Lemons

Pokémon Showdown! [Invite Only]

Interacting With: @Asura — Location: School Hallways

---

Amy grinned hugely as she quickstepped through the hallways. She was back! Everyone was back! It was a brand new year for the team, and she could not have been more excited. The first day was always an absolute joy. She'd been at MSPA for three years now—but it felt so much less time!—and she already felt like she was coming home every time she walked into the door to the auditorium. All the people to meet! All the pokemon to see! Sure, their team hadn't been winning recently. But she just knew that this year would be the year! Just a couple more minutes and they could start up again! Go Team Swanna!

Of course, she was discouraged that they'd been losing so hard for so long. It was impossible not to be. But that just made her want to push through even harder! After all, what was the point of winning if it came easy? This year, this year for sure, they would make it all the way! She picked out a pokeball with a green 'R' stenciled carefully on the regulation red-and-white case, tossing it up and down in her hand as she skipped through the hallways, paying a bare minimum of attention to where she was going. "We'll get it this year, Rhubarb! You bet we will!"

It was a good thing that she stopped tossing it up and down just as she reached a T-shaped intersection in the hall. As she darted through it (faster than she probably should have), she found herself face to face with a serious-looking boy and with no way to slow down. Then she found herself face to face with his T-shirt. And then on the ground.

"Oof!"

As she looked up and saw—and heard—who she'd bumped into, her ever-present smile grew even wider. She'd seen this person around just once or twice; must have been a new student or she would've seen him more. She made it a point to know everyone, after all. But there was only one reason someone could be walking this direction, at this time, on this day! It could only mean a new member! Who else would stay this long after school? Sure, he sounded unfriendly, but Amy didn't take that as discouragement. She took it as a challenge!

She popped back up, dusting herself off and releasing her death grip on Rhubarb's ball before slipping it back into the pouch on her belt. "Hey! I've seen you around before, but I don't think we've met!" She gave a little wave. I'm Amelia, but you can call me Amy! You coming to join Team Swanna?" Not pausing to give him any time to respond, she hopped a little in place, excited and still giving that warm smile. "We'll definitely come out on top this year! With you on the team, how could we not?"

She resumed moving towards the auditorium through the mostly-empty hallways, but this time backwards, still hopping up and down in an energetic pseudo-jog as she waited for the boy. "C'mon, slowpoke! We're gonna be late if we don't hurry!"

You Can Become a Hero!

Maki Kirika

_______________________________________________ // INFO D A T A Full Name - Maki Kirika Hometown - Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Femme - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Attention-Seeking Kirika is hungry for attention. Forever filled with an urge to always have every eye on the room locked on her, she does her best to always draw everyone's gaze. The personality she's cultivated has resulted in what looks to be an easy confidence behind her as she moves, and though every step is filled with trepidation and fear, she does not show it easily. Fearful One of Kirika's great motivators is the fear she bears towards her Quirk. Its random activation when she was younger, coupled with the lack of any feedback about when it's active and the sheer duration it can last for, has cultivated in her a dread: what if one day, her Quirk refuses to break? What if touching someone no longer pops it open, and sleeping no longer fades it away? If these no longer work—if she no longer has the manual overrides that she needs to pull herself out of it—then what can she do if it refuses to listen to her? She vividly remembers the un-personing of her childhood. More than anything, she is terrified of being forgotten. Loyal Because of her history—both the consequences of her Quirk, and the fear that comes to her with it—Kirika has never had very many friends. She's only managed to find a really good, close friend once or twice. So when she does find one, she is intensely loyal to them. She is loyal, she is protective, she is attached. Some of it is in her nature; some of it is out of that same intense fear that they'll forget about her.

