller woman. Looks like she had the two-tone all to herself.

They were close now; close enough for Yura to finally attack. The rageborn locked eyes with her foe and lunged off her left foot with a roar, mirroring the thrust she had made back in that field of ash and flame. At the last moment, she shot out her right, killing her forward momentum. Her left hand came free of the blade as she drew her right back and twisted her wrist, the crimson blade rising in a diagonal, upward slash.
AQW Epic  Post #: 31
3/1/2020 20:37:04   
Necro-Knight
Member

The void-born had expected to see the woman’s spine severed and her lifeless corpse reduced to a heap upon the pristine tiling beneath their feet. Instead, a spectral force caught Aleisha’s blade and knocked it off-course with just enough raw instinct to spare the woman, though she felt the thrumming satisfaction from her blade as it still bit into the woman’s flesh and added a clean line across her back, leaving a crimson trail in its wake as it flipped end over end on its way back to its master.

Straightening to her full height now, Aleisha drug a finger across the flat of her blade as it hovered at her side, catching a few drops of the woman’s blood as she did so. She was curious, despite herself. This woman had been strong enough to both withstand Martin’s full focus in two separate encounters, and been wise enough to predict an attack from an enemy she couldn’t even see. While clearly pushing the limits of her mortal body, Aleisha couldn’t help but feel… almost impressed by this woman’s resolve.

Perhaps I see a bit of myself in her? No true Queen dies easily, after all.

Never taking her eyes from Silence, the void knight popped her blood-soaked finger between her lips, mulling over the crimson life-essence with a slight crease to her brows. It was… human. Strong and refined, of course, but she could taste no magical essence or spiritual gifts. Other than the ghostly sword that Aleisha could faintly notice hovering defensively across Silence’s person, she had yet to display any magical capabilities in the time she’d seen her, leading the void-born to a simple conclusion.

The woman was nothing more than a strong mortal with a powerful tool at her disposal.

For a moment, Aleisha wondered how much more potent Silence would’ve been with any form of magical blessings, before an idea bloomed in her mind like a twisted, perverted flower. With a smile, she licked the remaining blood from her lips and caught her void-knife, twirling it with a casual flick of her wrist before sheathing it over her shoulder.

She slowly then began to walk towards Silence, the fall of her boots nearly silent, muted by the sound of combat raging behind her. Part of her hoped the other allies she’d been grouped with were earning more favor with their hosts than Martin had, but as she noticed the gangrenous rot spreading up Silence’s arm from what looked like a snake bite, she realized that the serpentine-obsessed fool had perhaps not been as useless as he seemed.

Once she reached about a three foot distance from the wounded combatant, Aleisha rose her hands in an almost comforting gesture, palms out. The eyes located there locked on Silence’s for a few moments before she struck. Pure and blinding void light flared from the irises in her hands, the flash of golden color repeating once, twice and three times in rapid succession. As the void once again tried to distract and draw her sanity away with praises and a chorus of whispers, the void-herald bit her tongue, drawing blood to maintain her composure and refuse to give in to the sweet-nothings of those who had ascended.

With Silence still reeling from the sudden assault on her vision, Aleisha tipped her torso forward, launching her blade from its sheath by sheer will and sending it across the short distance between them, tip burying itself beneath Silence’s chin and resting there with just enough pressure to pinch at her flesh. Her beast roared and banged at the inside of the void-born’s skull, telling her to just destroy the woman and bathe in her fluids. Human or not, blood was blood after all, and she’d been denied her rightful kill ever since this fiasco began. As much as she wished to satisfy the primal cravings aching behind her chest, she remembered one of the many lessons that Nulgath taught her over the years. Some of the sweetest victories were the ones where your enemies defeated themselves.

Biting back her feral savagery, she straightened up enough to match her gaze with Silence’s own and slid forward to rest her hands on Silence’s cheeks, her second pair of eyes soaking up every detail while so close. Her skin, while still obsidian black beneath her pristine-white armor, was rather cold and she could feel the warmth of Silence’s humanity beneath her clawed fingers.

“Look at you, fighting so hard, with so very little…” Aleisha’s voice purred deep and smooth in her throat, her eyes like burning coals as they stared into the eyes of her prey, “I was like you once, human and weak compared to the powers that be… but then I saw the truth in the cosmos. Look around us, Silence.”

The void knight motioned with a hand, keeping the other still firm on Silence’s left cheek as Aleisha spread her other arm wide, gesturing at the never-ending void that reached out beyond the arena in which they fought and looking back at her prey.

“Look upon the oblivion in which so many draw limitless power, and see every spec of light as an eye… staring into you, through you. I could show you how to stare back and see the truth that lies beyond, or you can die here... blind to it all.”
DF MQ AQW  Post #: 32
3/1/2020 23:08:42   
Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer


 Yura charged, and Ebriva considered her options.

Only the left triad was active now, and the Stormcaller didn’t like her chances of holding off Red Blade after the swordswoman had battered a bolt of lightning aside so casually in their first encounter. If she couldn’t keep her foe away, that meant coming to grips, and fighting the chit close-quarters wasn’t exactly appealing either. Ebriva’s advantage of height and reach would count for something, but Red Blade was no doubt much more proficient in the press.

Damascus, I really do miss you. She took a deep breath and shifted into a ready stance. When she got back… If she got back, she would tell him. The Stormcaller’s hands tightened on the rod as Red Blade’s rush carried her onto the black tile that separated them. She had to talk to him. It had been too long since Ebriva had sat down and spoken to her brother about something other than supplies, or scouting reports, or training schedules, or…

Or vengeance.

Was that it? Was that what had brought her here? The young woman thought perhaps it was; after all, the Voice of Chaos had said so. Rise… and seek your revenge. Her knuckles were white from the strength of her grip; the cold, ridged steel of her staff imprinted into her palms as she grappled with the idea. The desire for revenge, that was... why she was. It had become a foundation of her existence, like the grit at the heart of a pearl. That was why she was here.

“It's time for you to decide what you want.”

Did she, Ebriva, want that? By the Tempest, yes. She wanted to claw Earlon’s eyes out. She wanted to smell his flesh roasting; she wanted to watch his skin split and char like overcooked meat. She wanted to drown him in the ocean of her fury. More than anything, she wanted to feel his bones shatter with every strike of her staff. And when it was over, she wanted to find a way to force life back into his broken body so that she could do it again. And again. And again…

And then what? What did she want after that? If Kenal’s Hammer was dead, if his Inquisition was gutted, if every one of his fawning courtiers was spiked atop the high walls of Indaraa’s palace… Then what would she do? What was the blood and pain worth, in the end?

“It’s time for you to decide what you want.” Syne was right. The line between justice and vengeance was perilously thin. But had that been what the god had meant? Ebriva didn’t think so, not really. She had crossed that line years ago; she had thrown herself across it. That couldn’t be the decision the Stormcaller had to make… or was it?

“But it could be again.” Like the Watcher’s truth this one was simple, immediate. It did not fill her, fraying her vision and turning her bones to singing gold, but it was just as powerful, strong enough to steal her breath for a moment.

Could she go back? More importantly: Did she want to?

Above the combatants the maelstrom churned; an impossible melange of fantastical color, a faux-aurora that obscured the stars above - if there were any stars in this place. Ebriva had never cared for stars, had never thought of the promised aurora. She had only, ever, thought of Earlon, of the blade and the brand, of the singular searing need to make him pay. Her parents would not have wanted that, but no matter what she told herself, it had never been about them - not that way.

She hadn’t always been Ebriva though. There had been another name, before. A girl who had loved the stars - laying on the beach at night and tracing out her own constellations, imagining the stories they told. One who had watched in wonder as her father had built her a palace of light, and had crawled into her brother’s bed to hold him after he had woken up screaming from a nightmare.

“It’s time for you to decide what you want.” The Stormcaller swallowed, heart fluttering in her chest. She felt like she was standing at the edge of the Chequered Field, staring into the yawning abyss below. It was time to decide - past time - and her opponent was closing fast.

“I…” It was hardly more than a whisper, but it was her voice. “I want to make them proud.”

That was enough.

At the young woman’s right hip the second triad kindled; her mismatched eyes met Yura’s furious glare. Surviving the next few seconds would determine whether or not the Stormcaller had a chance to make amends. So cheat. Fight dirty. That was, after all, the tried and true method for a magical talent to overcome a disadvantage. That, or running away and coming back with help.

Aid was out of the question though, which left fighting smart, and fighting dirty. Red Blade lunged, but that was silly. Ebriva had seen that move - had beaten that move - in their first bout. Despite the swordswoman’s unintelligible chatter, the Stormcaller didn’t think that she was stupid. Which meant the leap was only a feint and…

There. Yura’s foot stomped, killing her momentum as her blade slashed out. Ebriva thrust up with both hands on the rear of her stave, stepping into the blow and turning side-on to her attacker as she angled the rod back and down along her right shoulder. The Stormcaller winced as she felt the shock of the weapon’s impact vibrate through her hands. It made the metal staff hum like a tuning fork, but it stopped the sword. That was what mattered.

With no blade to interfere, she was able to respond. Ebriva’s left hand released the rod, face contorting in a grimace of effort as she relied on her right to steady the staff and keep the chit’s weapon out of her back. Slashing her free hand down, she evoked an arc of earth. No plate of stone this time, but a sudden burst of fine, gritty particles that the Stormcaller blasted into her opponent’s face to choke and blind her.

If I get through this, Damascus, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.

As though to mock the thought, pain flared across her hip. She gasped, gaze dropping to a second sword - identical to the first - in Yura’s other hand. The blade had sliced its way through her arming jacket, biting into flesh just above her left hip. But how… Ebriva staggered back several steps, teeth clenching down on a cry of pain.

Fight through it. Lightning surged from her hands, dancing along the graven lines of her staff, flickering about its head as the spell of enhancement took hold. The right triad stilled, and the Stormcaller pressed one hand against her side, feeling blood leaking slowly through her fingers.

You made a promise. Now keep it.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 33
3/2/2020 20:26:19   
Apocalypse
Member

Splattered by acid, the elf fell to her knees with a cry. Her wounds would hardly be debilitating, but the accompanying pain could overwhelm those unaccustomed to suffering. Not the brilhado’s deadliest tool, but it allowed her to weed out the weak and move on to heartier prey. A shame - the Pale Priestess had expected someone who laid claim to such a robust title to not be as profound a disappointment. The elf’s stone scuttled into the edge of her vision, though it hurtled not towards Akordia but back to its owner. A smirk threatened to crack the corner of her coal-painted lips as she closed the distance between them. So the elf was not yet done. Good.

