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Persona: Crossroads

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/tfsrox/images/5/50/Wiki-background/revision/latest?cb=20110815002106
this needs to be the main villain

@LowKey123

Come on, man, you gotta warn us faint of heart about scary shit like that.

Persona: Crossroads

Oh neato, a before bed treat!

I swear that I will pull myself away from trying to turn into the Beer Baron of Stardew Valley when I come home from work tomorrow and get an intro up.

Persona: Crossroads

Taro Mori · 20 · Male
Tower Arcana

Appearance:
Taro stands about six foot two and has an average, unathletic build and lighter skin of a man who spent more time indoors than getting involved with sports. His hair and eyes are brown, although if one were to deeply inspect the roots of his hair they would be able to tell that it was a dye job. Although he would never admit it, Taro does spend a gross amount of time every morning trying to make himself look appropriately disheveled and often goes through several wardrobe changes before finding a flattering outfit that he could claim he just “slapped together”. His fingernails are immaculate and his skin is smooth thanks to a nightly routine of creams, lotions, and moisturizers. When he talks his voice is fairly loud and his face is heavily animated; when he’s quiet the man always has a small smirk on his face as if he knows a secret or just thought of a rude joke.

Personality:
Taro is an outgoing, upbeat loud-mouth who is on the surface both one of the friendliest and most irritating person you’d ever meet. On one hand, he goes out of his way to make more shy and anxious people feel welcome and recognized. On the other hand, Taro never learned how to “read the air” of a situation and almost never turns down his enthusiasm or excitement. As well, he’s generally used to being the center of attention and tends to clown around way too much, often to the point of being a distraction. Still, it is difficult for most people to stay in a slump when Taro is around.

However, most people do not want to be around Taro after they get to know the man. He lacks the drive and the focus to accomplish anything that requires hard work or dedication. Instead, he tends to leapfrog between interests and hobbies on an almost weekly basis—as a side effect, he knows a little about everything and a lot about nothing. Worse still, he tries to convince his friends to follow him and uses guilt as a weapon if they do not bend to his whims. People tend to call him out for the manipulative, pushy bastard he is trying, and thankfully failing, to be.

Still, it’s not that Taro enjoys manipulating or guilting people, he just unfortunately happens to be a control freak. He truly wants the best for everyone and for himself. However, in his mind the best has already happened in the past when everyone were kids who just screwed around, played games, and ate junk food while the future has him and others wasting away for the rest of their life as salarymen in some office building-shaped tomb. Deep down inside, what Taro really wants is for everything to stay the same—even if it ends up making him seem immature and petty.

Background:
Taro’s the first born son of Haruki Mori, better known as the man who a quarter of the Commerce Sector paid their monthly lease to. Being the only son of some wealthy landlord isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—really, it’s better than what rich people let on, they just don’t want all of the poor folk to feel as bad as they should about not having trust funds. Taro spent a youth of being pampered and privileged thanks to his family name. Were you really going to be the restaurant that made Haruki’s heir wait, knowing that competitors were eagerly looking to buy up your lot? Were you really going to fail Taro because the stupid kid never studied when you knew that your brother who was already struggling to pay his rent on time? Nah, you were just going to smile and nod as the little snot nosed brat obliviously moved through the world under the assumption that people just must really like him.

Of course, since Taro was so used to getting everything handed to him the man never felt the need to apply himself to anything. It sort of became a little bit of a problem come middle and high school where his family name had less and less of an influence. People stopped completely coddling him, but it didn’t change the fact that Taro barely tried. Didn’t understand algebra? Whatever, grades didn’t matter and girls only really liked guys who played sports. Terrible at baseball? It was a boring sport anyway. Plus, he knew they were dying to recruit him into the drama club. Couldn’t remember his lines? Whatever, drama was for dorks.

Things started getting rough for Taro come graduation. His father insisted that Taro try to get into the University of Tokyo, but the boy didn’t even take the entrance examination (although to be fair, he wouldn’t have passed it anyway). Taro had lived in Kantou his whole life, and said he didn’t want to move away from all of his friends—even though most of them were going away for college anyway. He was accepted to Kantou University largely thanks to a healthy donation from his father, who was an alumnus, and began studying for his business degree just so he could be like ol’ dad.

Of course, Taro didn’t take college seriously. He blew off more classes than he took, spending most of his time trying to fool around with girls, getting drunk at karaoke bars, playing video games, running with bad crowds, or just sleeping in his dorm. He switched majors after his first semester from business to journalism, and then from journalism to engineering before quickly switching back to journalism before finally settling on computer science at the end of his first year. His second year he moved off-campus, giving him even further reasons to not show up to class. Three-quarters through the year he changed his major once again, this time to music because of a crush he had on a singer he saw at the Blue Boulevard.

