HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

It began not with a war call, nor with a burst of violence, but instead with a flicker, at the edge of what could be caught. Were it not for the fruits of his hard labor in the dream that had been granted upon them all, Gerard was sure he would have been smote in that single stroke.

A flash of movement, a nudge of the wrist that a duller eye would have believed a twitch, barely running down the length of her bone-wrought blade.

The faintest whisper of wind approaching, honed to an edge so fine his ears barely caught warning before it brushed against his skin.

Barely there. Tells even the prescient would struggle to read, of such he felt certain— it was by Reon’s grace that he saw the truest sign of danger, one that seemed in its own right madness, everything he saw falling out of line for the barest instant.

Deadly experience roared to life within him, one of the many quaint lessons imparted by Cyrus at the end of his Hammer— when the world is split before you, no matter how impossibly, you by Reon’s grace got the hell out of the middle.

An instant later, fast as he could, the knight let his feet take him to the left, choosing the side of the world that brought him close to where his mysterious opponent stood, his longsword coming to bear in the wake of the unseen attack even as a thin line opened onto the fresh steel of his helmet, and his thoughts raced.

That was different from the projected slashes he had become accustomed to, insofar as what repeated trouncing at the hand of Rui had taught him to be able to see— they didn’t attack his perception like the pale lady had, either. It was impossible, surely, to split the world. He’d seen as he had darted to the side, the change in angle revealing only a light fissure through the earth where he had stood but an instant ago. Had she cut at his sight itself, the same as the realm’s mistress had attacked the Duke’s mind?

He whipped the point around as he came into the dominant angle, outside her sword arm— his first blow swiftly tearing through the air towards her veil. Not quite a simultaneous counter, but decently close— enough that he could test her defensive reactions with it. Already, this much told him that he’d need to stick close if possible— whatever the true nature of that projected cut was, he wasn’t keen on finding out how far away she could manage it from by way of getting stuck on the outskirts of her range.

No, not his sight. His eyes were working again as soon as he had thrown himself clear of the divide. Her cut had landed upon his visor, not his vision.

So what the hell, then? Invisible, barely audible, still sharp enough to rend earth and steel… But with a tell that threw everything he saw behind it into a subtle offset. Vexing. And dangerous, even before the fact that despite the veil obscuring her face, he’d felt her eyes on him just as his were measuring her.

Hn. Were it so easy to confuse her sight similarly. But unless he wanted to kick up the bisected corpse and stain that veil of hers red… such potentially unsporting ideas would need to simmer while he fairly, honestly, and valiantly kept himself alive. He had accepted a challenge between the two of them, and no other. If her steed would not ride to her aid, then…

There were far less openly foolish ways to cross the Fae than chucking a corpse at them.

He doubted their blades wouldn’t cross here. His full weight and strength was behind the blow— If they reached a bind, he would take measure of her strength before trying to wind over for a a thrust. The unseelie lady was as dainty as any foe he had seen upon the field of battle, practically a reed. In approaching to present arms, Gerard had found even his rather middling height to loom over her. He was probably thrice her weight.

All things that were at most points similarly true of Tyaethe, a few hundred meters away. He had a nose for a suckers’ bet— if he could muscle her around, he wagered he’d find out the old fashioned way.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

A familiar sensation washed over him from somewhere behind, that of waking up to a warm breeze in the midst of a summer's dawn— his accumulating ails sliding away as they came, taking things somewhere that felt more or less sustainable. He caught the minty green glow casting itself softly onto his drawn steel before he whipped up another surge of profaned fire—

"Shit—"¹

He'd barely begun to brace himself for the impact of the Wroth's true power hammering down onto him. Even in the barest instants of it all, this Thundaga was clearly a level far removed from the errant fulmination that had been drawn his way by chance and conceit. He had readied himself to put that hasty, instinctual bet of his to the test—

And then, as though a bolt from the blue herself, Izayoi had appeared high above, catching the falling hammer on her blade and adding its strength to her own, rending straight through the steel that cloaked Adrammelech's essence. To draw and counter the storm itself... He had only just written that idea off as foolhardy, bordering on impossible, if he tried it. He'd found about four reasons in as many seconds why... yet there it was. The sight of his doubts being so simply, almost pointedly shattered would surely stick with him for the rest of his days.

Adrammelech roared in fury, snapping the entrenched young man out of his awe as he tried to take advantage of the sudden gap that had been torn into his armor, his greatsword whipping around at speed to cast another projected wave of fire forth even as the spirit cast both dragoon and samurai into one another and sent the pair flying— and then with a clap of thunder, disappearing altogether.

"Izayoi, Gala—"

No time. Your sustain is in danger. He's above, and looking at your healing!²

It was a damned good thing Selene's speed was still upon them all. To his credit, Rudolf snapped to, immediately pivoting and reacquiring the two story thunderhead into his vision once more. Not an instant too soon, either— the last moments of Adrammelech's gaze sweeping over where he and his attaché stood were all he got to herald the lifted fingertip and thin arrow of lightning that burst forth, trajectory terminating a few feet past his left shoulder. Just enough to react with first impulse, and no more.

Story of his life.³

"EOS, HIT THE DECK!" he roared, wrenching himself to the side and reaching out, trying to add at least one more layer of defensive insulation to the tiny green firefly than just a warning— interception by way of sword, arm, or body was a damned sight better than one of their two healers going down in a fight like this—

As for the other...