Marble erupted into a jagged wall of blades not two strides from the charging brilhado. Reaching up to her hip, the fine points threatened to pierce through the breaches of her scaled defenses. With her momentum, Akordia had no chance to slow down or divert her course to either side. This left but one direction: up. On her next step, the brilhado leapt forward to clear the transformed rock. A shock jolted down her back leg as the spikes dragged along the crystal plating. The blunt force trauma rocked her to the bone and pitched her body forward to fall face first towards the ground. Bracing for the impact, Akordia threw her hands forward to catch herself. She slammed onto the ground on all fours, fire burning in her shoulder and lightning arcing through the many small cuts on her bloodied hand. Painful yet trifling - the previous trial had seen her tested against the raw might of both storm and flame. The flesh is weak but spirit strong. Their combined wrath had failed to stop her; a slab of stone could hardly compare.

Akordia raised her gaze to meet the elf’s, finding for the first time herself looking up at one of her adversaries. For one brief moment, the din of the battle fell on deaf ears. The clash of Storm and Flame, the howl of Whisper and Void...all were lost to the Leaf and the Priestess. Within the elf’s eyes burned fury, raw and untempered. And yet there was a hollowness to it. The rage did not consume but was clung to as a sailor lost at sea latched onto driftwood. Strip it away and the elf would have nothing. Akordia had seen those eyes before - she had closed those eyes before. Anger born of desperation but lacking both drive and direction. Perhaps one day the elf could find the conviction to fuel her passion, and she would set out to shape more than just wind and stone.

Perhaps one day.

But the Priestess had a duty to the Mother.

Sable lips parted to speak. “You’re lost.” There was neither uncertainty nor judgement in her voice - only the cold statement of fact. The brilhado’s hand curled into a fist beneath the burning red crystal blade. The tip glowed hot against the black tiles as her next words fell in a hushed whisper. “Find yourself. Your true self.” A command, iron and unyielding. Without warning, Akordia dragged her blade against the ground and flicked it upwards. Sparks shed along the groove carved into the marble before showering the Leaf with their brightness. Akordia did not hesitate, pivoting her body around to lash a taloned foot out at the elf’s youthful face. Her final words to the Leaf were not a threat but a promise. “Or perish!”
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 34
3/2/2020 22:36:01   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


 Not long ago, Melody had stood against a demon, born from the Flames of Rage. It wore the face of a gentle elder, the one she had spared only days before. And yet, it was not him. It was pain and fire and death. Her mind, burdened by whispers of her failure, had been weak. The creature, born from her weakness, claimed Sonata. It claimed Melody’s eye. It claimed the life she clung to so hard, and her name alongside it.

Today, facing down another demon, another creature born of hatred and fury, Silence would not falter. Her mind carried no burdens, her body was filled with life once more, and her grey eye saw. Hundreds of shadowy whispers of Aleisha overlapped reality, striking out over and over. Ghostly blades of demonic fire swung at the girl’s form. Ethereal crimson chains whipped out, their translucent bloody hooks passing directly through her. Mental flames and spikes and lightning that Silence wasn’t even sure the demon could do burst forth, yearning to claim her soul.

Silence’s body twitched at each. She was prepared to move, to avoid every single possibility just in case her imagination proved far too real. But still she held fast. Watching. Thinking. Waiting for the creature’s malice to reveal its truest strike. It advanced on her, but it advanced slowly, with no bloodlust, and Silence waited. It rose its hands, and Silence’s legs bent, ready to leap from the grasp of chains or flame..

But none came. Only light. Blinding golden light that seared into Silence’s vision before she could avert her gaze. Her mind screamed out, the mental wraiths dissipating in the painful golden glow as her focus shattered.

Silence tried to move, but her body was too weak, and the assault on her vision stung like poison. Her command over her blade faltered as her concentration slipped from her mental grasp. Steel met her neck, a pinprick of intense pain that held perfectly still. She blinked the light from her eye as the demon slid closer and rested its clawed, eyed hands on her cheeks. Flashes of memory shot through her mind: a beast with too many eyes, too many hands, bathed in flame and slaughtering everything in its path. Silence was revolted, but held still, ignoring the urge to jerk away, or run her blade through the creatures armored chest. With it’s dagger at her throat, any move Silence made could instantly be her last.

Flame-scorched eyes locked with her own. Deep within them, Silence could see something more. Something… alien. Monstrous. A captive imprisoned within their jailor. What was this creature hiding? What purpose did it have for toying with Silence?

Aleisha spoke. An unnatural, purring voice. Sickly sweet and laced with poison far more deadly than the one that continued to sear at Silence’s flesh and turn it to ash.

“Look at you, fighting so hard, with so very little… I was like you once, human and weak compared to the powers that be… but then I saw the truth in the cosmos. Look around us, Silence.”

Though the Demon gestured at the void around them, encouraging Silence to gaze into it, she refused, her eye locked on the Demons own. Unmoving. Unflinching.

“Look upon the oblivion in which so many draw limitless power, and see every spec of light as an eye… staring into you, through you. I could show you how to stare back and see the truth that lies beyond, or you can die here... blind to it all.”

I was like you once.

Just like the Rageborn. A creature that was once like any other mortal, until rage gripped its heart and it became nothing more than a monster.

Human, and weak.

Silence understood now. Aleisha was weak. Weaker than Silence. Weaker than Martin. Weaker than humans. Silence’s arm burned because Martin had struck it. Her back bled because Yura had lashed out. Aleisha pretended to be above them, brought on high by her precious void. But she had only hit Silence because of Martin’s final actions.

Aleisha yearned for Silence’s response. Regardless of if The Demon could grant Silence the power she promised, she wanted to hear that Silence wanted it. That another, in the same position as she had been whenever she took on the boon, would make her choice. Silence was alive because Aleisha needed her to be, needed to prove that her sacrifice had not been foolish. That, alone, proved just how foolish it was. She would throw aside victory, spare Silence, even defy the Order that had called her here, all to search for her own justification in the human’s words.

Silence would not give any.

Instead she spit a cold, wet glob of saliva into the Demon’s fiery eyes, falling backwards to avoid the monstrous knife before it could stab through her throat. She ducked and spun under Aleisha’s left arm while her ghostblade hung above her defensively, ready to intercept any further strikes. Ash drifted down from her right as the poison continued its work, eating away at her constantly As she came to her feet, she began to backpedal, taking large strides in hopes that she could regroup with her allies.

Though she was loath to admit it, Silence would not be able to handle Aleisha in her current condition. The blood leaking down her back was starting to slow her, and the fiery pain as her arm flaked away was becoming all too natural. Without the adrenaline of life and feeling, it would not be long before Silence succumbed to her wounds. The blackness at the edge of her vision encroached, desperate to seal off her only eye for one last, final sleep.

Aleisha would be on her in seconds, and no amount of defensive movement or action would save her. Her blade responded to her call, firing off in a final, desperate attempt to run Aleisha through.

She stumbled back, step after careful step. Every ounce of her focus was preventing her from teetering over on the spot, and becoming prey for the Demon before her. Memories of Sonata’s voice echoed in her ears. Since that day, she had never been able to recall exactly how he sounded, only muffled noise. His praises were forgotten. His reprimands were lost. His singing was gone. But now it came through perfectly clear. Silence had missed it dearly. A deep, smooth bass, whispering a mantra repeated before they sparred, every single day.

“Look.”

Aleisha was before her, across the black and white tiles. A Queen bearing down on a Knight, ready to capture it and tip the scales above in favor of Order.

“Feel.”

But there was more than the checkered board of Order here. The colored sky above was Chaos. Music and feeling and passion. It had chosen Silence. It had given her a chance to be alive again. She would not lay down and die when she had been called to battle.

“Fight.”

Her arms rose, her right trailing fine ash as the decay continued to eat away at it. Lightning shot through her muscles, pleading for her to lower it. If she were to actually throw a punch with that arm, she was certain it would snap off. Her legs screamed as they slid, settling into her familiar sparring stance. She wanted to let her imagination take over, and replace the approaching Demon with a shade of Sonata. She wanted to spar something familiar, without the risk that she would lose her life so soon after rediscovering it.

But the encroaching foe was not human. It was nothing more than a hollow shell, housing death and fury. Silence would cut away the creature’s armor. She would find the final shred of humanity Aleisha clung to, if there even was any. And she would snuff it out, recompense for the elder she had chosen to spare.

Perhaps, after it was done, Silence would join Aleisha.The final mystery of death scared her more than any demon possibly could. Would she meet her brother, or was he gone forever? If he wasn’t gone, and his spirit helped her guide his blade, where would that spirit go if she fell?

She shook away the questions, focusing on only what was before her. She would fight, using the pain and joy of combat to suppress her fear and keep her on her feet.

Ghostblade returned to Silence, orbited her once, then shot forward. Silence’s will drew it across the air over and over and over again, shimmering space cleaving deadly arcs through the still air. It would slice through Aleisha repeatedly until nothing was left of the Demon.

Or until nothing was left to command it.

Post #: 35
3/2/2020 23:28:29   
Kooroo
Member

“After the empress died, our Lord turned his attention to those within his domain. You remember that there was one year where he was almost constantly in public?” Toyama asked.

“No. Like I said, I never really listened to any news concerning him.“

“I thought you had already settled into the city by then?”

“Yeah. But I didn’t listen to the news. Never really liked the nobility or rich folk.”

“Oh.”

Hiroki realised his mistake and grimaced. “Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to offend, I was ju—“

The retainer waved the apology away. “It’s fine, don’t worry. Now, as I was saying, the emperor threw himself into his duties with a new, almost zealous fervor. He spent all of his free time amongst the villages and townsfolk, meeting them and getting to know about their lives.”

“You sure you’re talking about the same guy that was on the throne a few years ago?”

“The one and the same. Be honest with me, Hiroki,” Toyama smiled. ”Was the emperor’s reign in the last twenty years really that bad?”

“I… Well...” He let out his trademark sigh. “Alright, I guess we never had any problems under the guy. And I admit that it’s better than who we have now. Anyway, let me guess, this is when he met Yura’s mother, right? Love at first sight?”

“Yes. Yes, it was,” the old man murmured wistfully. ”Akabane Hina. Lady Yura’s mother and the love of his life. The pair were married within a year.”

“Uh… And… what, had he already forgotten about his first wife? Lords, he moved on quickly.”

“No, no! It’s not like that at all!” Toyama stammered, turning a bright, cherry red. “It’s just that… while he did love the empress, it’s just that… that was more… uh—”

“It was an arranged marriage?”

“... Yes.”

Hiroki snorted. “Figures. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that the rest of the royal family didn’t care for any of this, yeah?”

“To my knowledge, they never found out about it. But no, the emperor didn’t really care about his family’s opinion. If anything, the poor man was more worried about angering the people.”