At the start of his third year of college, Taro was barely ahead in credits of the incoming freshmen. He was in the process of changing his major once again when the letter came from his father, commanding him to stop screwing around and to take school seriously or he would cut the damn kid off. With that new weight hanging over his head, Taro finds himself becoming more and more terrified that the rest of his life will be spent working for his father’s real estate company until he is a withered old man.

Weapon

Spear· Pierce

Persona

Bellerophon

Arcana: Tower
Strength: Zio
Weakness: Garu
History: Bellerophon was a Greek hero known largely for his ability to kill monsters of varying degrees of danger and for coming from a family of rather unfortunate fellows. His grandfather was Sisyphus, who was forced to push a boulder to the top of the hill only to watch it roll to the other side for all of eternity, and his father was Glaucus, who may have died by being eaten by his own horses. So, perhaps one could assume that Bellerophon felt that he was doing his brother a favor when he murdered him, since all of the men in his family ended up getting a pretty raw deal anyway—or maybe he was just jumping on the family killing bandwagon that was all of the rage in Greece those days. Regardless of why he did it, his punishment for fratricide was exile.

Now it turns out that exile wasn’t so bad when you’re living it up in a cushy castle with some king who pardoned your crime, and things were looking up for old Bellerophon until the king’s wife started batting her eyelashes at him. Bellerophon, of course, was a hero (brother killing aside), so he did not go for it. The wife got mad, spun a few lies, and now the king wanted Bellerophon dead but he can’t kill him because the Greeks are real weird about murdering guests. So the king sent Bellerophon to another ruler with a letter to do the killing for him, but Bellerophon was such a fun person that the other ruler didn’t read the letter until the point where Bellerophon, once again, qualified as a guest.

Instead of proceeding down some continuous loop where Bellerophon goes to another castle and avoids execution because he stayed the night and drank their wine forever, the ruler decided that he would indirectly kill Bellerophon by sending him to slay the Chimera. The Chimera was this giant monster with the head of a lion, a serpent for a tail, and the less-intimidating body of a goat, and taking it on in a fight was pretty much considered a suicide attempt because it breathed fire among many other horrible things. Of course, since everybody likes Bellerophon, he gets a hot tip that if he fought the Chimera from atop a winged horse he could actually best the beast.

So, Bellerophon went, got Pegasus, and flew off to fight the Chimera—and the guy takes it out by jamming a giant block of lead down its throat that the Chimera melts with its own fire breath and dies via lead suffocation. Now the ruler was not too happy about this because he still needed to kill Bellerophon for that other king, so when Bellerophon returned he was sent on another quest. And another. And another. And another. And so on, until the ruler just shrugged his shoulders and married Bellerophon to his daughter because clearly the hero wasn’t going to die and he did kind of kill all of the big, bad monsters in the land. Now more or less a king, Bellerophon would live happily ever after in peace…

...if the man did not let his ego get to him. Since he had slain all of the big, bad monsters in the land, Bellerophon was constantly being told of how he was a great hero. Unfortunately, Bellerophon decided to one-up that statement. In his mind he was not a great hero, but a god. To prove this, Bellerophon mounted Pegasus once again and flew to Mount Olympus to live with the other gods. Zeus, seeing a mortal try to claim godhood, had a fly bite Pegasus so that the horse bucked Bellerophon off of its back. Bellerophon fell from the sky and landed, uncomfortably, in a thorn bush. Crippled by the landing and blinded by the thorns, Bellerophon spent the rest of his life as a miserable hermit until he died alone.

1. Single Shot - Deals light pierce damage to one foe.
2. Zio - Deals light electric damage to one foe.
3. Rakunda - Lowers one foe’s defense.
4. unlocked at first social link, upgraded at rank 6.
5. Unlocked second social link, upgraded at rank 7.
6. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone, upgraded at rank 8.
7. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone else, upgraded at rank 9.
8. Unlocked after rank 5 social link w someone, upgraded at rank 10.

Social Link Rankings

• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10

What are some signs a roleplay is about to die?

When it's first made.

@Ace of Hearts

That's...actually kind of true.

Persona: Crossroads

Yo, read this son!