For the moment, she had gotten a layer of frosty stalagmite between herself and the falling spirit, but he needed to recapture full attention as soon as he could. The distance wasn't all that far— maybe if he could cut it off—

The bolt struck him in the shoulder, and his jaw clamped shut, teeth gritting at he let the wards eat most of the burn and instead cast a souring curtain of fire a few feet above the razor tip of the icy punji spike— depending on timing, he could either obscure it just before the moment of impact and buy Miina a second of broken visuals to get out of dodge, or follow up the collision with a heavy, lingering cowl of the stuff while Adrammelech was still occupied with the six feet of ice that he'd suddenly dropped into.

---

---

• _{1. It was only ever psyching himself up to go out there. The thing about putting on a brave face is that, at some point, it always comes back off. But this is the path we chose.}
• _{2. All things being equal, even he has to admit that it's a damned good thing that I, in moments like these, can now communicate much more effectively than just pointing danger sense in a barely-specific direction and letting his body figure things out from there. Being eyes in the back of somebody's head is a lot easier when you're allowed to get the interpretation of the stimuli part done instead of waiting for them to hopefully guess right at your meaning.}
• _{3. Prior to voicing any complaints, please refer again to 1. That means you.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

The hand of misfortune struck heavy and with relish, Miina's well-intentioned but all too faint warnings dashed to pieces by the hammer of high heaven about Rudolf's ears, the errant Thundaga as loud as any cannon that had ever drawn a rose's hue onto Eliane's cheeks. His ears rang, and the stench of ozone and smoke filled his lungs— but her protection had overlayed onto his form just in the nick of time and no sooner. Taking the cloven-hooved titan's heralding fulmination right to the damn dome had hurt for certain, but proven survivable— his fingers flexed when asked, and his breathing hadn't gone erratic even with Selene's Swiftness embossing his movement.

Good, all good. That said, though, the undirected strikes of lightning were hard to predict even with that haste applied— and he couldn't get around the sense that it wasn't quite so effective as it had once been. He'd been grappling with that inkling feeling all through the moments were the Kirins had torn through the blightbeasts like scythes through wheat, but it didn't stand to reason that the purple fairy's boon had somehow been weakened, so much as—

Another thread of lightning crashed against his back, the third in nowhere near as many seconds. It obliterated the idle thought before it could really complete, leaving again the strange impression that maybe he wasn't taking to outsourced haste quite so well as he used to. That being the case, it had proven again that he couldn't quite rely on dodging, given that these were the incidental threads of contact. A long blade of steel upon his back, and a yawning chasm where he had once held at least meager fortune— between them, lightning seemed to quite readily strike twice, and then some. His mind raced... and found itself taking a very different tack than the suggestion he'd been too momentarily deafened to hear.

I have an idea. You might not like it.¹

There was the disembodied sensation of a nonplussed blink. Evidently, somebody in this equation wasn't used to being on the receiving end of that sentiment.

Huh?

"I've got the front," he called, swallowing a lump of fear in his throat even as his hands rose to grip the pommel of the tall, smoking greatsword at his back. He stepped forward, a deep puff of air loosing as he exhaled, trying to purge that sensation of clammy palms and pale complexion from his body. They were just all the lightning, he told himself, that was the only reason his hair was going wild, and the hammering heart was just the haste at work. Sword drawn, the young man set off at the head of the group, breaking into a charge. The alternative, he dimly realized, was probably completely locking up. It had been this way for so long he had almost forgotten how to recognize it— that the ideas he verbalized were probably more for his benefit than any one of theirs. "I'll do what I can to draw the lion's share of the heat onto me! You guys encircle him, attack from the flanks! We faced down Leviathan— just one attendant's in reach if we play this right!"

His guard was high, an exaggerated Vom Tag. Lightning liked three things most of any: high places, metal, and Ithar's blacklisted. While Adrammelech's direct attacks wouldn't be rerouted, even pulling the errant, incidental sparks away from his comrades would give them a lot more breathing room atop the Barthunder² that coated them all.

Hold on, what happened to smartly approaching your problems? Your first thought is turning yourself into a lightning rod. Even with the Nulshock, you're playing a dangerous game to maximize the hits you take. You saw what happened to your blonde friend last time lightning was allowed a free point of entry.

This is smart, Rudolf countered, letting his will flood the six-foot empty vessel above even as another bolt careened into it, running down the length of steel before crackling at the edges of the arcane barrier around him. They were right, of course— each shot still felt like getting brained with a sledgehammer, to put it mildly, to the point where it felt a shame that his armament might not retain the charge afterward. Even if the Eidolon's mighty servant almost certainly held immunity to the element it commanded. But all the same, Etro had afforded him at least one rare blessing at birth: a really hard head. We're buying openings! Listen, just worry about keeping the fire burning and whatever you can do to shield my heart and my brain!³

I can't guarantee anything, but you dying means me dying. I'll try and figure something out. This is what Arton, and that materia you chucked him, are for.

Not happening! You've seen the state he's in same as me— and with him out of the fight, I'm the next most robust person we've got. I don't like it either, you know that damn well!

With the fae boon still upon him, it was a simple matter to close the distance between him and his quarry— now came the hard part. He whipped the blade around into an uncharacteristically weighty slash to Adrammelech's right leg, attacking the joint of the knee with the physical force he could pull out of the empowerment— and letting the high-spiraling tornado of blackflame in its wake ravage the titan's torso as it climbed. He would need to get close to contribute meaningfully to the battle anyway, and with him not being terribly confident that his speed was completely up to snuff compared to before and them down their usual bulwark... pivots needed making.