“The people? Really, the people? Why in the hells would they have cared about who—”

Toyama raised his hand, cutting him off, and then continued his explanation calmly. “I don’t know which of the outer regions you’re from, Hiroki, but I’m sure you know, the people on Tengamine Mountain worship their emperor as the voice of the Light Lord himself. Even though only the ruler can wield the power of the Crown, there’s a possibility that their spouse will gain some of the Authority inherent in the royal family’s bloodline. As misguided as it may be to judge someone on their status or birthplace, it’s unthinkable to many that their emperor would even consider marrying an outsider.”

“Wait, an outsider? I thought she lived on the mountain?”

“On the skirts of the border. A little hamlet, one that you wouldn’t find on any map.”

“I… I see. And Yura… Does Yura know of all of this?”

Toyama merely nodded and Hiroki went silent.


It’d been an obvious feint, and the magus hadn’t fallen for it. It would’ve been easier if she’d just let the sword rip her from hip to shoulder, but Yura had known it wouldn’t be that easy. She’d have better luck convincing a fish to live on dry land.

The caster’s arms shot into the air as she turned into Yura’s strike, swinging the fluted staff into the blade’s path. The two weapons collided with a metallic clang; the rod sang and the Stormcaller flinched, but Kimizan remained stiff and silent.

A weight dropped into the flameborn’s free hand as the rageborn summoned Kingslayer’s twin. Yura snarled and thrust the second blade forward, while the wretch made a chop for her head. Peh, like that would save her from being disemboweled. This was hardly a fair trade of bl—

And just as that thought ended, a thick spray of cloying earth smacked her right in the head, filling the rageborn’s eyes and mouth. Yura felt her sword connect, striking into something, but she didn’t see what it had hit.

She couldn’t see anything.

The effect of the dust was immediate. The girl broke off to the side, coughing and hacking her lungs out. There was a reverberating clang! as Yura dropped one of the katanas, freeing her left to claw at her face while she screamed mental curses at the foul, dirt-sloughing wench.

Void, that burned. Her eyes, her throat, her nose; all of them felt like they were being stabbed and gouged from within. It wasn’t the same as the witch’s lightning; this was a different, raw type of agony.

Yura scrubbed at her eyes with her fingertips and blinked, trying desperately to get them clear. How could she do this without vision? How could she fight or defend herself? What had she done when she’d last asked herself that question, back in that field of hellfire and screams?

Panicked?

Right, that’s right, she’d panicked. And almost immediately fallen over. That… that certainly hadn’t been the best decision, but even now she was already on the verge of hysteria. What would Aoi and Hiroki have thought of her, if they saw this sorry display? Or Toyama? Or anyone, for that matter? What would anyone have thought if they saw her fall to pieces, just from being sprayed by a bit of sand? Hells, she’d have advised herself to avoid beaches and sandpits like the plague, if that was enough to rattle her.

The rageborn coughed again and spat once, then loosed a raspy growl. There was a familiar crackle from somewhere behind her, heralding the presence of something she’d seen and felt before. A face peered at her from the stinging; the face of a sneering young woman, with a misset nose and ill-matched eyes.

That image alone was enough and Yura moved, surging into motion. She pivoted off the ball of her right and then lunged, her left foot shooting towards the sound.
AQW Epic  Post #: 36
3/3/2020 0:36:21   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Lightning flashed across the variegated sky, its source impossible to locate as it briefly cast the battlefield into stark light and shadow. Rather than thunder, instead followed a moment of silence so profound it swallowed even the sounds of carnage upon the battlefield. The scales tipped once more, leaning first towards Chaos, then towards Order, as two more orbs plummeted to the tiles below. One of clouded gray, the other delicate amethyst, they struck the ground with the force of a gong - shattering outwards to form a second set of veiled doorways. The Powers spoke once more, the quiet broken with a rush of tumultuous sound.

Knight of Crystal. You lack a will of your own. Without willpower, Order cannot be sustained. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of Steel. Chaos prizes flexibility - the ability to change. You have proven obdurate. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

The echoes quieted and the noise of battle returned, even as the air grew heavy with anticipation. The Scales pivoted, then stilled and balanced once more.
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 37
3/3/2020 22:50:21   
Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer


 Her mother had told her that a Stormcaller’s duty was to protect: to defend the islands from the storms that rolled in off the wild sea, to serve as a shield for merchants and honest fishermen against pirates, and to be the people's voice in the council that guided the islands.

Standing over Yura, palm planted over the injury at her hip, Ebriva realized that - in the ways that really mattered - she had done none of those.

If anything, after her mother’s death she had been a Stormcaller in truth, spending a child’s helpless rage on frothing waves, lashing winds, and jagged lightning until she was hollow, empty of everything but exhaustion.

Not so very much later, Ebriva had been in the council chambers when news came of her father’s “arrest” at the hand of Earlon’s inquisitors. The elders had warned her not to act hastily, that the islands could not afford a war. She had stormed out and never returned.

And Damascus… She had taken Damascus with her, swept him up in the tsunami of her desire - her lust - for revenge. Her fury had been a force of nature, a riptide that wrenched her, her brother, and so many of Whillo’s young folk across the channel, embroiling them in a war whose consequences they could hardly have fathomed.

Wasn’t that how consequences were, though? Opaque, hidden behind corners that you couldn’t see until you came upon them? As she turned towards Red Blade, Ebriva couldn’t help but wonder for a moment if this was another. She had seen the fury in her opponent’s eyes time and again. But were they alike? Was this woman - even younger than the Stormcaller herself - orphaned by war, driven by hate… pricked by regret?

Were there things she wanted to take back, but couldn’t?

That was the heart of it, the center. “We all make mistakes.” Her father had told her that, years and years ago, before she had betrayed what they taught her, before she had turned her back on everything she had believed in. Ebriva had chosen not to protect her people, to abandon them for the sake of selfish reprisal. “And you should be sorry for making them. But what matters more is what you do to fix them.”

Damascus was only the beginning. There was the temple, Keffra-

She really should have been paying more attention to the chit.

Red Blade’s kick crashed into her midriff, just above the line of her sash and just below the hand pressed to her wounded side. The impact blasted the breath from her in a shocked grunt of pain. Fire flashed down her left hip and her vision went gray at the edges as she dropped to one knee, struggling to breathe.

Ebriva sagged against the support of her staff, nauseous bands of heat radiating out from her stomach as she gasped. “You… You’re going to regret that.” The Stormcaller hardly got the words out; they were more whisper than threat. Her foe might not have heard the promise of retribution, but that was fine. As luck would have it, she didn’t have to say anything to use her magic.

The Watchers' voices cut through the Chequered Field again - amid a flash of stark lightning - but Ebriva paid them no mind. They still weren’t speaking to her and there were more important things to focus on. The Stormcaller’s first instinct was lightning, to fry Yura where she stood. Yet when her hand left her side to point at Red Blade, what roared forth instead was frigid water. Angled up at her chest and face, the dense deluge was a hammerblow to drive the swordswoman back.

A second to recover, that was all the young woman needed. Stand up, and by the Tempest stay up this time. Getting back to make good on her mistakes meant surviving. Surviving meant that, whatever they might have in common, Yura had to die.

In her hands, the rod hummed and crackled. One blow was all she needed.

Lightning would do the rest.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 38
3/4/2020 0:19:54   
roseleaf320
Creative!


 Order turned against Order. Spikes met their target as the crystalline woman leapt upwards, her legs skidding against the sharp stone. Blood scattered across blackness as the floor fell back into place. Leaf resisted the urge to look away and cringe. Blood was inevitable now, if she really wanted to stop Order’s control. Pain was, too- but that didn’t stop Leaf from being thankful when the Pearl’s healing waters began to staunch the burning in her feet. She shifted her weight back onto her feet, getting ready to stand, as Akordia slid across the floor towards her. But as her eyes met Akordia’s, both women froze.

Akordia’s eyes held fire. A burning desire, and a willingness to do anything to attain it. But there was a hint of purity about it. No anger tainted its flames- they shone for Akordia alone, a sustaining warmth. Leaf felt her own anger faltering under the crystal’s gaze. What did the elf look like right now, to a woman whose fire burned so bright?

Leaf couldn’t keep being scared, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be the timid, sheltered thing that had lived in the forest. A pitiful thing. She almost didn’t want to go back to El’dorai. The very thought of doing that made her want to throw up, it was shameful. She had been so childish, so weak. Her powers had been wasted. Leaves are useless. They’re moved by a simple puff of wind. She would become the Raging Current instead, tearing a path for herself no matter what got in her way. Akordia was simply another stone for the river to erode away.

So when the Raging Current felt hot sparks hit the side of her face, instead of running away to heal, she lashed out. Akordia’s leg was swinging towards her; in one movement, the Currents slammed El’dorai’s branch into the woman’s ankle. The swipe called Order once more, to create a dangerous blade for Akordia’s leg to fall onto.

But the Powers had other ideas. Lightning flashed through the sky above them, followed by a penetrating silence. Even the whispers and doubts which clouded the elf’s mind ceased. Waiting. She watched as two orbs fell once again, one emerald and the other gray. Leaf’s was still hanging. She was doing the right thing. She must be.

Knight of Crystal. You lack a will of your own. Without willpower, Order cannot be sustained. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of Steel. Chaos prizes flexibility - the ability to change. You have proven obdurate. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Silence had fallen, then. The girl who sounded like Emilia. That voice felt far away now, fading as Leaf’s Currents became stronger. She yearned for Em, deeply, but those feelings would surely lead her to stumble now. They, too, were pushed away, hidden under the veil of anger and purpose that fed the Currents’ rage.

But that rage must find a new target. Her quarrel was no longer with Akordia. Take the portal. Leave this place and claim your peace. Order’s finally released you from its choking grasp! Be free, crystalline angel! Please...
Post #: 39
3/4/2020 23:49:59   
  Chewy905

Chromatic ArchKnight of RP


 All sound died as the lightning flashed through the sky. She knew. Before the scales tipped she knew. Before the orb hit the tile and burst she knew. Before the portal formed, beckoning her back to the quiet house. She knew.

Knight of Steel. Chaos prizes flexibility - the ability to change. You have proven obdurate. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Her arms lowered. Her blade stopped. The pain in her arm flared up as her heart slowed, all adrenaline flowing out of her body in an instant.

She was so, so tired. Dismissed. The word echoed through her head. Her options were two. Return through the portal. Face the quiet house, and the village. Perhaps finally take up the mantle of protector. And drift through life once more, exactly as she had before she had been claimed by Chaos. If she was quick enough, perhaps a doctor could remove the fangs from her arm and save it. Maybe she would even be able to play music again!

But she would not be able to draw Sonata’s blade. She knew it. She had not proven herself. Chaos had said it itself. You have proven obdurate.

So what was her other choice? Stand still and die? Allow her soul to be claimed by the demon before her?