Taro Mori · 20 · Male
Tower Arcana

Appearance:
Taro stands about six foot two and has an average, unathletic build and lighter skin of a man who spent more time indoors than getting involved with sports. His hair and eyes are brown, although if one were to deeply inspect the roots of his hair they would be able to tell that it was a dye job. Although he would never admit it, Taro does spend a gross amount of time every morning trying to make himself look appropriately disheveled and often goes through several wardrobe changes before finding a flattering outfit that he could claim he just “slapped together”. His fingernails are immaculate and his skin is smooth thanks to a nightly routine of creams, lotions, and moisturizers. When he talks his voice is fairly loud and his face is heavily animated; when he’s quiet the man always has a small smirk on his face as if he knows a secret or just thought of a rude joke.

Personality:
Taro is an outgoing, upbeat loud-mouth who is on the surface both one of the friendliest and most irritating person you’d ever meet. On one hand, he goes out of his way to make more shy and anxious people feel welcome and recognized. On the other hand, Taro never learned how to “read the air” of a situation and almost never turns down his enthusiasm or excitement. As well, he’s generally used to being the center of attention and tends to clown around way too much, often to the point of being a distraction. Still, it is difficult for most people to stay in a slump when Taro is around.

However, most people do not want to be around Taro after they get to know the man. He lacks the drive and the focus to accomplish anything that requires hard work or dedication. Instead, he tends to leapfrog between interests and hobbies on an almost weekly basis—as a side effect, he knows a little about everything and a lot about nothing. Worse still, he tries to convince his friends to follow him and uses guilt as a weapon if they do not bend to his whims. People tend to call him out for the manipulative, pushy bastard he is trying, and thankfully failing, to be.

Still, it’s not that Taro enjoys manipulating or guilting people, he just unfortunately happens to be a control freak. He truly wants the best for everyone and for himself. However, in his mind the best has already happened in the past when everyone were kids who just screwed around, played games, and ate junk food while the future has him and others wasting away for the rest of their life as salarymen in some office building-shaped tomb. Deep down inside, what Taro really wants is for everything to stay the same—even if it ends up making him seem immature and petty.

Background: Taro’s the first born son of Haruki Mori, better known as the man who a quarter of the Commerce Sector paid their monthly lease to. Being the only son of some wealthy landlord isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—really, it’s better than what rich people let on, they just don’t want all of the poor folk to feel as bad as they should about not having trust funds. Taro spent a youth of being pampered and privileged thanks to his family name. Were you really going to be the restaurant that made Haruki’s heir wait, knowing that competitors were eagerly looking to buy up your lot? Were you really going to fail Taro because the stupid kid never studied when you knew that your brother who was already struggling to pay his rent on time? Nah, you were just going to smile and nod as the little snot nosed brat obliviously moved through the world under the assumption that people just must really like him.

Of course, since Taro was so used to getting everything handed to him the man never felt the need to apply himself to anything. It sort of became a little bit of a problem come middle and high school where his family name had less and less of an influence. People stopped completely coddling him, but it didn’t change the fact that Taro barely tried. Didn’t understand algebra? Whatever, grades didn’t matter and girls only really liked guys who played sports. Terrible at baseball? It was a boring sport anyway. Plus, he knew they were dying to recruit him into the drama club. Couldn’t remember his lines? Whatever, drama was for dorks.

Things started getting rough for Taro come graduation. His father insisted that Taro try to get into the University of Tokyo, but the boy didn’t even take the entrance examination (although to be fair, he wouldn’t have passed it anyway). Taro had lived in Kantou his whole life, and said he didn’t want to move away from all of his friends—even though most of them were going away for college anyway. He was accepted to Kantou University largely thanks to a healthy donation from his father, who was an alumnus, and began studying for his business degree just so he could be like ol’ dad.

Of course, Taro didn’t take college seriously. He blew off more classes than he took, spending most of his time trying to fool around with girls, getting drunk at karaoke bars, playing video games, running with bad crowds, or just sleeping in his dorm. He switched majors after his first semester from business to journalism, and then from journalism to engineering before quickly switching back to journalism before finally settling on computer science at the end of his first year. His second year he moved off-campus, giving him even further reasons to not show up to class. Three-quarters through the year he changed his major once again, this time to music because of a crush he had on a singer he saw at the Blue Boulevard.

At the start of his third year of college, Taro was barely ahead in credits of the incoming freshmen. He was in the process of changing his major once again when the letter came from his father, commanding him to stop screwing around and to take school seriously or he would cut the damn kid off. With that new weight hanging over his head, Taro finds himself becoming more and more terrified that the rest of his life will be spent working for his father’s real estate company until he is a withered old man.