There was a great crash as steel met steel, and he craned his neck to lock eyes with the thunder elemental. He hid the nerves behind a grimace, he hid his grimace behind a growl— Izayoi's master had been bad enough already to stare down. The ram of thunder was easily three times as tall. Basically the size of a house, and actively crackling with the power it held that made your every hair stand on end, made your instincts scream at you to run away and not draw this thing's attention.

And Rudolf had to make himself the most pressing target on the board, so his teammates could swarm him and take him down, or at least prove they stood a fighting chance against him. He summoned the image of his brother from within the recesses of his mind. The broad back he always chased. That man was so like those brief glimpses of Arton he'd seen before the Blight infection had truly metastasized; even if faced with a primordial like Ramuh himself, or Leviathan before, he wouldn't falter. He would meet this challenge, even if the very storms their Midgar blood knew to above all else respect were the hurdle he had to overcome.

Of that, the young swordsman was sure.

"You're in our way, goat!"⁴ he roared, bringing the length of the greatsword back across his field of view a moment later, another line of ink⁵ drawn upon the arc he cut through the air, a spray of onyx flame spreading towards Adrammelech's head, his eyes, high above. Hopefully, the smell of ozone and singed flesh would mask the scent of deceit— the constant hammering of Dhinas's smiting judgement all around him cloaking the same of his pulse. "We've got places to be!"

Those opening moments were precious for setting the tone of a fight. Even with seven of them versus one of the wrathful thunder spirit, he prayed that he had at least extended the first stanza by enough for everyone to reposition well enough to bring their full ability down onto their foe— while they were still warm from the fight with the Blightbeasts, maintaining tempo was crucial. that was the lone upside to having this test dropped into their lap with neither warning nor processing time, to the point where he wasn't even sure if he'd had a moment to internalize any of what Cid and Ramuh had revealed of the former's particular, strange existence. He didn't know what he thought of that, or how he weighed it against the Grovemasters issue, or how it played into his running tally of everything that had happened in this forsaken jungle. He'd not had the time to think.

And that was likely what pushed him here, to trying to buy Izayoi, Galahad, Esben some time to come up with an actual strategy beyond this opening. If he had known this was what he'd be facing, had time to sit with it, would he have made the same choices? Would he have swam, or sank?

Wasn't that what it always was? Sink or swim, with no time to see what was coming until it arrived? They hadn't expected Leviathan to turn out this way, either. Nor their ride here, nor their expedition into the desert. It was always this. Think fast, nimrods! The scariest shit you've ever seen is right on top of you!

If you stop to realize that, you're already dead. That's the lesson.

So the test then was... were they ready to keep having to ask "how high" when the world they wanted to save told them to jump? No matter when, no matter where?

For his part, Rudolf hated every second of it. He wanted a damned break, he felt like he'd proven all this twice over.

...And that probably meant he was in for the long haul.

---

---

• _{1. Huh?}
• _{2. Nulshock. In civilized tongues with real, respectable understandings of magic, it's called Nulshock, not Barthunder. I thought this vessel of mine was the educated one.}
• _{3. At this point, my mind is racing as quick as it can to try and turn my aether currents around to put some passable buffer between those two (in fairness, most immediately vital) organs and whatever electric rolloff makes it past the ward his mage has so kindly bestowed onto him, likely knowing the type of nincompoop she was tagging along with beneath his facade of pursuing most effective tactic available. It's obvious to me that this 'all or nothing' approach is the idea he's latching onto as a response for the need to act immediately— a plan that he can put into action before he terror spirals. One of these days he'll realize that this is what he's been doing the whole time, but that's a discussion for moments where I'm not about to learn if I can use the expression of my presence to reroute the path lightning takes as it tries to ground itself. This is a bit more complicated than simply digging a channel through the side of a riverbank, Rudolf.}
• _{4. Obviously the genuine article is more draconic, but those ancient scribes and artists that most of the continent's religious iconography stemmed from probably had a hard time getting their heads around depicting that— and went with a ram's head because they felt some connection to the astrological Capricorn was poignant, or because that was the closest thing they could think of that they had seen that had horns. You'd be appalled to learn how much of your understanding of history and myth is just heavily mangled guesses made by sheltered idiots.}
• <sub>5. I burn more luck, he gets more flame, the lightning and the lizard man get more inclination to strike him twice, thrice, and so on, instead of his pals. Everyone wins! This is some ruthless calculus at play, even if it works. I'd be over the moon with it, of course, if my continued existence weren't tied to the idea that this team can outpace the punishment we're inviting onto ourselves. The principle of taking a clear cause-and-effect chain that's dumpstering you from most reasonable outlooks and bending it over your knee until you pull some kind of advantage from it is what I'm all about. These systems are made to be tamed. It's fun viewing when somebody clues into that.
  
  I just don't appreciate having my essence tied to the margins being played. It's little wonder I keep being compelled to chime in.</sub>

Falling Skies

LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN "COMMIE"

---

<<Yo, Bunny. You still alive?>>

The harsh midday sun had painted his cockpit gold, as the Shrike circled the stricken Sparrowhawk's crash site, his presence thankfully enough to ward away most any bright-eyed Coalies that fancied themselves battlefield executioner. He had been busying himself with, putting it bluntly, staring into the sun— cycling through each sensor array and photographic filter he had available to him in those brief moments he felt safe to take his eyes off their foulmouthed Rabbit, the rubble of the poor building beneath her shifting as her systems came to. That shot had come from somewhere within the glare— new prey loitering on high, picking away at them and the Helldogs from a nasty angle for any attempts at reprisal. He had more or less triangulated where the shots were coming from, even as he squinted behind his opaque visor.