No. If she went back home, her body would wander, empty, as her soul sat still and lifeless deep within. If she submitted to her foe, it would tear her soul out and devour it. But what if… there was no soul to remove?

Slowly, Silence’s hand crossed o’er her mask. She gripped the silk, the red of Martin’s bloodied spit sticking to her hand. And she pulled. The material unraveled easily, falling away and exposing her blind eye to the world once more. She braced herself, ready to let everything she was leak out through her gaze as it had in the Hallowed Grounds. Instead, the colors of the sky above seemed to coalesce, and flow in.

Her mind was assaulted by a storm of light and color and wild sound, until her body dropped away from her spirit and onto the tiles below. Her vision cleared, and she gasped at the sight. Rather than the muted monochrome of her previous experience, the world around her was now sharper. Colors seemed to pop out of the environment around her, and when she looked at her own form, it was glowing a faint emerald. All save for her snakebitten arm, which contained a hungry, spreading greyness.

Rather than the silence of death that the glades had contained, here Silence heard music. His music. The beautiful, flowing song of the erhu that echoed all around her and wrapped around her spirit like a warm blanket. He was with her. He had always been with her. And with a Sonata, there was Melody.

She didn’t need to draw his blade to prove herself. She didn’t need to become a protector. She didn’t need to win anything at all. She just needed to stay with Sonata. She reached up to her eye and felt the spectral chain that tied her to her body. Sonata’s blade appeared in her hand. She stared at it, noticing every intricate detail and pattern in its unsheathed steel. It was beautiful. And it was hers. He had given it to her. She had never realized that until now.

She didn’t need to draw his blade.

She had already done so on the day he died.

Flashes of memory, long locked away within her. Sonata’s spirit flowing through her when he died. Drawing his blade. And striking down the Rageborn of the elder, freeing its soul.

Melody’s grip tightened, and she swung her brother’s blade with all her might, shattering the chain that bound her eye, shattering the bond between her spirit and her body.

She would not go back to it. When Aleisha struck it down, searching for her soul, the demon would find nothing. Melody would simply cease to exist, and fade away forever alongside the last remains of her brother. Their final moments, shared together.

She opened her left hand, and the shattered lengths of chain spun into it, narrowing and coming together to form her lost blade, unsheathed for the first, and last, time.

Melody fell into her stance, faced down the approaching Demon, and smiled. She had found life within her in a world where she was certain there was none left. Who’s to say she wouldn’t find life in death, as well?

Ghostly steps brought her forward, twin blades bared. Her arms stretched out as she ran through Aleisha, as easily as passing through a sheet of rain. Melody planted her feet, turned, and swung with all her might, drawing ghostly steel across the air to cleave. Brother’s blade yearned to lay claim to the Demon’s neck, while sister’s drove for its side in tandem. Sonata’s music was reaching its climax.

When his song ended, there would be no traces of Melody’s soul, nothing but a curtain dropped over the musician’s performance for the last time. But in her final moments, as she teetered on the brink of eternity, trying to bring Aleisha over the edge with her...

Melody had never felt so alive.
Post #: 40
3/5/2020 21:32:23   
Necro-Knight
Member

Aleisha’s right eye twitched slightly as she tilted her head over to look at the scales as all sound was swallowed by the endless void around them. Save for the echoing voices whose authority could not be denied, even by oblivion itself. She’d been moments from defending herself from Silence’s berserk assault, but she assumed giving the overseers of this melee her full attention was wiser in the grand scheme.

The first name, the Knight of Crystal, she ignored. Another had proven too weak to force this order upon the chaos and she was grateful they were out of her way.

The second name called and shamed split Aleisha’s dark-skinned face into a wild, mad grin.

Knight of Steel. Chaos prizes flexibility - the ability to change. You have proven obdurate. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Not only had she survived in to the next stage of this fiasco, Aleisha had proven just how weak this mortal woman truly was, not just to Silence herself, but also to the great beings reigning over this realm of nothing. This satisfaction, combined with the eldritch voices that were now an ever-present chorus in the back of her mind, became too much for the void-born to contain.

As she plucked her Messer from the air with her right hand quivering as she did so, Aleisha threw her head back and howled with laughter, voice shattering the all-consuming silence. The voices laughed with her, a cacophony of paralyzing insanity that was so rewarding to drench herself in. Beneath the flood of voices, eyes and tendrils grasping at the edge of her vision, she felt herself slipping back into the black pool in her psyche and her beast crawling from the abyss of her soul. Unlike the previous decades however, this felt different.

Before, she’d been a victim, submerged and subdued within the depths of the void.

Now she was its Queen and would unleash the beast upon those who dared believe themselves above her reign. First, these sniveling wretches around her would submit to her rule, then she and her former master would be having words. Violent, bloody words.

Finally recovering from her maddened cackling, Aleisha bent forward to face her enemy again, fingers on her free hand clawing at open air as she silently pleaded with the woman to try and stall her demise. Instead, the void-born tilted her head curiously as Silence’s form dropped to the hard floor and her spirit shattering its literal chains connecting it to any mortal plane.

Her response was a howl of frustration, letting her other voice its full fury at being denied her kill again. As the raw soul moved towards her, Aleisha raised her left arm and sent the last shreds of her sanity into the gem of Nulgath resting in her gauntlet. Flaring a bright gold, the void-light ward burst to life, its diagonal shape covering a good portion of the Void Queen’s side. If her prey wished to wield two weapons, then she could even the playing field.

After all, a queen could move in many directions across the board to strike at her foes.

As Silence moved in, Aleisha prepared to intercept her strike, but was only met with a bone-chilling ripple through her form as the soul stepped through her entirely. The invasion, albeit brief, sent her beast into a territorial rage. How dare she desecrate her body with her filthy soul? She had been deemed weak, rigid, by gods themselves! And she thought she could share the same space as the Void Queen?

I hate you. The words echoed through her mind as shadows passed across her vision, darting to and from the void around her. Formless things, inhuman things… unreal things. She ignored her beast’s natural instinct to chase the snickering abominations and as she heard metal whistling through the air behind her, brought her void-shield up as she tucked her arm in close to her left side, bracing against the hard impact that followed moments later.

Her shield held against Silence’s desperate attempt to drag her along her path of failure, though she watched the energy crack along its edges. For a brief moment, Aleisha wondered if that was what her sanity looked like as a few crimson eyes blinked at her from the depths of a nearby black tile. Was that a mocking look or a reassuring one? As Silence’s soul seemed to simply cease existing, the void-knight couldn’t tell nor find the will to care.

Reality could fall down around her, it did not change the fact, the finality, of her reign.

Whirling towards where she heard the remaining scraps of the two teams squabbling for dominance, wide eyes took in her new prey. She remembered the storm caller now, though the woman was less thunder and crackle now, and instead was clutching at her side as she struggled to even stand. Clearly the only remaining Order combatant had some fight in them, allowing Aleisha to bring her gaze to the other woman a few yards to the right.

A dress, a staff and nothing more. Why did her prey come so poorly equipped? Perhaps they had not been informed of the upcoming conflict as she had but as her beast was already moving her feet towards the small woman, Aleisha realized it did not matter. She would have blood before this was resolved. The eyes that stared down at her from the yawning void demanded it, silent decrees for sacrifices.

As her clawed feet entered the same black tile as the woman she recognized now as an elf, the void-born stabbed her blade downward and flipped her momentum over it in a pole-vault to cover the rest of the distance. Twisting her lithe body mid-leap, Aleisha directed the weight of her sword over her head with one long motion of her arm, bringing the curved weapon down towards the elf with her weight and gravity itself aiding the motion.

All around her, teeth and eyes fixed upon her, imposing their will with voices that drowned out all thoughts besides the roars of her beast, but she found her desire to care lost in it all. As long as she could see her prey, that’s all that mattered.

She was Queen. She was Queen. She was Queen...
DF MQ AQW  Post #: 41
3/6/2020 11:24:12   
Kooroo
Member

A particularly strong gust of wind rocked the tent, causing Hiroki to look up. He frowned when he noticed that the guards’ silhouettes had slimmed and shortened considerably. Had there been a shift change? Man, time must have gone by quickly.

A niggling question came to him as he cleaned his spectacles. “So where is she now?”

Toyama broke out of his daze and his head snapped up. “Pardon?”

“Lady Hina. Where’s she at?” Hiroki squinted at the lenses and then put his glasses back on. Much better.

Yura’s retainer blinked, then looked down and mumbled something inaudible. Hiroki frowned as he shifted his bedroll closer. “You’re going to need to speak up, old man.”

“I…I don’t know. I can’t rightly say, but...” he hesitated.

“But?”

The elderly man looked around, as though watching for spies lurking in the corners. There was nothing around them, save the provisions Kurouji had provided and the guards’ shadows outside the tent. Once he had determined that the area was clear, Toyama continued softly. “A few weeks after the emperor's passing, there was an… an altercation between Lady Yura and Lady Kurouji within the castle grounds.”

“A what now?” Hiroki asked, looking puzzled.

“A dispute. An argument, if you will.”

“An argument, huh. Not like… a fight?”

“I’d, uh. A fight, yes, but it was...“ Another, longer hesitation.

Hiroki’s frown deepened. “Did… Did Yura get stomped?”

The retainer flinched and the younger man grimaced. Kurouji looked like a piece of work, but he’d expected more bark than bite. To have bested Yura was no small feat, though. He and Aoi had seen that girl fight plenty and practically every battle had been a spectacle. To imagine Yura being beaten was… it wasn’t easy.

“So… what happened? How did that—” he started, but Toyama raised a hand and cut him off.

“What happened between the two girls isn’t relevant to what you asked. But after the battle, Lady Shion had Lady Hina away. We can only guess where she is now, but…”

“The castle, maybe?”

The old man didn’t respond. An idea dawned on the younger man and his eyes widened slightly. “Wait, so the raid on the castle. Was that—”

“I don’t know,” Toyama said, with a touch of finality. “I don’t think Lady Yura had intended for anyone to come along. You’ll remember that the only reason we found out was because of—”

“Because of Aoi,” Hiroki finished.


They’d walked on for what had felt like hours. Maybe it’d only been a few minutes, but all Aoi knew was that her feet were getting sore. The lady she’d been following must have noticed her, because she occasionally stopped and waited for the little girl to catch up.

Eventually, the rocky terrain levelled out into open grassland. A shimmering portal appeared as they stepped onto the field, revealing two knights and a slim figure, waiting within. Aoi stared at the doorway in awe, eyes wide with wonder.

Her new friend turned to her and spoke, telling the young girl that it was time for her to go. Aoi shook her head and then latched on to the woman’s right hand. It was warm and comforting, reminding her of the sister she was trying so hard to find.

There was movement from the gateway, as the three figures within tensed… and then relaxed, at a word from the pretty lady. Thewoman and pink-haired girl stepped through the doorway, which shut and vanished into the air.