Weapon

Spear· Pierce

Persona

Bellerophon

Arcana: Tower
Strength: Zio
Weakness: Garu
History: Bellerophon was a Greek hero known largely for his ability to kill monsters of varying degrees of danger and for coming from a family of rather unfortunate fellows. His grandfather was Sisyphus, who was forced to push a boulder to the top of the hill only to watch it roll to the other side for all of eternity, and his father was Glaucus, who may have died by being eaten by his own horses. So, perhaps one could assume that Bellerophon felt that he was doing his brother a favor when he murdered him, since all of the men in his family ended up getting a pretty raw deal anyway—or maybe he was just jumping on the family killing bandwagon that was all of the rage in Greece those days. Regardless of why he did it, his punishment for fratricide was exile.

Now it turns out that exile wasn’t so bad when you’re living it up in a cushy castle with some king who pardoned your crime, and things were looking up for old Bellerophon until the king’s wife started batting her eyelashes at him. Bellerophon, of course, was a hero (brother killing aside), so he did not go for it. The wife got mad, spun a few lies, and now the king wanted Bellerophon dead but he can’t kill him because the Greeks are real weird about murdering guests. So the king sent Bellerophon to another ruler with a letter to do the killing for him, but Bellerophon was such a fun person that the other ruler didn’t read the letter until the point where Bellerophon, once again, qualified as a guest.

Instead of proceeding down some continuous loop where Bellerophon goes to another castle and avoids execution because he stayed the night and drank their wine forever, the ruler decided that he would indirectly kill Bellerophon by sending him to slay the Chimera. The Chimera was this giant monster with the head of a lion, a serpent for a tail, and the less-intimidating body of a goat, and taking it on in a fight was pretty much considered a suicide attempt because it breathed fire among many other horrible things. Of course, since everybody likes Bellerophon, he gets a hot tip that if he fought the Chimera from atop a winged horse he could actually best the beast.

So, Bellerophon went, got Pegasus, and flew off to fight the Chimera—and the guy takes it out by jamming a giant block of lead down its throat that the Chimera melts with its own fire breath and dies via lead suffocation. Now the ruler was not too happy about this because he still needed to kill Bellerophon for that other king, so when Bellerophon returned he was sent on another quest. And another. And another. And another. And so on, until the ruler just shrugged his shoulders and married Bellerophon to his daughter because clearly the hero wasn’t going to die and he did kind of kill all of the big, bad monsters in the land. Now more or less a king, Bellerophon would live happily ever after in peace…

...if the man did not let his ego get to him. Since he had slain all of the big, bad monsters in the land, Bellerophon was constantly being told of how he was a great hero. Unfortunately, Bellerophon decided to one-up that statement. In his mind he was not a great hero, but a god. To prove this, Bellerophon mounted Pegasus once again and flew to Mount Olympus to live with the other gods. Zeus, seeing a mortal try to claim godhood, had a fly bite Pegasus so that the horse bucked Bellerophon off of its back. Bellerophon fell from the sky and landed, uncomfortably, in a thorn bush. Crippled by the landing and blinded by the thorns, Bellerophon spent the rest of his life as a miserable hermit until he died alone.

1. Single Shot - Deals light pierce damage to one foe.
2. Zio - Deals light electric damage to one foe.
3. Rakunda - Lowers one foe’s defense.
4. unlocked at first social link, upgraded at rank 6.
5. Unlocked second social link, upgraded at rank 7.
6. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone, upgraded at rank 8.
7. unlocked after having a rank 4 social link w/ someone else, upgraded at rank 9.
8. Unlocked after rank 5 social link w someone, upgraded at rank 10.

Social Link Rankings

• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10
• Arcana / Character Name · Rank 1-10

Persona: Crossroads

I feel that Wolfenstein MechSuit with twin gatling guns or Bionic Commando exploding head were better video game representations of _Hitler Fuhrer, personally, but I know not to argue with you Persona 2 fans.

Persona: Crossroads

Ah crap, snuck this up while I was sleeping, huh?

Imma call Tower before any of you jerks pals steal it.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

And with that, Alice is awesome. You can never go wrong with puns, especially bone puns.

@Raijinslayer

Yeah, bone puns are quite humerus.

Persona: Crossroads

I've got most of it written up already but I figured I might as well see if anyone is interested before uh, actually putting it out there.

@Attis

Put it out there, my dude! You got one person interested.