But orders came in. His pound of flesh, once again, had to wait. That was... fine. Not to his liking for a single second, but his opinion didn't matter in an offensive of this scale, let alone in the face of their CO. They were here for the long haul anyway, so he didn't doubt his chances of this being far from the last bleeding edge Coalition opponent, same as thing werr up in High Atmo. He had a job to do— and he'd been told, in no uncertain terms, that it needed doing in a way that didn't hold him back.

<<Understood, Vulture. Be back in a moment.>>

He had breathed in deep, after giving his hails through the comm line, barely a moment after Sab's lilting French tirade had assailed their ears. Bit of a shame, he'd not found any time to deliver her his favored ripostes as their usual repartee had spooled up before she'd gotten her flight surfaces thoroughly scrambled. But nevertheless, if she was treating their ears to it that meant she was more or less fine— and he had places to be. His targets were painted, at the far edge of the city. Rear guard, in the middle of setting up a sniper encampment. If allowed to persist, the high-caliber munitions would create an untenably deadly crossfire between them and their mysterious newcomer on high— and the latter was already evidently watching their movements specifically for the potshotting. He'd been keeping count of the lines of yellow while he'd loitered, whatever it was up there that was trying to pick them all off was being particularly judicious.

Fine. If he was on the lookout for the fast movers of the drop... then Kilmer knew how to get attention. His muscles tensed, his posture sank forward, his blood boiled as lightning ran through it... and he punched the throttle, like he was trying to rip it all the way off.

As the Sparrowhawk dug itself out of the rubble, it would see the Shrike give a slight waggle of the wings from high above, like it were Commie's idea of a cheeky wave...

And then it was gone, as a long-tailed Comet streaked through the dust-choked Gelcastre skies. The air ripped open with AA fire, flak nets and rotary guns trying their damndest to catch the blue-white line his afterburners dumped onto the picture. They had already netted their share of Sparrows for the day, so surely this wouldn't be too different, they no doubt reasoned.

As if taking offense to the notion, Kilmer yanked hard on the controls, and grit his teeth as he burned past the triple digits—

<<Stupid bastard must have gotten hit! That's another down!>>

And the Shrike hit the deck, diamond dust in its wake as he dropped below the city's skyline, weaving his line of blue through the gaps in Coalition zoning code.

His breath hitched, the corridors of residential and office buildings streaking past on either side of his cockpit, the wind that bounced off cement and glass whipping against his airframe. You had to feel for whomever didn't have the foresight to move their car the hell off the street before the Union offensive had gotten here— The pressure front in his wake was already wreaking havoc on some of the cheaper windowpanes high above.

His head was on a swivel as he rolled his bird through the city's main streets, checking his clearance and course for split-second corrections. It was a tight weave, no doubt about it, but in Commie Math it was worth the risk— ducking down to street level kept him below the angles of attack the Coalie flak nets could muster, the buildings would conceal his vector of approach from the rear guard sniper-spotter and artillery teams he'd been sent to deal with, and...

[WARNING: ENERGY SPIKE DETECTED.]

His arms flashed over the controls, firing retros even as he banked hard away from a city park, one splotch of greenery in the concrete jungle— one that was promptly torched by another beam of sunlight, a half-second (and thusly a couple towers of the financial sector) from nailing him.

... It limited their voyeur's opportunities to take a shot that didn't have a very ugly set of consequences attached.

He blinked a bead of sweat out of his eyes, mind and body continuing to race as the Shrike chewed up distance, click by click, second by second, ducking its way through an unspeakable gauntlet of execution tests as Gelcastre's city center came and went. All that benefit, for the low, low cost... of just a few Gs. He strained even as he craned his neck to keep his vision active, muscles screaming out against the insistent momentum with each maneuver. His organs threatened to paste themselves against hius creaking ribcage, his heart pumped in double time, fighting to keep those dark corners of his vision from completely taking him...

<<Commie, engaging enemy fire position!>> he growled, voice thick with exertion, as his screaming chariot cleared the last of the skyscrapers, a pair of 50mm salvos streaking out from his beak and colliding with the mobile missile platforms, detonating their payloads prematurely as the Garmr and Skollr, to their credit, tried to hop to when their enemy had suddenly arrived on their doorstep. The Shrike swooped high, finally gaining a little altitude for the first time in what felt like an eternity—

This is gonna hurt.

And her psychotic man in the box ignored ache in his chest and the taste of copper on his tongue, as she unfurled from aircraft to MAS proper even as she tore through the distance between them. By the time the beam saber had sparked to life in the prototype's hand, it was practically atop the Skollr, too quick by half to allow it to tear itself free from the cannon emplacement.

<<FUCK! WHAT THE FUC--KZZZSSSHH—>>

Two shots rang out, drying the last of the flyboy's magazine even as the blaze of the cored mech billowed high, a brief second of a curtain between him and the ill-fated spotter— both rounds shearing through the monoeye camera. Barely a breath later, Kilmer's blade closed the book.

Backlit by three blazes, the Shrike's visor returned to the sun, the spot of gold on black hunting for the spot of black on gold.

<< Vulture, Commie. Long range bombardment teams scuttled. Requesting clearance to intercept.>>

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

An eyebrow rose, as hidden from view beneath his visor as the nonplussed expression he imagined on the pale waif's face, moments before her silent contemplation had been broken when one of the smaller, weaker interlopers of the hunt had broken ranks and charged him ahead of schedule. That weapon she had pulled free from her sternum, like a hand out of a glove... evidently, it was ample sharp, no matter how oddly constructed at first glance.