Nothing happened for a heartbeat. There was nothing, except for the telltale crackle coming from Yura’s target, and the air rushing around the flameborn’s leg. Had she missed? Was she about to get a very painful reward for her misjudgment? But she could have swo—

These doubts were soon put to rest, as her flat of her sole smacked into something firm. The delinquent almost grinned when she heard the wheeze and the crack of metal striking stone, but that wasn’t enough. Hearing the sorcerer’s pain was satisfying, but a kick was hardly sufficient. It was little more than a lovetap, compared to what the delinquent intended to do.

She needed her sight back. If she had vision, then she could turn that two-tone, crooked-nosed, dirt-slinging, wispy-limbed miscreant into a fine, blood-colored mist.

Light flashed from overhead and the battlefield muted. The singular voice of Order and the many of Chaos started anew; they echoed, overlapping each other as they recited another set of damning lines. That still bothered her; the two forces speaking as one. But why in the hells would something as trivial as magical announcements bother her? What was her problem?

Toyama’s voice answered her rhetorics, the lesson beginning from where it’d last ended.

”... interpreted as ‘there are two aspects to every issue’. If you remember last week’s theory— ”

Yura heard her own voice. She sounded softer; just as argumentative, but not as deep or throaty as it was now. It also didn’t sound very awake or interested in what her retainer had to say. “That… Something about stories?”

“Last week, I said that there are two sides to every story. T—”

Yura ground her teeth and forced the image away. This was insane. She had to be. Either she was insane or just plain stupid. Was there a message in all of this? Did she care for it?

The answer was no. Or at least, not right now. She had priorities; the lightning wretch and her eyes came first.

Her empty hand flew again to her face, fingertips vigorously rubbing at her lashes. The fine particles chaffed and stung like a hive of Toyama’s bees, but Yura kept at it. She swiped her fingers, giving her lids one last, final pass… and opened them. There was a blur on the ground before her; a hazy blob of flesh-colored fuzz, standing out amongst a gauzy, monochrome sea.

She growled triumphantly as she straightened up, her vision clearing with each blink. A glance at her foe’s discomfort told Yura what she needed; the blood that stained the magus’ coat, the resentment in those mismatched and slightly unfocused eyes, and the hand as it rose towa—Oh.

The delinquent swore. “Shimat—“

A frigid torrent of water slammed into her chest, drenching her shirt and knocking her backwards. By the Six Realms, that was bloody cold! Yura gasped as the chill clamped around her ribs, then gave a panicked yelp as she tripped over something.

She instinctively threw her arms out behind, trying to fight against the inevitable fall. Less than a second later and for the umpteenth time that day, the flameborn found herself on the floor. She might have walked on—no, landed on to this janky plane without a scratch, but she swore that her rear still carried every bruise it’d earned that day.

Her sword was still in her hand and its twin was… lying at her feet. Ah, so that’s what she’d tripped on. There was an old legend about two brothers that had travelled around, ridding the land of dragons. The siblings had eventually met separate, gruesome ends, but the tale of their escapades had been passed down for many generations. Their stories had been some of Yura’s favourites when she’d been little, so the flameborn had named the twin blades after them. Niken Ryusei; The Two Dragonslayers. It was fitting, considering that Kurouji’s name contained the character for ‘dragon’, but inaccurate, considering that the despot was still alive.

‘Stormkiller’ seemed like a great placeholder.

Now with a twin in each hand, Yura jumped to her feet and lunged at the caster with a roar. She brought her left hand to her right side and then swung, whipping both swords across her body in unison.
AQW Epic  Post #: 42
3/6/2020 17:36:30   
Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer


 Red Blade spat something - probably a curse - but the word was lost in the torrent of rushing water as the line crashed into her chest and drove her away. Yura hit the tile, and Ebriva couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at her lips. If they weren’t both trying to kill one another, the fact they kept knocking each other over would have been humorous. Granted, laying out your foe and bashing their head in wasn’t a terrible strategy. At the very least it had the expedience of being easy to remember.

The Stormcaller heaved herself back to her feet, biting her bloody lip as pain lanced across her stomach and down her left leg. Shallow or not, the cut hurt. In her hands the staff was just as much crutch as weapon at the moment, letting her keep some of her weight off the limb until she really needed it. One thing was certain, if she made it through this she was never skipping one of Damascus’ monotonous training sessions again. That said… she would still let herself complain about them - a little.

Her opponent, on the other hand, seemed to have little reason to complain. Yura bounded swiftly back to her feet with both of her swords in hand. Where did the other come from anyway? The Stormcaller supposed that she couldn’t be too surprised by the second weapon’s appearance. After all, she had seen the chit draw that cursed lance from thin air before. For all she knew, the wretch had an entire arsenal ready to fall in hand at the snap of her fingers.

If that was the case, Red Blade apparently had scant imagination in weapon choice. Then again, she only had two hands to use, and how many sharp metal objects did one really need to gut an uppity mage anyway? Two swords, so far as Ebriva was concerned, were more than enough, particularly as the Knight of Order charged back into the fray. Her adversary’s pace left only seconds for a frantic inventory.

Left only… Already cast… That means there’s… That meant she had little enough to work with: her wits, her stave, and her training. While Ebriva had plenty of faith in the first, and the second was still charged and ready to deliver a nasty jolt, it was the third that would prove the sticking point for what followed. Going toe-to-toe with the swordswoman in pitched combat... What could possibly go wrong?

The Stormcaller’s grip shifted on her rod and she stepped into the pair of chest-high blows, angling her stave to ward off the dual blades. Metal sang as the curved edges smashed into the incised steel; Ebriva swallowed a dismayed curse as her left leg seized, sliding back half a step as she fought to stand against both the pain and the pressure of Yura's seeking swords. How in the Tempest is she so strong? Red Blade was a slip of a thing, shorter than her, but the girl hit like someone twice her size. There was no way that-

“Water doesn’t resist with strength.” More faint words from her mother, remembered from sun-soaked afternoons on the beach, practicing staff-forms before they worked on spells. “You’ll rarely be bigger than your opponent. So be the tide instead. Flow.”

Gritting her teeth, Ebriva gave way. Yura’s superior strength pushed the Stormcaller’s stave back, angling its top towards her right shoulder. Subtly shifting her left hand to cup the weapon’s butt, Ebriva let the rod tilt and then start to turn crosswise as her right hand uncurled and relinquished its grip. For a moment it almost looked as if the young woman was handing her weapon off to her foe.

The counter-strike was swift and hard. Pushing on the rear of the staff as the fingers of her right curled around its graven length again, Ebriva shifted her rod so its butt was pointed at Red Blade. Her attacker's blades slid away, carried onward by their wielder's suddenly unopposed strength. She pivoted back on her planted left leg, snarling through the flare of pain as she hauled up with her right hand. Her left drew down and the rod's tip hummed up over her head, and then snapped down in a brutal chop straight at Yura's own. She might not have been on the ground, but that didn't mean the Stormcaller couldn't try and crush her skull with the lightning-enhanced stave all the same.

Flow like water. Strike like lightning.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 43
3/7/2020 16:46:31   
roseleaf320
Creative!


 Akordia stood frozen, the fire slowly dying from her eyes. Leaf felt her own anger fizzle, replaced with a cautious hope. Akordia had been freed. Only four champions were left- the battle would be over soon. Eythyr’s Chaos would soon be protected. Her forest would be protected. And then… Leaf didn’t know where she would go. Perhaps her portal would take her to Emilia. Where might Akordia’s take her? Would she find happiness?

But silence was replaced with a deep roar. A single crystal shot from Akordia’s hand, shattering the choker which Leaf had made for her Pearl so long ago.

More came, suddenly, unrelenting. Akordia’s fire had not died- it had exploded. Leaf felt a pang in her chest, a sickness, a shock, as crystals spread wide through the air around her, hungry for anything they could touch. They punctured her arms, her stomach, her eye. Leaf's vision turned scarlet as her scream rose to match Akordia’s roar. WHY!

Leaf had nothing but her staff to shield her as she forced the Pearl from her side and towards Akordia. It brushed against the ground, its surface creating its spiked metal shield as it slammed square into Akordia’s stomach. Pearl and woman both went flying towards the edge of the chequered field. Words of venom spewed from the angel’s midnight lips.

“You fight for hypocrisy, promised freedom even as the yoke of slavery is placed upon your shoulders! An entity who enforces servitude is not a god but a trickster! Your faith is an illusion! You are a pawn in life, and so shall you be unto death!”

With that, the crystalline woman’s footing gave out from under her, and her body dropped from view. The air was still and silent.

Leaf’s voice cracked with pain. “Akordia!”

The elf limped towards the edge, dripping a mix of water, blood, and tears across the floor. She glanced over the edge of the board, into the endless void where Akrodia had fallen, knowing the woman was already gone.

Your faith is an illusion.

You are a pawn.

Not a god, but a trickster.

When her eyes had first met Akordia’s, the fire inside them had flickered. It lacked fuel: it had burned on nothing but the small twigs Leaf threw at it to avoid the gaping unknown that was her future. To avoid facing the monster within her. She was almost worse than Jicella, Akordia, and Ebriva. All of them understood their monstrous ways, and used them to their advantage. But all Leaf had been doing was hiding. She was a dictator of the elements, not a vessel. That ability could be used to do horrific things.

And now she had killed someone. But that someone had chosen to save her. Akordia’s crystals littered Leaf’s body; surging pain haunted even the smallest movements. Her sight was stilted and her right eye bled freely. Her dress was tattered and stained with scarlet. And the choker which held the Pearl so close to her heart was lying in pieces on the chequered floor. But Akordia had spoken the truth Leaf had been searching to find. She had given Leaf her answers. Leaf was a puppet. A queen among magicians, being manipulated and controlled by a Power that had already known exactly what she was. There was no way off of this battlefield unless Chaos decreed it. And Chaos decreed she should stay.

The flames had plenty of fuel now. If she was to be a puppet, so be it. If she was to control the elements like a tyrant, like a human, she would. Humans were strong. They could survive on practically nothing. But Leaf was stronger than them. She had forced Eythyr to save her as a child. She’d done the same in her journey between battlefields, but she had been too scared to see the truth. Now, she felt that truth as an anchor amidst all the flashes of pain Akordia had caused. When she won, she would return home, and force Eythyr’s hand once again. And its waters would wash the human’s world away into nothingness. Leaf couldn’t help but giggle at the thought.

Emilia’s sobs echoed through the bloodied water beneath the elf. But there was no longer anyone around to hear them.

