[color=E0D6C0] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wFqApY1.png[/img][/center] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/fXzi00H.gif[/img][h1][b][color=30A4D9]Bastion[/color][/b][/h1][/center] [center][h2][color=RED]FLASHBACK[/color][/h2][/center][hr] [center][h2][color=F9D972]☼ The Battle of the Brey River (919 YK) ☼[/color][/h2][/center] [center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fU3pHi6TCQ[/youtube][/center] The river screamed. Not with sound, but with motion. A thousand blades beating against its skin. Sunlight cracked across the surface as the Third Cyran Vanguard advanced through the shallows, shields locked, pikes thrust forward, swords ready to go. The water bit at their legs, cold and relentless, but not his…For the Warforged felt nothing as pathetic as [i]cold[/i] Bastion led the first rank. He was a wall of bronze and ivory, eyes burning cyan in the gloom of the early dawn. Commands buzzed through his mind in coded pulses...march, hold, strike...and he obeyed each one without hesitation. He felt the thrum of the arcane heartbeat in his chest, the rhythm of his power core syncing with the drums of war. To his right, spellfire bloomed. A Cyran battlemage unleashed a storm of emerald bolts that carved through the enemy trenches. To his left, a soldier screamed as divine light burst across the water. The was no fear in Bastion like there was in the others. Only purpose. [color=AEFF00]“Advance!!!!”[/color] came the order. He moved, the Vanguard surging forward as a single organism of steel and flesh. Across the riverbank, the banners of the Silver Flame rippled in the wind. Thrane zealots raised holy symbols toward the sky, chanting through the smoke. The air rippled, reality folding. A column of silver fire struck the water ahead of them, vaporizing men and fusing flesh and armor, bringing screams of terror from the survivors. Bastion just kept marching. One step, two, three. Each strike of his foot sank deeper into the mud. Each movement burned brighter with the purpose stamped into his mind since creation: protect Cyre, destroy its enemies. The first line of Thranes met them at the ford. Steel hit steel and shields shuddered. Bastion’s glacium sword split through a paladin’s helm like butter, molten blood flashing in the light. He pivoted, driving his elbow into another’s throat, crushing the man’s trachea, and simply moved on before the body fell. The world was red and white and noise and chaos... This is what it meant to be Warforged. A mage screamed incantations behind him, summoning a lightning arc that snapped across the water, lighting Bastion’s armor like glass. The smell of ozone mixed with rot. Bodies floated past his knees. Still he continued to fight as though it hadn’t even phased him. Another of his kind was felled beside him fell, chest caved in by a hammer. Bastion caught the weapon mid-swing, tore it free from the assailant, and drove it through the man’s ribs. For a heartbeat, he looked down at the corpse he’d made. Flesh peeled from the bone. Eyes wide. Lips moving in prayer as the life poured out of him. He felt nothing. The Thraneish broke rank for a moment under the counterstrike. Bastion saw opportunity, and drove forward alone…cutting through their weakened flank. Each strike was precise. Each kill was perfectly clean. This was a perfect soldier, with no hesitation, no conscience. Just purpose and instinct. Behind him, the river boiled again. A Thraneish cleric raised a sigil of silver flame the size of a tower. Light swallowed the sky. Bastion turned, shielding his eyes as the blast ripped across the battlefield. The bridge behind him folded inward, collapsing into fire and debris. A hundred Cyran soldiers vanished in an instant, torn between heat and gravity. The shockwave hurled him to his knees. His auditory systems rang. He rose to see the ford gone. The water was dragging bodies downstream, armor flashing beneath sunlight in the current. Mages tried to mend the bridge, screaming arcane words through smoke, but the spells fractured mid cast. The air itself caught fire around the space. Bastion waded forward, through corpses and ruin, until he stood knee-deep in the dead. His unit was scattered. They were losing this fight. This is where Humans, Elves, Dwarves, or any of the other races of Eberron would have questioned the moment. This is where their morale would have been tested. But not him. Not the Bastion that he was made to be. He planted his sword and braced as the next wave came. Thraneish screaming their holy hymns, banners burning. Bastion met them with the fury of forged steel. Sparks burst from every impact. Holy blades cut into his plating, leaving bright scars of molten metal. But he tore them apart with relentless unyielding swings of his blade, one after another, until the mud turned red beneath his feet. When the fighting finally stopped, the river had risen to his waist. The field was silent except for the distant cries of wounded men calling for their gods. He wondered if there was a God for him. Bastion stood alone on the ford until reinforcements reached his side. He watched the bodies drift away in the current. Roque appeared to his left, accompanied by the Warforged mage named Conduit, who rarely left their side. [color=FF726E]“We got to get out of here, big guy…”[/color] Roque declared. Bastion took in the sight of the human man’s face. He had lost an eye in the battle, blood still dripping from the wound. [color=FF726E]“There are wyvern riders flying in from the South. If we don’t fall back, we’ll all be bodies in this fucking river by the end of the hour. It’s time, Bastion. We have no choice.”[/color] They lived to fight another day, but the battle was lost. They had failed…Bastion had failed. That was his first taste of such a thing, yet it would not be his last. No, for his greatest failure was still to come. [/COLOR] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/wFqApY1.png[/img][/center]