"As you wish, then," he spoke, eyeing the two halves of the slain figure for a mere moment before stepping through the middle, his boots stained with the drying red. His strides were even in tempo and measure, nothing sudden, nothing shifty. Brazen, almost. As he closed the gap between them, he let his idle thoughts fall away one by one, the voids in their wake clear, open, ready to house focus. Her abilities were still mysterious— he would note and use every clue he could before they could be brought to bear against them. Chiefly, the speed of her slice had been enough that it had at least looked like she may have cut the wretch in two from afar— and storing the blade within herself as she had, and its bonelike appearance... those also left room for the idea that it was some grotesque manipulation of the body at play, as well. That would possibly mean alterations to the length or rigidity of her blade or her body itself.

His sword rose, slowly, in a mirror of her posture once they were but the length of their armaments away from one another. He nodded, seeming to believe a wordless, expressionless understanding reached between them.

In all cases, minimizing the distance between he and her would help mitigate those advantages such qualities would give her over him at distance. It was earnest pageantry, sure, but not always impractical in being so polite. Two sides to everything— where his battles against mundane men had seen him fall to a hot fury so often... against the supernatural, mystical things he always seemed to encounter beneath moonlight (in one way or another), frosty reason was every bit as dominant.

"En garde."

He tapped the flat of his sword's point against hers, before pulling it away into ochs, as mayhem began to rain down around them.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

The assignments didn't shock him. He was damned sneaky in his own right, and had plenty of tracking experience— but more than once had proven the odds stacked against him in the endeavor in recent memory— be it Izayoi feeling his eyes on her when he'd tailed her to Kurogane's Smithy, despite his best impression of how Esben moved (which he had since attempted to continue refining, because failing bugged him), or just days ago, when the world itself had seen fit to conspire against him when he moved in a much more familiar element than city streets, among crowds. Even in his best condition, trees were all but falling on his head at this point. The vaunted skills of Osprey's shinobi were always a better pick, even before the black cloud that hung around him— one that likely would have given him away to any of the targets no matter how well he hid.

They'd just smell the twisted aether.

"Mm. That makes sense to me. Galahad, once we're inside we should beeline for where we tooled those deserters— a whole fight in there didn't really draw any attention that I remember. Plus, it'd have to be fairly close to where they themselves were lying their heads— probably somewhere empty we can set up without too much issue."

Another sound of tearing parchment covered the silent interplay between their two Skaeller representatives, and as the discussion broke down from group to between individual cells, one withering glare being endured surely lead to two¹, as the young swordsman shifted to face the newcomer's direction. He didn't meet her gaze with his own, with good reason— the dark stick in his grasp was moving across the fiber, beginning with a steady arc that became an orb, then casting carefully considered lines atop it— construction principles, each as thoroughly beaten into his muscles as the arcs, whirls, and lines of his swordplay². His brow furrowed, conjuring memories to take the place of life reference, which he always preferred— it was easier to capture the intangibles of emotion, expression, gesture when you saw them.

Granted, the last was irrelevant for this first page. But to that end, the impressions he pulled forth were not of their enemy, spitting bile at whatever devil she believed Cid to be, but of the kindly mentor he'd sought at camp— regardless of how he or the party now saw her after they'd cast themselves on either side of that line in the sand... that would be the person Isolde would show her flock. No reason to think it would even be ingenuine in Brightlam and for the people of her homeland, but at the very least, she would need to keep playing that role so long as she held it.

As he let the charcoal glide along, he addressed the viera in a clipped tone, not hostile but pointedly all business. In his experience, the best thing you could do when met with someone like her was meet them at their level. Friendliness would have to wait for the day his accent didn't knot her brow from the jump.

"I'll have your references done for you in a couple hours— this'll be a headshot at 3/4ths, then I'll map out another one for full body. Won't be comprehensive, but I have the silhouette and most of the louder details of her robes and frame down fairly well."

A momentary pause, as he raised the charcoal stick to his temple, mulling something over. He liked how a lot of his hatching turned out when conveying value and dimension, but when it came to identifiers... monochrome was something to work around.

"Given the medium, I'll leave notes as well, for gaps in what I can portray. Hair color, eye color, gait, so on. If there's any part of your process that needs that kind of specific detail covered, please let me know now. I wanna knock this out while the idea's fresh."

---

Blightbeasts. Bears and wolves, mostly, but he noticed the odd gorilla in the mix— warped and monstruous as they all were, a tier above most wildlife even at their weakest, he was surprised at just how numb he had become to their howls over the past seven months. The first few days of their spread into Edren's borders had been nightmarish for everyone, even the Sagramori who had cut their teeth taking down their noncorrupted counterparts. A coward like him had only escaped the scorn of desertion by being scared too stiff to run in the first place— then forced by fear of death to defend himself.

And then, as some of the most storied exporters of hirable muscle in the country, those days rolled into weeks, into months, and then into nearly half a year, constantly on call to try and fight an eternal war on these invasive pests that didn't even have the grace to be good eating, for all the fury in their flesh and blood. By the time he had joined the Kirins, the protests that his village were more than monster hunters seemed to only be for his own sake— even he had pitched one of his strengths as being an old hand at dealing with the Blightbeasts up close and personal.

So. Three days on the trot, slowly stripping away the distance between them and Brightlam, mile by brush-chopping, sweat-drenched, and hard-fought mile. The roll of thunder and crack of lightning had called them here, as though Himstus's war drums— and who was at the center of it but mighty Ramuh, Dhinas's chosen... and Cid himself? Man, they had to stop meeting like this. Would that tiny church be the only time a fight wasn't hot on their heels when they ran into this guy?³

Rudolf breathed deep, and cleared his mind of the idle chatter. The heat was sticking to them even worse as they trudged south, and when they were caught in the denser jungles it felt like each broad emerald leaf overhead was the roof of a sauna. Smoothed the brain over if you let it, as did mindless traveling. Maybe it was a lucky thing that they had a horde of these malcontents to fight— the rushing blood would resharpen the mind, and with it being a favor for Cid and another eidolon, maybe they could get a little more in the way of answers once it was through— or at least perspective.