And when the demon’s sword came to crash over the elf’s head, there would no longer be anyone around to kill. Instead, it would fall on hard stone, a dual-faced contraption which pushed Leaf out of the way and rose to counter the strike. The Pearl fell from Leaf’s staff to reunite with the scarlet waters beneath it and erupting into the purest blue. Leaf beckoned it towards her wounded eye. Her sight would never be restored, but at least the blood flow could be slowed. As it rose, she waved her staff once more, another decree unto the obsidian, ordering it to lash out at the demons legs.

Make her kneel.
Post #: 44
3/8/2020 0:09:23   
  Starflame13
Moderator


 Motion ground to a halt as time itself stilled, air chilling with a biting cold that cut straight to the bone. Only the scales remained untouched, careening wildly as the third pair of orbs plunged to the tiles below. One of brightest azure, the other a swirl of orange and white, they struck the board with a crash - fracturing and reforming into a third set of gates for the unworthy to pass through. The Powers spoke, the resonance of their tones alone enough to send reverberations of warmth through their listeners.

Knight of the River. You permit yourself to be defined by others. Without knowing yourself, you are lost to even Chaos. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of the Void. Order demands dedication. Your only commitment is to your own whims. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Our Champions are Chosen. Let the War be resolved!

Time resumed, the seconds ticking by once more as the tension, the anticipation, in the air tightened its hold. The Scales pitched once towards Order, then once towards Chaos, before returning to balanced to await the final outcome.
AQ DF MQ AQW  Post #: 45
3/9/2020 20:43:04   
Necro-Knight
Member

Her blade impacted the tiling with enough force to send cracks spider-webbing out from the point of impact and the force echoed back up her arm, forcing a hiss out from the void-born. The ache pounded through her long fingers and forced her to release her Void-Messer, and caught it instead with her mental grip. The ivory-hued blade twirled mid-air and as Aleisha spun towards the elven wretch, a cold that sliced into flesh and soul whipped through her form. For a moment, she had thought it another trick of the madness quickly saturating every iota of her being, but when she saw it affect even her prey, she realized it must've been the higher powers.

Knight of the River. You permit yourself to be defined by others. Without knowing yourself, you are lost to even Chaos. You are not our champion. You are Dismissed.

Knight of the Void. Order demands dedication. Your only commitment is to your own whims. You are thu'gunl ethrimax cthugilam...

Her ability to understand the beings above faded as they spoke, their whispers devolving into a language she could only dream of understanding, but she felt the decision in her bones all the same. She had come so far, only to be seen as unworthy. HER! The Queen of the Void, it's brilliant leader. Even Nulgath would've bent to her will if she'd had the chance to show them, so who were they to tell her she couldn't keep fighting? Like the nobility, they thought they had power over her? No.

She simply responded with an inhuman howl, eyes flaring nearly golden with fury, and whirled fully to face the elven woman. She'd also been dismissed, but Aleisha would not let her fresh meat escape so easily.

Her void-shield had faded with the last drops of her sanity and the woman simply bent her knees again, lunging one final time to claim the flesh and soul that she hungered so deeply for, her blade stabbing up towards the elf’s sternum as the void-born’s claws reached for her tiny throat.

As she moved, spikes ripped through her armor, flesh and soul in equal effectiveness. The elf had responded in kind with her own ferocity and the Aleisha’s own blood stared at her with mocking eyes… She would bleed into the depths of oblivion and see the truth in it.

'I am Queen... They'll all see...'
DF MQ AQW  Post #: 46
3/10/2020 9:23:57   
Kooroo
Member

“I don’t think you ever told me how you and little Aoi met Lady Yura.”

“It’s not much of a story. About two or three years ago, I was having an argument with a couple of folks. Things started to look bad when they pulled some knives on us. Yura just happened to be passing by.”

Toyama glanced away from the tea he was brewing and gave him an inquiring look. “Happened...?”

“Yeah, and then she beat them within an inch of their lives. I think she’d been watching for a while and had decided enough was enough. Tried to put on the whole growly, tough guy act when I thanked her,” Hiroki said, grinning at the memory. “So Aoi hugged her and she turned bright red. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

The elderly man chuckled at the mental image. “That sounds like Lady Yura. She’s never really had any friends before you two, so I imagine that hug was a bit of a shock.”

“Yeah, that was pretty much all Aoi. I was a little scared at the time, to be honest,” Hiroki admitted. “ Those two goons were scary, but the teenager that took them out? Whole new level. Especially since she gave off that ‘you’re next’ vibe when I spoke to her.”

“Young Aoi seems to have a knack for making friends.” Toyama sipped his tea as Hiroki thought about that comment.

“Hm, kinda. I’d say it’s more along the lines of... choosing good ones? I think Yura’s the best example. Sandpaper exterior, but softer than mochi on the inside.”

Toyama took another sip and stroked his chin. “Has she been wrong before?”

“Well… yeah, could use a bit of fine tuning. There’ve been a few unsavoury types mixed in with the lot.”


There were tents and armoured people beyond the doorway; far more than Aoi could count. Admittedly, that wasn’t super high.

Soldiers lined up on either side of the lady’s path, standing at attention and saluting in an almost mechanical fashion. Their organisation was unreal, like they were in a scripted play or show. The pink-haired girl could only watch in wonder as men and women continued to appear as they passed more and more tents.

A huge, broad shouldered man approached Aoi’s new friend and fell into step beside them. The pretty lady’s expression tightened as she read the paper he handed her.

She stopped and turned to the little girl, then explained that she had something to do. The tall man, a fellow named Koshin, would look after Aoi until she was done. Aoi nodded understandingly and promised that she would be good.

The lady replied with a single nod of her own, then pivoted on her heel and strode off. Aoi wished that she would smile, just once. For such a pretty woman, with a pretty name and such pretty purple hair, it was sad that she never smiled.

As Aoi walked away with Koshin she saw the pretty girl approach a tent that was smaller and more drab than the rest. It’s entrance was flanked by two sharply-dressed maids, both clasping their hands down their front.


Crimson glass smashed into silver steel once again, metal screeching as the two forced their weapons together. Yura had been tempted to try and simply cut through the rod, but she was pretty sure it wouldn’t have worked. Another reckless assault would probably just have ended with another bruise on her rear—not to mention a second tazing—so the delinquent decided to dial it down slightly.

An especially savage part of her wanted to surge forward and make an example of the persistent prat, hacking and slashing her to pieces. She was given such an opportunity when the Stormcaller’s footing briefly faltered, but Yura made the difficult choice to hold back. The young girl gritted her teeth and maintained the pressure she was applying to the two-tone’s marred pole. If it was a bait, then she wasn’t going to fall for it. Not this time.

A second passed by, with both blades and rod remaining locked.

Then the magus’ resistance vanished and Yura found her blades swinging forward and through, pushing the steel shaft aside. Which would have been great… if the sorcerer wasn’t still holding on to the weapon. Instead of dropping to the ivory tile, the fluted staff swung back into its owner’s hand and came hurtling down towards her skull. The blow would certainly have brained her if she’d committed to overpowering the impertinent wretch.

If being the key, decisive word.

The flameborn shifted all her weight across to her left foot, then moved into the swing. Roaring, Yura twisted and lashed out with her right, aiming to send the woman to the floor. Time to see how she liked being thrown on he—

Her foe’s rod struck her in the shoulder partway through the thought. There was a sharp pain as metal struck bone, a piercing crack! filled the air, and Yura’s muscles seized up mid-spin. Whatever follow-up the cocky heir had planned was instantly forgotten as she was unceremoniously dumped onto the floor, twin blades clattering down to join her. That familiar burning surged through her body and the flameborn unleashed a blistering string of mental curses.
AQW Epic  Post #: 47
3/10/2020 20:44:07   
Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer


 Her opponent twisted, foot kicking out again as she struck back and tried to evade the blow. Yura was partly successful at both endeavors. Red Blade's tenacity was admirable in that regard - and incredibly frustrating. She managed to avoid having her skull split open, taking the descending rod on the shoulder instead. The chit's kick even clipped Ebriva’s right arm just above the elbow; the resulting wave of numbness that shot down the Stormcaller’s limb made her fumble her staff, depriving the attack of some of its heft.

But it wasn’t enough. Metal met leather, thunder snarled, and skyfire surged into the Knight of Order in a flash of arc-discharge.

Leaf cried out nearby, but Ebriva had other concerns as her foe tumbled to the tile like a string-cut puppet, yet again. Finish her this time!

She missed the opportunity. Or rather, it was taken from her. Pain lanced down her left side in short, staccato bursts: A finger of heat ripped along her shoulder; another bored into her side below her ribs; a third spalled off her hip in a flash of fire exceeded an instant later by a sharp bite to her thigh and a grating impact that snapped her knee out from under her.

The Stormcaller howled as her own weight buckled her legs and she crashed to the ground; the cry transformed into a keening shriek of agony as her landing drove a spike of vision-hazing torment through the meat of her left leg. Tears burned in the back of her eyes as she clenched her teeth, blurring the chaotic aurora above. Look. You have to look. See how bad it is. Ebriva snarled, forcing herself up on her elbows to turn her gaze to the damage. There were darts - crystal darts - sticking out of her. One, as thick as her finger, protruded in sharp, bloody relief against the dingy fabric of her pants. That only led her glance lower, to… to… She fought to breathe, struggling against the surge of dizzying nausea that raked at the edges of her vision.

Her knee was… Her left knee was… Oh gods, oh merciful gods… Blood and shivered bone were splashed over the ragged exit wound where an obsidian spike had passed through the back of her knee. Akordia… Oh sweet Storm that’s, that’s… That was the inside of her knee. Oh Tempest, no. No, no, no! Her lower leg wouldn’t move, wouldn’t respond to her desperate, frantic plea to do something, anything.

She was going to pass out. She was going to pass out, and then Yura was going to kill her. The Stormcaller moaned, a dry-heaving gasp that emerged as the whimper of a small, frightened animal. Her stomach roiled and she fought against the dual urges to either wretch or simply give in - to embrace unconsciousness and seek refuge from pain. Syne, C-Cerrai, Vestes… Anyone, gods, anyone, please.

Of all the voices, all the possible bits of memory to recall in that instant of consuming agony, it was Keffra's that rose to the surface. The curandera’s voice was cool, clinical, and surprisingly clear despite the years that had passed since the young girl had sat at the healer’s side in the dim workshop to learn something of wounds and their tending. “You’ll take a hit or two, girl. Nay, don’t look at me like that. You’ll be a fighter. I know your blood. So you’ll take some hits, be in a few scrapes. But when you take the big hit - the hard hit - stay awake. Keep your eyes open. Breathe. And put some damn pressure on it before you bleed out.”

Stay awake. That was hard. The haze at the edges of her vision promised safety, a haven from hurt. But it wasn't, not really. It was oblivion. Passing out only meant she wouldn't feel it when Red Blade cut her throat. Ebriva’s eyes watered - their lids felt like lead weights - but she fought to keep them open as she pushed herself into a seated position.