The Origin: A War Resumed (Arc One; Completed)

Vesta V. Oubera
Round One

It was strange how long the day seemed to drag on. Vesta had spent the better part of the morning examining her gear, double and triple checking her sword for any dull edges. When was the last time she had used it as anything but a cane for her crippled knee or to emphasize a threat? Weeks? Months? Years? History all blurred together. She flashed the sword out of its sheath, effortlessly slaying invisible foes within the blink of an eye. At least her hands had not lost their speed; hopefully it would make up for the stiffness in her leg. The rest of the morning was balanced between practicing motions and rubbing the knot out of her knee. By the time Cyril had come around she had worked up a slight sweat, but her hands had yet to begun to shake. Good, she thought. I'm no longer what I was; I need to be at my best if I'm going to be anything but dead weight.

Vesta felt an excitement that she hadn't felt in years swell up inside of her as she entered the arena with Cyril and his six other sacrifices. A smile twisted across her face as she looked around the ring, her eyes falling on the dried stains as she reminisced about past matches (as if the stains could have been from that long ago). That was the spot where she had liberated the people's champions head from his shoulders within the first second of the fight; over there was the spot she had hurled before taking out a trio of neophytes while violently hungover. She looked over the crowd. Vesta was never one to play to the audience, however, and always went for the quickest finish over the most theatrical. The woman spotted their traveling companions; a certain ambassador was noticeably missing. She had no time to pay any mind to it, however, as their opponents entered the field.

"Well, I'll be damned."

She looked at the man across from her. Vesta did not recognize his face—she had been blind drunk when she had first seen the man—but she knew his weapon. She grabbed her sword with both hands to keep herself from doubling over in pain as her knee flared up, cursing in pain underneath her breath. His hammer had been the one that had shattered her knee, her career, and her future. If not for that damn hammer the last few years of her life would have been vastly better. Vesta could taste copper as her teeth bit into her lip. Her heart was racing; she was seeing red. Every single muscle in her body was ready to lunge on the man and rip his throat out. The only thing holding her back was knowing how severe the Guratans punished gladiators who broke the rules—and the knowing how terribly anger made someone fight. She took several deep breaths, straightened her posture out, and nodded to the man. Her eyes cut sharply through him. There was something different about her this time from their first fight that he had crippled her in, and it wasn't the years or the new wounds.

This time she was stone cold sober.

"You don't know how good it feels to finally see you," said Vesta.

Silence fell over the Arena. Vesta did not looks up to the Chiefs, although she did draw her weapon as she silently continued to bore a hole into her opponent with her eyes. The weapon was worn but the blade was well-crafted and carefully maintained. As the fight begun and Cyril announced his charge, the woman lifted the scabbard she had been leaning on off of the ground and began walking towards the man slowly. There was no signs of her limp, and the she kept the sheer pain running through her knee to herself as she leisurely closed the distance between herself and her foe with her sword leveled in front of her. She stopped just out of striking range of the large man and sheathed her weapon, resting once again on the scabbard. A look of boredom settled on her face, her eyes losing their edge.

"If you ask, I will give you the mercy of a quick defeat," she said. "I won't even make you beg."

The man was patient as she approached, not feeling to threatened by her glare. He just slowly brought the warhammer around, holding it with both hands in front of him in a ready stance as he waited for her to get close, even as all around them people moved much more quickly. It was when her expression became bored that his eyebrow raised slightly, faint and almost amused surprise coming over his gruff features.

"Still harboring a grudge, huh? Should have blamed the alcohol, not me."

He made no effort to conceal his movements, bringing the warhammer to the side as he prepared his swing. He stepped forwards with his left foot as he swung from the right, aiming for her midsection but not expecting a hit at all, even with her crippled condition. The way she had stopped just outside of his range told him that she had at least some experience, and wasn't drunk as well.

"You remember my name, or am I going to have to introduce myself again?"

"I heard they named you after a match you won by dumb luck," she said, stepping back to avoid the blow from the warhammer. She didn't hesitate a second, stepping low with her left foot and slicing her sheathed weapon at his outstretched hands as if to rap the man on his knuckles like he was a misbehaving child and she a strict schoolmarm. She intended to land a blow that was hard enough to let the man know that he would have lost some fingers if she had drawn her weapon, both in an effort to equally taunt and warn him that he was not dealing with the same fighter from so long ago.