"Nothing crazy. Not for us. Regular blightbeasts, just a lot." he reported with a breath, fishing his materia from its twice as roomy pouch before drawing his twinned Wings in close. Was he still nervous? Of course. He always would be, really, were the monsters real, imagined, or made more vicious than they were ever supposed to be. But, if they had been a familiar foe before the quest, by now...

"I'll set the table, if nobody minds."

... He barely needed to work up the nerve, especially since he wasn't staring down the business end of the eidolon in the mix. Ridiculous sentence. Funny how life worked.

The materia flooded with will, and in a surge of purple energy he was gone, springing forth into a mighty leap that carried him, blades whirling end over end, into the midst of the clearing. The world spun around him, and he spent that moment of flight relishing the cooling touch of wind that velocity granted, a reprieve after the long hike— before the whiff of storm's passage on the air told him his arc was about to terminate, as he was passing close to Ramuh. The tightly held swords swung out into a spinning, whirling slash at the very end of the journey—

And he crashed into the Blightbeasts' midst, the impact knocking a good chunk of them off balance, or even off their feet as the tightly commanded Gravity was cut loose.

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• _{1. Blatant assumption on his part. He really does live like everyone he can't see gives him the stinkeye unless they beat him in the head with a hammer the notion that they're alright. As an aside, I regularly feel like a hungry man being slipped a juicy, paranoid steak despite being more or less disembodied. It's great.}
• _{2. I know it's generally accepted between us to not be my place beyond serving as eyes in the back of the head during a brawl, but I enjoy having opinions on everything under the sun. If he really wanted to cart out this metaphoric comparison, he'd be served well to be smart about taking it further than just shapes. If he was as relaxed behind a sword as he was behind a piece of parchment, he'd be a lot more like what he's wanted this whole time— I guess that's why they say the pen is mightier.}
• _{3. Yes.}

Falling Skies

LTJG ROY KILMER, CALLSIGN "COMMIE"

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<<Yyyyou got it, Boss.>> the planet's most serene flyboy to ever drop hot drawled, kicking off his plate like a pair of worn-out sneakers as the raven-black MAS folded its silhouette into something far closer to a traditional aircraft, afterburners flaring as he took an immediate, sharp bank off to form up with Sab. <<Commie, dropping plate and forming element. Rabbit, I'm your playdate for the evening— you keep the Garmrs off our guys, I'll keep 'em off you.>>

In contrast to the undeniably hectic comm chatter surrounding the 7th, once they had genuinely hit atmo Commie had leaned back in his seat, shut his mouth, and settle in for the long ride down. He had trouble explaining it, whenever he was asked why he settled into that lax silence, because it wasn't like hearing the metal creaking or feeling the insistent, sporadic shove of high-altitude jet streams slamming into your airframe for a moment before you burned past them was all that therapeutic— he shared their CO's opinion on them at least that much. But maybe within those moments, where all you could really do was fall, he found his skill and obsession falling with it— a freedom that came with it all being out of his hands, for once. Let go. Sit back. Breathe, and appreciate the hues of flame. Whatever happens, happens.

But that was then. This was now, and well past kickoff. Back to work.

<<Tally ho on a flight of two Garmrs, five o'clock low from your position. Break right, I'll peel them off.>> he spoke again, his prized swaggering sangfroid once again on his tongue, throwing his bird into a tight corkscrew downward to engage the pair of would-be sneaksters. Riding the Gs like he'd slipped on an old glove, it was child's play to line up the shots with how the trajectories played out— by the time their Sledgehammers had caught up to where the Sparrowhawk had been before he'd spoken up, Roy was depressing the trigger.

The autocannon roared to life, directly below him now after the variable geometry had given him a plane for the price of a mech, and a tight salvo of 50mm rounds rained upon them, tearing into their control surfaces. The immediate smoke trail was a good sign that they wouldn't have a real chance of catching someone of the rich girl's caliber any time soon, nor indeed his own.

First, they'd have to survive the hail of crossfire between the ongoing UEE drop and the Coalition's own defenses.

<<Carlos, what the fuck is that thing that just hit us? My camera's out, I'm gonna have to RTB!>>
<<Some kind of prototype! Like those fucked up Sentries it was dropping with— Oh no mames, speaking of fucking Sentries——>>

Two fireballs bloomed from below, close to the city's ground level, adding small claps to the symphony of percussion and brass on high. The Shrike continued to loiter somewhere that kept it poised to intercept anything that wanted a piece of the Sparrowhawk, heedless of their fate. Eyes on the prize, and all that.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

"Horse," Gerard's monosyllabic reply came swift as ever, undercut with the sharp ring of drawn steel as he stalked forward, sword catching the light of the high moon. He could tell who Renar's little reminder was aimed at by now— it was likely enough that this had already simply become a pre-battle ritual between them. Luckily, he had come to a similar enough conclusion— and was confident that surviving Cyrus in any respectable capacity would mean surviving the Hunt wouldn't be so impossible as it once seemed to him. Behind the shadows of his visor, his eyes narrowed even as he took in the field before him, leading up to the veiled woman atop her gaunt steed.