Breathe. You can do that. Breathe. Breathing is... easy. The Stormcaller took a deep, ragged breath; it was filled with a bracing chill as everything around her just... stopped. Scales swung, orbs fell, Watchers spoke in voices that burned like brands pressed to her bones. But only one word truly mattered: Champions

Champions, plural.

She wasn’t done yet, though the gods knew she wanted nothing but to sleep for the next year or three. But she couldn't, so with an effort of monumental will she forced her hands out of the clenched fists they had become, setting them on either side of the ruin of her knee. Ebriva panted, body thrumming with barely leashed pain as she whispered to whoever - whatever - might be listening. “Now… now would be a very good time.”

Maybe something answered; maybe it was fate; or maybe it was nothing more than serendipitous timing, one thing going right in the middle of horror and panic, but she felt the second triad hum into life. The young woman had never felt anything so beautiful.

Her hands folded the ruined pant leg over the wreckage of her knee. Blood soaked into the cloth; tears leaked from Ebriva’s eyes, but she couldn’t tell if it was pain or gratitude that sent them coursing down her cheeks. For now, there was only practicality: “Pressure, girl, and worry about the next things next.” Earth flowed from her hands, a swiftly hardening slurry that clotted around her knee, locking her left leg in a rigid extension of tight-mortared stone.

One more time. The Stormcaller’s hands moved to her sides, settling against the tile as she bit the inside of her cheek in preparation. Air moved, cascading from her palms, pushing her up - wavering and unsteady - to her feet. Waves of hurt rolled like the tide, washing up her leg and crashing on the shore of her wounded side as her weight settled once more on her feet.

She stood, one last time.

Weaponless - her rod had been lost in her fall and rolled out of reach. Ebriva doubted she could walk to where it had stopped, much less bend down to collect it.

Weary - every inch of her felt as if she had been abraded, cut, and beaten to within an inch of her life. Even standing was a trial, though the solid brace about her leg was doing its part to hold her upright, for now.

Weak - the right triad was silent, spent. She could only remember with a faint longing that mad moment when the heart stone had sung earlier, filling her with certainty and purpose.

But she stood, because she was a Stormcaller. Because that was what Stormcallers did, no matter the lies Earlon told.

“So like your mother. She would be so proud to see you, Sol.”

More than that, she stood because she had made a promise.

Skyfire crackled, dancing between her fingers as the young woman looked up, letting her mismatched eyes rest on Yura. Somehow, through the pain, through the tears, she managed a smile that was almost… apologetic.

“My name is Sollera Anuk. I made a promise to my brother.”

She had broken enough promises in her life.

Thunder roared, lightning cascaded from her hands - a jagged line reaching out for the Champion of Order as the last stones in the Stormcaller's belt went still.

This one, I keep.

Or die trying.
AQ DF MQ  Post #: 48
3/10/2020 23:47:26   
roseleaf320
Creative!


 ”No!”

She felt Chaos’ favor leave her before the orbs dropped.

How could you do this to me? You’ve taken everything from me, sent me into battle with no warning or care for how I would feel. And just like that, it’s gone? I wasn’t good enough? I’ve killed for you! I devoted my entire life to you!

Leaf couldn’t go back to El’dorai. That much was clear to her. She had used her magic for control. For murder. She couldn’t face her family after that. The only place she’d want that portal to take her… was to Emilia. But that was impossible. Even if it was, even if Emilia was somehow still alive, she would be ashamed of Leaf. Her voice tickled at Leaf’s ears, but the chaos inside Leaf’s head made it impossible to make out.

”Never, my love…”

The demon seemed to have reached the same conclusion Leaf had. As she lunged towards Leaf once more, the staff of El’dorai moved for the last time. The scarlet water around Leaf rose easily. For just a moment, it formed spikes of red for the demon to fall onto. But that moment was long enough.

As sword and claw made contact with the elf, a guttural scream reached her ears. Layers upon layers of voices, all crying out in agony. Emilia’s stood out louder than any other. Leaf collapsed, the waters of Eythyr finally leaving her, pooling onto the cursed battlefield floor. Staff and Pearl fell to the ground beside her, before dissolving into waters as clear as the forest’s river. "In the end, we all dissolve, back into the waters that nourished us."

Leaf had hoped that, in dying, she would feel she’d finally set things right. That peace would overtake her, and perhaps a smile might even cross her face. But all she felt was confusion and pain.


"You bloomed nobly, my love.

I hope someday the river can cleanse your torment."
Post #: 49
3/12/2020 23:59:30   
Kooroo
Member

It must’ve been noon. There were three loud chimes from somewhere in the camp, the electronic chirps making Toyama miss the old days. A decade ago, back when he’d been in charge, it would’ve been a gong instead. But the Lady had always been a progressive and she’d gone through a martial reform and technological upgrade of the Imperial Army as soon as she’d taken command. The hourly gong was one of the first things she’d done away with.

Hiroki knew none of this and simply continued with their conversation, unaware of the old man’s woes. “So, what were Yura’s other friends like? She never mentioned—“

“She never made any when she was a child. Lady Yura only made a handful when she was older, and they were more… acquaintances than friends, really. No one close like you and Aoi, at least.”

“No friends?” The younger man whistled. “Sounds rough. I can see why she turned out like she did.”

“Well, Lady Yura wasn’t completely alone. She had her sisters and I to look out for her.”

“Having someone ‘look out’ for her isn’t exactly the same as companionship. I’m gonna guess that you all just tried to rein her in, didn’t you?”

“I…” Toyama hesitated. “To be honest, I was already getting on in my years and couldn’t really keep up with the young missus anymore so—”

“Saying that you managed to keep up with a young Yura is a pretty big claim.”

“—it was left up to her sisters. However, the emperor’s eldest, Taiyane, was usually far too busy aiding her father’s minister’s with the country’s administration to chase her younger half-sister around. The one it usually fell to was—”

“Was me.” A low voice interrupted the retainer.

The two men turned to see Shion Kurouji glaring at them, hands clasped atop her planted sword as she stood in front of the tent’s entrance. Hiroki started and jumped backwards, landing awkwardly on his futon. Toyama dropped his teacup, hot tea spilling down his front as he dropped to a knee. Neither of them dared to look away from the young girl, keeping their eyes locked with her argent gaze.

An uneasy silence passed, in which the tension in the room grew exponentially. Hiroki’s heart felt like it was about to burst from his chest when Toyama finally stuttered a greeting.

“L-Lady Kurou—”

Her expression darkened. “Shion, Toyama. I gave you a choice before, but I will now have you refer to me as Shion.”
“Of… Of course, Lady Shion. My sincerest apologies.”

The scowl didn’t soften. It had always been present before, but there was something about Shion’s expression that seemed much more intense than it had in their last meeting.

There was another pause before the tyrant spoke again, her eyes now focused solely on Toyama’s averted gaze. “During your conversation, I noticed that you did not mention the late emperor’s name even once. Why is that?”

“You… S-So you’ve been liste—”

“Answer the question, Toyama,” she said, cutting him off sternly. Her demeanour hadn’t changed, but Hiroki felt that she was on the verge of drawing her sword and cutting them both down.

Toyama visibly paled and tried to answer, but no words came from his gaping mouth. Shion’s eyebrows knitted together and the edges of her mouth tightened. In the absence of a reply, she continued. “Is it a sense of shame? Of disgrace, as I, Kurouji Shion, stand before you? Is this your way of trying to disassociate the father from his daughter?”

“I…” The elderly man swallowed, finding his voice at last. “I-I… Rest assured, I would never… could never show such disrespect t-to Lord Hironobu or… or yourself.”

The uneasy silence started again, as Shion stared Toyama down. Hiroki didn’t dare voice his opinion, but he felt that the pauses and glaring was a mite unnecessary at this point. The old man was practically sweating bullets and seemed to be on the verge of a heart attack; any further pressure and he might have keeled over.

Finally, Shion spoke, her voice quiet but clear in the silence of the tent. “Lady Taiyane, Lady Shion, and Lady Yura are what you used to call the three of us. My stepmother was always Lady Akabane, though you may have made an exception for the woman on occasion.”

She tilted her chin up, looking down her nose at them. “Even my father was Lord Hironobu to you. In all those years, never once did you, his ever faithful servant, merely refer to him as ‘the emperor’ or by his family name.”

With a harsh screech of metal, the second daughter drew her sword, revealing a blade of deep, midnight purple, and angled it at Hiroki’s neck.

The threat was clear.

“I will ask you one last time, Toyama. Why do you no longer refer to me, nor my father as you once did? “ Shion asked, her tone soft but venomous.


Stand.

Yura repeated it again.

Stand.

Stand.

The flameborn echoed the command, making it into an slowly intensifying mantra. She had to stand, or that was it. She was going to stay down, permanently. Get up and live, or stay down and die.

She knew which one she’d rather choose. It was a bit of a no-brainer.

Yura managed a curse as she forced her body to move, getting to her knees despite her burning muscles. Movement came back more easily than the first time the wretch had shocked her, back in that hellscape.

It wasn’t standing; far from it. One didn’t stand on their hands and knees, after all.

But it was enough. Enough for her t—

What.

Instinctively, Yura threw a leaden arm up, covering her face as she rose to a knee. A soft ding sounded, as something ricocheted off her glove. There were two sharp stabs along her forearm, drawing a grimace as the sensation exacerbated the flameborn’s fading aches. Her silk necktie took the third and her hair flopped down against her neck as a fourth sliced through its binder.

But whatever had launched the barrage wasn’t done yet. She was barely aware of her foe toppling backwards with a scream, as two last things sliced into Yura’s abdomen, burrowing into her side. Yura shrieked and lurched suddenly, dropping heavily onto her right arm.

Her wounded right arm.

That was a mistake.

Stars exploded across her vision and Yura cried out as the projectiles were forced deeper into her forearm. A dizzying pain shot up through her arm as she tried to move the limb, trying to see what damage had been caused. Two tiny, red pinpricks greeted her bleary eyes, each blemish accompanied by a thin, blackened shaft. That… that didn’t look too bad? But then why in the Six Realms did it feel lik—

Her eyes widened when they fell onto the thing lying on the white floor, the crystal spine that had glanced off her glove. It wasn’t particularly thick, but by the Lords, was it long. How long? … Five… six... seven. At least seven units long. Seven bloody units.
If they’d gone any deeper, then those nails might have come out the other side.

She tried pulling the visible part of the spike and her vision blurred as an agonising bolt of lightning shot up her arm, through her shoulder and all the way down to her tailbone.

So those probably weren't being removed for… a while. Not here, at least. How in the hells was she going explain this to Aoi and Hiroki if sh—when, when she got back?

