[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/6utFoFN.png[/img] [/center] [hr] [color=c7a0d5]“Well how the fuck is that even [b]possible?![/b]” [/color] The muffled voice was hushed and heated. She could hear the reddening of the lord of the house’s face, the tightening of his collar, the harumphing of his scoffs. It was all he could do to not drag the young maid into his dining room and beat the delusions of grandeur out of her like she was an old, dusty rug. Cordelia Whittaker, lucky to be a maid of this house, let alone an Ars Magi looked to her superior, another maid who’d done the vast majority of her training. It was something of a testing look, to see how she’d react to the reaction they were both diligently listening to, waiting to hold the doors open for someone who, in truth, detested them both. Pierre Nuit was nothing if not vitriolic and cruel. Well, perhaps rich. He was as reliably those qualities so much so that he could act as a litmus test in which to compare others, if the need arose. “This is an incredible opportunity,” the other maid whispered quietly under her breath. It was the first thing she’d said to Cordelia after finding out. Cordelia’s mind buzzed a bit at the phrase, the nonchalant delivery of it was especially off-putting. “Should you deign to survive what’s going to transpire next you’ll have a legacy and dynasty far surpassing what he’s built here.” Cordelia chewed on the thought for a moment. She’d never even thought about what a dynasty meant. Or what kind of legacy she’d choose to leave behind. It’d never felt like something she’d be offered, let alone able to forge on her own. She wondered if this was how all Ars Magi felt when they were told. It wasn’t Atlas she related most to, crushed by the glorious burden of her new life. Rather, something more akin to Odysseus, stranded at sea, with no sense of direction nor time. What was she to do about all of this? [color=9df7ff]“I don’t know if a legacy, or even a dynasty - I don’t think that’s what I want,”[/color] she said softly. Her voice hushed well below the awful temperament of their master across the door. “What do you want?” She was asked. The girl thought for a moment. She'd not had time to consider these things until now, it felt jarring to be asked all of it at once. As if she could one day just become a completely different person. Still, her heart tugged in one direction, and one direction alone. [color=9df7ff]“To help.”[/color] [hr] Rain speckled moonlight painted the other team’s struggle as a fierce, but doomed endeavor. Cordelia’s still-verdant eyes flitted about the landscape, drinking deep in the details, as if she’d go blind in the next few moments. She felt her heartrate spike when the size of the creature? Robot? It was almost indiscernible with its shape and intent in design. It didn’t matter. [color=9df7ff]It doesn’t matter,[/color] she reminded herself. Metal or flesh, it would be sundered just the same. The other team was being torn asunder, it was here they would make their stand or they would fail the mission. [i]No.[/i] Don’t think of it as a mission. This is life or death. Take the fear, taste it. Drink from the cup of death, it was the only way to live, to grow. She remembered her training. She remembered being taught to throw her life on the line if it was called of her. This time, it was not her master she was protecting. It was her comrades. Cordelia strode forward into the deluge, feeling the building of energy taking over her body. Each limb moving of its own accord, without any command or input from Cordelia herself, it was all momentum now. The tides of her own ideas thrusting her forward. Solve the most pressing problem, and then solve the next. It was all she could do; all anyone could do in a situation like this one. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQOKzS2kP-o]“I’m going to give everyone quick access to the battlefield,”[/url] she spoke commandingly now. [color=9df7ff]“Above our main target, and as close to both compromised parties as possible. These will be two-way doors I’m making, so if need be, they can be used for evacuation and then disabled.”[/color] Cordelia knelt where she was, placing both hands on the mud-caked ground they were treading upon. She closed her eyes and tried to channel that feeling she’d always felt when calling upon her newfound abilities. The wind and the rain smattered her hair into her argent cheeks. When she opened her eyes, the irises began to shift in hue. [color=9df7ff][i]Show me all that which we fear, the truest reflection.[/i][/color] Cordelia’s hair and clothes flew upwards in a brilliant display of power and pressure, the strands of her clothing coming apart at the seems revealing below them not skin nor flesh, but brilliant, glimmering possibility. It shone a bright blue, twinkling light a painted reflection of the night sky as details of her Parma started to sharpen into focus. Cordelia shot to her feet, trailing from her hand was what looked like a spinning thread of molten glass, slowly dangling around her as if it was a ribbon. The rain halted around her for a moment as the sound of cracking glass erupted from her, and the spinning thread took shape into the great sword known as Pridwen. The massive blade stood nearly as tall as the Ars Magi herself. The length of the blade appeared to be made up of many different pieces of stained glass, perfectly crafted and honed to a dangerously sharp edge. As the details of her Parma honed into detail, the rain began to fall around her once more, the once Verdant unconfident eyes of a butler had now shifted to a yellowish cat’s eye glean that shone confidently in the moonlight. Her once simpler outfit now bursting out white, black, and blue with ribbons and crests too regal to be found on the typically reserved girl. The biggest change, perhaps, was the now crescent moon grin, wide as could be and hungry. She hefted the magnificent great sword with a single hand reaching it up into the night sky, as if daring lightning to strike, before spinning it and plunging it into the Earth. A pulse echoed out from it that expanded well past their target as Cordelia began to sense in the area just how much glass she was given. The grin only grew from there. All at once shards of glass all around the ruined battleground they were being thrust into, and in front of her team began to form into doorways made of piecemeal shards made up of just about any kind of glass you could think of. Sea glass, windshields, windows, mirrors, if it could reflect an image it began to rise into the air. One doorway was located by the pinned down team, another towards the redheaded Ars Magi Cordelia had watched get thrown into a wall. The third, however, shimmered magnificently above the humongous three-story mech. Glass from the cityscape shot back over to Cordelia as well, just enough to create three doorways in front of her team. [color=9df7ff]“First leads to the pinned team, second to the top of this mech, third to the pinned down Ars Magi. If you need a doorway once we’ve entered combat call for me over the radio with your location and I’ll do what I can.”[/color] Cordelia had transformed, in more ways than one. [color=9df7ff]“Let’s do what we do best, once we’re done, we’ll see about that dance.”[/color]