A clearing like this was... well, horrid, putting it bluntly. So easy to get encircled here, but the nature of this little quest had more or less put better options out of the cards, as he'd been grumbling about earlier. Only thing to do with it was do as he always did— see the good in things. At least here they could track their foes clearly, after all. The thicket would have been nightmarish, for all it cut down on lines of attack, by making that much damned impossible.

What was more, the current locale offered them ample opportunity to maneuver through the massed hordes of the lower-ranks, and find gaps to close in on and lock down the obvious big shots that had appeared from the throng— in the depths of the forest, those paths might have been filled by branch or bush or entire hardwood. "Good hunting, boys."

So, those elites... Many of them had readily available indications of what sort of nasty tricks they had to pull that had earned them the elevated stature. A Man of Many Traps, Feathered and Furred Beasts on retainer... But his was a different story. Her veil and dress were pure porcelain, as though spun from threads of the same moonlight that cast them, and the many leering fae folk between, in washed-out tones of grey and blue. The horse she rode upon was gaunt, in his estimation too gaunt by half... Maybe some tie to famine? Hunger? She was a Pale Rider, after all...

"Reon guide me. May her light show me truth." he intoned below the beginning clamor, raising the flat of his sword to meet with his brow in one part prayer, one part present arms. All he had were guesses, meaning she was an unknown element on the field. None of these folk could wisely be left free to their own devices, obviously— so without any other recourse, the Knights would have to force her to show her hand while trying to keep her from interfering in Tyaethe's grudge match.

Of the lot of them, he had the fewest natural advantages to bring to bear against the other elites on the board— Fionn and Fleuri both had weaponry and skillsets better suited for area denial against the bestial hangers-on presented by the man with the bird and the man with the dogs. By process of elimination, that left him to deal with Miss Pale Unknown.

A very lucky thing that he had gotten quite, quite adept at keeping himself alive in the process of Finding Things Out in battle. A pair of the unarmored, grey-skinned men launched forward to cut off his advance— one was felled swiftly by a bolt from Rolan's crossbow raining down from high above, the other cut down mid-lunge by a quick line drawn from shoulder to hip. With a wrench of his wrist, a dark crescent of blood splattered onto the earth as it cast off the steel.

"Shall we dance, madam?" he called across the field, pointing the tip of his now-clean sword at her seemingly-delicate form. He spoke as though neck-deep in a bit he was running, but one could doubtless rest assured that he didn't take her quite so lightly as to assume her appearance told all."We've all night to get to know eachother."

Times like these, it was only the mission that kept him from asking himself what the hell he was doing.

First things first, he needed to know if these foes communicated— and if he was getting himself into a fight where her voice might carry arcane weight that demanded he silence it.

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

"So be it."

Sure enough, there it was. He'd had his immediate suspicions anyway, even knowing how young this Chisato looked from the jump— after all, invasions tended to file off the edges of what 'too young to fight' really meant for the nation on the defensive. He was content to leave his thoughts on the matter there, and not dwell on why else he didn't believe himself terribly surprised his first guess was right.¹

He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow, killing the urge to shoot the ninja a return salvo of dagger-eyed glaring as it came. No different from double checking how close his hand had drifted to his knife in the chapel with Cid when Izayoi had first set him down this train of thought his mind was trying to derail into— but he'd taken his moment to be so temperamental and burned it already while on the beach. The Kirins didn't need two, potentially three people trying to ignore the bigger picture in favor of indulging grudges. It was founded on partial information, and atop that five years in the books. He was better than that.

The sound of shifting parchment saw him pin his coppery gaze instead on the map before them all, poring over the layout of the city, retracing steps once Izayoi had denoted their lodestone of the council chambers. He folded his arms. The same objective and obstacles as their initial approach to Kugane before they'd made contact with Chisaki, but structurally it was a whole new game. They traded high city walls for tall, flowerlike mangroves, sitting high above a spirited river instead of nestled between dunes of dead sand. The only commonality, aside from the need to hide their faces from probable sentry nets, was that it was damned warm around both capitals.²

The immediate instinct was to insert from below, taking advantage of the waterways to meander upstream until the were beneath the city itself, shaded by the petals of those impossibly sturdy flowers from any perimeter watch... but boat traffic was going to be spotted and likely vetted from a ways off, and a group their size would be hard to slip below that initial notice unless they split into smaller cells that could maybe pass as fishermen. And provided that worked, there was still the ascent to contend with— he could see maybe an easy river or riverside approach, but scaling the stems thereafter would doubtless draw somebody's attention. The guard forces would be hopefully on alert regarding the threat Valheim posed to begin with, but they'd definitely be on the lookout for their lot. He had his doubts, without a better scouting report available. In hindsight, he should have paid more attention on their way in when they had a referral on hand.

"Regrettably, no. We actually got quite lost." the swordsman leaned forward, the wry edge to his voice not even remotely reaching his expression. Reaching out, he began at the council chambers before sweeping his arm across the parchment, more or less drawing a meandering path that winded through the many disregulated and seemingly organic corridors, alleyways, nooks and crannies. More than once, it doubled back on itself, or sharply deviated from a general trend— the leaf-wrought buildings had really done a number on them, in retrospect. Once he had the trail locked in, though, he began tapping intermittently along it. "That said, from what I remember: here, here, here, and ...here, though this one's a tight fit for the eight of us— All good and dark nooks and crannies that we could use once we're inside as stakeout, staging, or meeting points. They're quieter than the surrounding foot traffic, well-obscured, and a couple of them aren't too far if you actually know where in the maze you're going. Worst we'll have to deal with are maybe pickpockets and common muggers, but they're a good sign. They wanna evade the law same as we do, after all."