A cold rage flowered deep in Yura’s gut as she thought about Truenight. Only Truenight could have done this. The blackened woman had hit her and the two-toned mage with her nettles, but why? An accident, clearly. Hah, that was a good one. What a joke.

Obviously, she’d been played. Double-crossed. Betrayed, once again.

Kurouji’s scowl flashed through her mind and Yura growled. Ignoring her protesting limbs, she pulled herself to her feet and stood, panting, a single blade clutched in her left hand. Each movement or flex of her right fingers caused ragged claws of pain to tear through her arm, so she left its twin on the floor. But that was fine. This was nothing. She’d endured worse, after all. This was nothing compared to that fall from the Spire or whe—

A chill shot through Yura’s spine, causing her to narrow her eyes and grit her teeth. The omniscient voices boomed once more, the union of Order and Chaos bringing back the final words of Toyama’s lesson with their proclamation.

”... said that there are two sides to every story. That even if you think you know everything about something, there is always a second perspective. Another person’s viewpoint that you may not have considered.”

“Eh? And why would that matter? Who cares about some nobody’s perspective?”

“Because without the other person’s perspective, you won’t be able to see the whole picture. Sometimes you just need to slow down an—”

There was an exasperated sigh and the squeak of a wood scraping stone.“You’re talking nonsense again, old geezer.”

“Please, Lady Yura, return to your seat!”

The rising voices faded off, leaving Yura feeling… confused. She didn’t know why. It was like her younger self had said, it was all nonsense... Right? What else could it have been? Had she been missing something, all of these years?

Another image of Kurouji flashed before the rageborn. A different memory from the past, that she’d seen just before returning to that accursed bathhouse. The older girl defending herself and shouting, as Yura laid into her father’s killer at the top of Tengamine Castle. The answer dawned on her.

What was Kurouji’s side of the story? Just what had the girl been trying to say before she’d kicked Yura off the top of the Spire? The flameborn wracked her brain, but couldn’t recall anything. It had been a little hard to hear clearly when she’d been shouting and trying to do the murderer in.

Actually, what did it matter? Even if Kurouji had had something remotely worthwhile to say back all those years ago, she’d practically evolved into a tyrant overnight. And that had been over three years ago. Three years of martial law and oppression. What would Yura’s father… their father have thought of her rule?

Even so… maybe she did have a question or two for the despot. And after that, Yura could pull her head off.

Right now, though, there was someone standing in her way.

Yura gritted her teeth and braced herself. She reached across and under her shirt, and felt around with her uninjured hand, trying to find the pair of needles. Falling on two on her arm had been bad enough, she didn’t want to know what would happen if she fell on one directly above an organ. The first needle came out easily enough from her waist, drawing a wince from the flameborn. The second was located higher, around her ribs. In-between her ribs. This… this one was going to be a problem.

Clenching her teeth, Yura pinched the crystal shard between her forefinger and thumb, and pulled. It came away sharply, causing the girl to holler and lurch as her vision dimmed again. She tried to inhale deeply and felt a jab in her chest, right around the spot she’d freed the needle.

A punctured lung and what might as well have been a broken arm. Could have been worse, at least she didn’t get one in her eye. So what did this mean? No marathons or swimming? Not that there was any place to swim nearby. After all, there wasn’t a pool or lake, nevermind a puddle...

Oh.

She’d been expecting the answer to be ‘non-existent’. As it were, however, Yura could very clearly see a large pool of scarlet a few meters behind the lightning witch. The bodies of the long-named woman and the blackened Aleisha lay beside it, their ruined corpses adding to the growing lake of blood as the flameborn watched. She shot a quick glance at the sides and behind her, looking around at the emptied plane.

That was it then. Tahlmore, that blasted Truenight and Aleisha. All gone, with three of the four Knights of Chaos.

That meant she was alone. It was up to her and Stormcaller to kill each other now.

So really, nothing had changed. It still boiled down to a delinquent teenager against staff-twirling, scum-sucking magus.

Or perhaps not.

The caster’s fluted, metal staff lay on the floor behind, forgotten by its owner. The woman in question was saying something, something incoherent as always.

Why even bother?, Yura thought, taking a single step forward and lurching precariously. She glanced down and noticed that her shirt wasn’t very white anymore. What remained of its natural color was becoming rapidly devoured by a sea of encroaching crimson.

The newly dubbed Champion gritted her teeth and surged forward, ignoring the forebode that had set in over her. It didn’t matter. They’d somehow gotten separated after that Truenight’s parting barrage, but there was still barely any space between them. Now that Stormcaller didn’t have her staff, all Yura had to do was cross that and—

Arcs of lightning burst from the mage’s fingers. Yura managed to get her sword up in time, catching and diverting some of the spray. But still, more came. Innumerable crackling, seeking tendrils surged around and over the blade, and into the rageborn’s body.

The burning filled her again and she wanted to scream. She wanted to, but she couldn’t find the breath to do so. Or was it because she was already screaming? Yura didn’t know, she couldn’t hear anything except for the buzz and the crackle of electricity, around her and within her. Her heart was hammering away rapidly, like it was ready to burst out from her ribs.

But she could withstand it. She had to withstand it. She didn’t have a choice but to press on and kill Stormcaller. The flameborn took another step...

… And dropped to one knee.

No! Stand... STAND!

The burning was starting to fade now, replaced by a dull, consuming coldness. It spread through her limbs, easing the pain and darkening the edges of her vision. The ivory of the tile below her was slowly becoming red, as ruby droplets dripped from her stomach and her arms, staining the unblemished stone.

Unacceptable. Get up. Stand.

Standing was too hard. It was easier to just let go. That’s all she had to do. She could just let go and finally rest. There wouldn’t be any need to struggle; no more fighting, no more pain. No more anything.

Stand, Akabane. Get up. Sta—
The darkness started to close in.


“Stand, Akabane.”

She tried to get up. Yura tried to stand, but she couldn’t. Her hand clutched at the gash in her stomach, where Ryokuzan had sliced cleanly through. The entry wound at her back burned, but her other hand was still holding on to Kimizan. All the flameborn could do was kneel in the icy rain, watching as her lifeblood mixed into the water below.

Kurouji stood several paces afore her, glaring down as she sheathed her purple blade. Her four generals stood nearby, watching from one of the courtyard’s many alcoves.

“I avoided all of your vital organs with that thrust. You will live. Now come,” she slammed her sword into the ground. “Get up. Show me the depths of your resolve. Stand!”

Yura gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on Kimizan. The youngest sister forced herself up to one knee and then started to rise. There was a sharp burst of agony in her gut and she fell back down again, gasping out in pain.

There was a snarl from above her and she looked up. Kurouji’s expression had changed, her usual, frown twisting with hatred and disgust.

“Disgraceful. Your tenacity was your only redeeming quality, even that has faltered. So what use are you?” she bellowed, losing all pretense of composure. “Felled by such a paltry wound? After declaring that you will fight to your last, to avenge our fallen father and liberate the rights of his Crown? Pathetic!”

Yura didn’t respond. She tried to rise again, tried to stoke the flames of her rage, but her legs refused to move. The flameborn brought her hand up from her stomach and coughed, tasting copper and then feeling something wet splatter on to her palm. She shivered and Kurouji snarled again. A screech filled the air and Ryokuzan slid free from its sheath, its tip angled towards Yura’s throat. There was movement in the distance as one of the generals looked away; Harukaze, judging by the short, white hair.

“If this is all you can muster, then I ask again, what is the point? I would be doing Father and Mother a favour by ending your miserable existence.” The second daughter stalked towards her, the argent eyes and silvery underside of her hair glinting through the downpour. “You have disappointed me utte— “

The flameborn coughed again. Blood dripped from her hand to the ground below, joining the cloudy, red puddle at her feet. Everything was starting to go blurry. Yura tried to focus. Everything sharpened momentarily, but she couldn’t hold it.

Had Kurouji really missed her vitals?

The rain was starting to feel colder. Kurouji was still glaring, but she wasn’t advancing anymore. She wasn’t even glaring at Yura. There was something right in front of her, in between the two sisters. A hunched, curved blur, with a bright red stripe around its middle.

... Mother?

Yura bit her lip and tried focusing again. Her vision sharpened and held, revealing the blue-haired woman in front of her. She wore a white, floral-patterned kimono with a red obi around her waist.

Mother.

Was she saying something? Her mother must’ve been saying something, but Yura couldn’t make it out. All she could hear was the sound of the rain splashing around them, the thump of her heart in her ears, and her own, laboured breaths. The flameborn watched helplessly as Kurouji’s face darkened, going from a perplexed, but irritated scowl, to a look of utmost fury. Her father’s murderer screamed something and the generals started running towards them, their expressions grim.

Ryokuzan rose up and over Kurouji’s head, and spikes of terror stabbed into Yura’s heart. An image of her father’s body flashed before her eyes, and the terror changed to anger.

Rise. STAND UP.

NOW.

So she stood. The delinquent rose to one knee and then, using Kimizan as a crutch, pulled herself up and to her feet. The pain had faded now, but so had every other sensation.

That was enough. The movement drew Kurouji’s attention to her and her expression changed. The fury in the second daughter’s eyes changed, replaced by an emotion that Yura had never seen before? Was that… concern? Fear?

It didn’t matter.

Yura bared her teeth and tried to snarl, but no sound came out. She took one step forward, and then coughed again. Her vision blackened and the blood-soaked ground came rushing to meet her.


How long had it been?

Hours?

Minutes?

Seconds?

She didn’t know. The lightning was still flowing into her, the sparking and crackling filling her, trying to fry the flameborn from within.

But Yura was standing. She was standing, propped up by her single, red blade. And she could feel again.

She could feel the fiery, burning current filling her. She could feel the jagged, rippling pain from her right arm.

And she could feel the weight of her father’s sword in other, left hand.

The youngest daughter looked up at her foe one last, final time. The blinding brilliance of the lightning fulminating around her made it difficult, if not impossible to see her attacker, but Yura’s didn’t care about the finer details. Whether they had raven or purple-colored locks, she couldn’t say. Was her target’s eyes a gleaming silver, matching her own, or a mismatched of blue-green orbs? Who knew?

She took one step forward and swung her left arm up, throwing the red sword with all of her remaining strength. Yura screamed a name as she threw it, but she couldn’t hear her own voice. Whose name had she shouted? Kurouji? Ebriva? She didn’t know.

There was a dull noise and the lightning stopped. Two things in front of her dropped, and Yura slumped to the ground, her breathing ragged. It took all her remaining strength, but she forced herself to look up.

The red sword further ahead of her, along with the prone body of her foe. Yura didn’t know what had happened, but judging by the lack of blood, she still had to finish the job.

The young girl tried to rise, but her body refused to move. She fell forwards, down on to her chest and her eyelids fluttered, then closed.
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