The man's hand snapped out however, twisting around to actually grab the sheathed blade and bring it to a stop. Though the blow landed in his palm heavily, he didn't flinch, nerves dulled to such pain. His other arm kept a hold of the warhammer as it finished its swing at his side, and for a brief moment both were still as he elected to continue speaking instead. "Wasn't dumb luck, I simply took advantage of some mistakes that both the employer and employee made. Keep up at this rate and history is just going to repeat itself." With that, the man named Oubera gave a harsh push against the sheathed blade in order to force the both of them back, him taking a step back as he reset his stance with the warhammer and once again held the weapon with both hands.

He was faster than she had anticipated; she should have known he was going to be a good fighter if he was still hanging around in the Arena after so many years. Her knee howled in pain as she was forced back by Oubera's raw power, but Vesta's face was still a blank canvas. She stayed low and put her weight on her good leg as she shifted her scabbard back into her right hand, her left hand flitting across the hilt of her blade.

"Yes, I am sure they will sing great songs about you when you fade from the limelight for your abilities to best blind drunks and crippled women," she said calmly. "Since you haven't asked, I suppose you want to take the slow and painful route then? Okay." She slowly drew her blade and held it defensively out in front of her, her grip on her scabbard tightening ever so slightly to keep her balance and to prevent any further strain to her knee. "The offer still stands. You can ask for mercy whenever you want."

"Are you still talking?" Even as he asked he was moving forwards, bringing the hammer up and then down in a massive blow. If it hit her, it would crush her into the ground, and if it hit the ground it would leave a shattered crater behind, undoubtedly flinging sharp bits of stone in all directions. Whether or not it hit her didn't really matter to her opponent, it being just another display of raw power that would eventually be set to overwhelm her.

"Hate it when people hold grudges. It's petty."

She was already moving as the man began to raise his hammer, pushing herself to the man's right with her scabbard to avoid the blow. Rocks smacked against her back as she bounded past Oubera, swinging her blade in a shallow cut towards the man's side. It would be just enough to draw first blood if it hit, but it wouldn't do much more than that. As she twisted past the man she felt a sharp shooting pain in her knee and cursed quietly, trying to maintain her footing as she spun around to face Oubera.

Oubera didn't waste any time dodging the slash from Vesta, and the relatively light strike landed true. However, once again (and perhaps more surprisingly this time around) the large man didn't flinch or even blink at the new wound added to his body. Instead, he just used the time she had made her attack against her to prepare his own, bringing up his warhammer with a slight grunt to send another heavy swing towards her side, entire body turning with the blow.

She didn't have the time to dodge away from his attack without risking stepping directly into the arc of the hammer's head, so she began to move forward. Vesta pulled her scabbard up and blocked the shaft of the hammer just in time. However, she wasn't strong enough to completely stop the man's blow, and the scabbard was smacked free from her grip as the shaft hit her in the side. Pain shot through her ribs. Still, it had done enough to slow the blow down from knocking her off of her feet, although she was pushed with the turn of the hammer. However, now that she was close she could attack freely. Twisting her sword in her left hand, she shoved the blade upwards at the man's armpit.

Once more, the man reacted by letting go of the warhammer with one hand as the swing came to the stop. His right hand snapped forwards, grabbing her blade at the base and clenching, the edges of her blade grinding into his bone as with his massive strength he brought her swing to a stop.

He wasn't done with just that, however, as he stepped forwards towards her. There was a strange look in his eyes, like a fog, as he closed the distance with her before he suddenly drew his own head back and then brought it down and forwards. His head came crashing into hers as he grit his teeth, both of them being rattled to the bone as the hit came with enough force to bring her down to her knees. There was no follow up as he instead stepped back and away a little, bringing up his deeply cut hand to his head briefly before he once again gripped the warhammer with both hands. The fog was gone from his eyes.

"Sorry about that. Been in battle so much that my body just reacts."

Vesta felt the strength in her wounded knee go out as his head smashed down upon hers, forcing her to drop to the ground. She could feel blood flow freely from her nose. She couldn't will herself up as the man backed away, her blade lashing out at the space he had once stood. Damn this knee, she cursed, grabbing her scabbard and driving it into the ground as she slowly tried to draw herself up to her feet as her knee howled in protest. So much for deftly dodging his heavy blows. Her eyes watered with pain as she drew herself to her full height, pointing her sword out towards the man like a fencer. Vesta stared at the man as blood dripped down from her chin and splashed against the stone floor. She bared her teeth like an animal that felt threatened as she locked eyes with her old adversary; however, her look quickly softened into an almost pleasant smile if not for the blood. She sheathed her weapon, rolled the stiffness out of her neck, and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Are you still talking?" she said, her left hand teasing the hilt of her weapon.

"Still conscious," he replied.