Pulling away, he reached into his nearby pack for a moment, both to store his blade oils and to procure his stick of charcoal and an unmarked section of parchment. "Getting there's the hard part. I've only come up with the obvious idea so far, that being... one sec. I more or less remember the base."

He pressed the page into the earth, and his right arm began to glide across it, confident strokes in its wake. After a minute or so, a rough markup of the profile view of the city's support structures had come together, an arrow sweeping up from the river and along the stalk. With this copy, they could scribble whatever the hell ideas came to them during the meeting without obscuring the actual proper map of the city.

"Approaching on the river until we're beneath is where my first thought went, but I have trouble believing we get up and into the city without somebody noticing. And that's provided they don't have the river under heavy watch to vet unfamiliar vessels. Hearing Goug tell of how busy Isolde's been, it wouldn't shock me if waterside checkpoints are being set up."

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• _{1. You know, now that I think about it, it's all but outright the proverb of casting stones in a glass house. I won't press the issue, since he's more pliable like this, but he was upset that he didn't get to go have "wartime experience" as a wee lad. Not exactly leaving much ground to stand on. You chose wisely, kid.}
• _{2. And the bunny ninja! You just brought the first one up, don't forget that you've had a bunny ninja tag along for both. I'm looking forward to the hat trick in Skael, when the average height and average bust brunette viera named Chisame smuggles everybody into Solitude. Maybe she'll be a SEED.}

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Rudolf Sagramore

"... No complaints from me so far." a flinty grunt floated in from across the clearing of the two Ospreyan nationals, as the smaller of the two men that had caught a sharp edge to the diminutive hare's gaze bit into a chunk of dried, spiced meat— the first batch of bear jerky they had wrought from making use of the tribe's smokehouse. His hands busied themselves in anointing the blades on his person with oil, having just sharpened three in turn as Izayoi was hers.

He stayed quiet while his jaw worked, letting Esben handle vetting the newcomer for now— all the message Rudolf needed on that front was the care in which the SEED had chosen his words with her in earshot. They couldn't necessarily bargain on what they'd given away already before they knew she was there, so he wouldn't volunteer any specifics right out the gate. Even if she seemed authentic enough at first blush, it didn't hurt to exercise caution with where they were now— hell, doubly so, given the last time their ragged group had gained a new hanger-on. Let the specialist in clandestine affairs take the lead— if any of them would be able to spot a thread while talking, it'd be him.

And she did seem authentic, at the very least, to where she should have hailed from. On an even more basic level than accentation, garb, or the seals emblazoned onto her red and black robes¹, Rudolf's redoubled efforts to be vigilant had caught the difference in how she beheld he and Galahad from the rest of their number. Disgust on its own was simple enough to fake once you understood how to wear a mask, that much he was well aware of— but few could manage the nuance of barely missing the mark in hiding it away as a deliberate affectation. Forged tells couldn't be too subtle, for fear of going unnoticed. And you didn't hide our feints. You showed them, in service of building up and breaking down expectations.

This had that uncomfortable pang of familiarity from a place far drier than here— from a person he'd been too fearful to draw the ire of, the same regard that he'd once held Izayoi in. At the very least, he bought the Viera as hailing from Osprey, just as her taller, blonder, and almost-identically named counterpart had when she affixed Robin with a rancor-filled glare, seemingly a lifetime ago. It was a good thing she wasn't here to try and greet this one.

A silver lining to that, at least. For all it seemed he had always been dumping a bucket of icy reality onto her bright-eyed idealism, there was a part of him that took no joy in watching history catch up to her the way it seemed it was everyone else, this one through no fault of her own. Her will to fight wavered with its sudden arrival... and then she was off. A hollow victory, for all the times he argued things were greyer than she saw them.

Asakura. He wracked his brain, searching back through what he had learned after the war's end for the name. He found little, beyond the overview of ninja and how they worked that had survived first contact between their two nations— rogues by any other name, assassin, informant, and scout all in one. In the opening weeks of his training under Cadmon, they had gotten the threat they posed him in particular out of the way—

"Izayoi," he began after finally downing the jerky, his narrowed eyes not leaving the bowing girl and his hands still tending to his blades. His tone was controlled, neutral, inquisitive at an arm's length. "You recognize this one, by chance?"

As Rudolf Shilage, that had evidently been quite timely of his instructors, for he was far more of an exploitable asset than any of them had likely bargained for. Perhaps this little hare would have some personal skin in the game on that front, if her story checked out. His father had rampaged through their countryside, after all, in an attempt to get at the very same woman he was intending to pry a little enlightenment from.

As with the departed Songbird, if such were true. As with her, and him, and Izayoi, and Galahad— even Miina, now that they were here: A man could run away from anything, but nobody can run from their past. He suspected his cast-off heritage would be revealed to her before the moon had even risen, at this point.

They'd see how much the professional, curt tone was genuine— at least compared to someone else they all seemed to know. He'd made a habit of sleeping with his knife in reach for too long to stop now anyway.

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• _{1. I've always loved the red and black color combination. It's brooding, and violent, and speaks of the primordial flame that burst forth from the darkness that was once all. It might be why I like this idiot, too. Our aesthetic sensibilities pair wonderfully. Anyway, it should be noted that whatever that symbol is about an inch and a half above the haramaki is some sand rune I never took the time to properly learn, given that I'm fairly sure neither Osprey nor Viera had really developed writing in my day. At the very least, they never wrote to me— so I'll warn you right now that I'm not here to provide translation notes if it's not a kanji our daring hero here already knows.}