Physical Description Kirika is quite a tall girl, standing at nearly 170cm (or roughly 5'7"), with a stick-thin physique that looks more like a slender boy's body than a girl's. She feels somewhat like it should make her self-conscious, but she's thankful for it; anything to stick out more. Also somewhat helpful in that endeavor is her hair. Smooth and pin-straight, it falls in a violent silver-white curtain to more or less the small of her back. It matches her eyes, the pale gray of morning fog. The way she walks helps her grab attention as well: a smooth, crisp, snapping stride, moving perhaps a little bit more quickly than is necessary. It makes her look like she's perpetually hurrying, and it comforts her the way people look at her a little bit strangely when she's going about her business. When not wearing the dour school uniform that she's entrapped within, she wears things that, while well within acceptable range, tend to stick out a little bit. Her most common example is a tan trench coat that her father gave her when she went off to school ("In case it's raining, sweetie!"). It's a little longer on her than it is on her father, dropping just about to the middle of her shins. Personal History Maki Kirika’s first couple years were completely normal. Her mother and father, an editor and photographer respectively, doted on her. And while of course she doesn’t remember anything of that time, it was almost idyllic until she was about halfway through her second year, when her Quirk manifested and she vanished. Not just from her parents' sight. Not just from their hearing. Not just from their photos and family videos. No, her face even vanished from their memories. And so, her first memories are of smothering attention. Smothering attention and very seldom being left alone. And she didn't understand why, until one day she realized that her parents didn't notice her. The next years of her life would be characterized by a feeling of suffocation. When she was at home, it was that feeling of suffocation that worried parents give. She had very little privacy; even being alone in her room was a rarity, even up through middle school. Personal space was a thing that belonged to other people, and her mom was never too far away to reach out and touch her hand. When she was at school, that suffocation was the feeling of choking fear that comes with being forgotten. Her Quirk was unstable for a long time—still is, to some extent—and there were times when she would simply vanish, and times when she couldn't reappear. Though she always told people that touch would break it, every time it happened, she would tense up when peoples' eyes skated over her. Even worse were those rare moments when touching people wouldn't break it, at least not for a few seconds. She thought. She never could tell on her own, after all. About this time was when her attention-hogging personality began to come to the fore. She couldn't tell when her Quirk was active, it was true. At least not on her own. But if she was up in everyone's faces, when the whole room was looking at her, then she would always know. She would know. And, she convinced herself—in defiance of the facts—that the closer she was to everyone, the less likely it was to not break on touch. And with that personality came the start of a seething resentment. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she always needed to make sure people could see and hear her before she did anything. It wasn't fair that she was terrified of fading away, being un-personed so thoroughly nobody would ever remember her. It wasn't fair. But as she aged and gained some control over her Quirk, she began to experience another side of it. Yes, it was unpredictable, and when it went off without her knowing, it was genuinely terrifying. But, as she discovered when she was cornered on a city street at night before fading both her and her friend away, it could also be exceptionally useful. And that got her to thinking. Using her Quirk in public would certainly be frowned upon—if anybody could really tell, that was. But it would be difficult to learn how to keep it from activating on its own without any kind of instruction. Somewhere to learn how to properly use her Quirk, to peel back the anger that she had towards it, and to harness its burgeoning power as a force for good? Well, she'd lived in Sapporo her whole life. Ishin academy was just down the road, right? Character Arc Kirika's character arc is founded deeply in her fear. How her fear is created, how her fear is handled, and how her fear is eventually resolved. She has a remarkably powerful utility Quirk, something that could be genuinely terrifying if she were to embrace it all immediately. But she can't properly use it, because she fears it desperately. She grew up being terrified of being un-personed and forgotten since she can remember, and it's going to take her a long, long time to move past that. That moving on is going to form the crux of her character development. As she gains better control over her Quirk, her fear will slowly begin to abate. And though of course there will be moments of relapse where her Quirk activates all on its own and she returns to that instinctual fear, she will move past them, and eventually past that bone-deep fear to truly take advantage of the Quirk that she's been cursed or—she will eventually realize—blessed with. Quirk Description Kirika's Quirk, and the great object of her fear, is Null Field. At a thought, she can project an invisible bubble around her, more or less five feet across. She, and anybody within that bubble, becomes imperceptible. They'll still trigger motion detectors, infrared lasers; they're still there. But living things struggle with the same. They're not made invisible. More like...they're rendered so unbelievably unremarkable that people don't notice them, no matter where they are. The same goes for pictures of them, video recordings, and even memories; though the memory itself stays intact, there's no face to the person. Other than the somewhat restrictive size limit that requires people to stay close to Kirika, there aren't a lot of inherent factors that limit its use. Though it does constantly drain her energy when it's active, it's more of a passive drain than anything else. She may become tired and hungry a little bit more quickly and easily, but it's nothing she really notices. So duration isn't an issue. The main restriction placed upon its use is when anybody within the bubble does anything that would get them noticed for sure. Touching someone, throwing an object with an easily traceable flight path, having their footprints followed back to them; when one member of the bubble is noticed, then it immediately pops and reveals everybody. And while there's no set duration on the Null Field, once it's brought down it can't be thrown up again for at least a couple minutes. No do-overs. In addition, the field will break whenever Kirika falls asleep or is knocked unconscious—for the most part. Though unlikely, it can stay up through sleep. And this is when Kirika is the most afraid. Because if it won't break, even when she's not conscious...will it ever break at all?

Nigata Kayo

_______________________________________________ // INFO D A T A Full Name - Nigata Kayo Hometown - Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan Quirk Type - Emitter Gender - Femme - // PERSONALITY P E R S O N A L I T Y Narcissistic While you might not be able to tell it from first glance, Kayo is circling the drain of full-blown narcissism, obsessed with status and living on praise. Though she expertly projects a facade of a cutesy, sleepy girl, once you get past surface level she is revealed as the cold, calculating young woman she truly is. The picture is completed with her stunted empathy; so convinced is she of her own superiority that empathy for others is massively diminished. It's not completely gone yet, but it's fading all the time. Obsessive If Kayo latches on to something that she wants, she wants it to truly belong to her. This can be harmless; she can want something as innocuous as a new pen. It can also be something truly sinister, as she decides that a fellow human being is now hers. Spiteful A great deal of Kayo's life has been characterized by being hurt in various ways. The only way she could avoid being completely broken down was to build a shell of pure spite around herself, enough that even a small slight against her could have drastic consequences, and many of her motivations—including being a hero to begin with—find their start in anger and spite.

Physical Description At 155cm (about 5'1"), Kayo stands at a height just slightly shorter than usual (which only helps her, really). Her most noticeable physical trait at first glance is her long curtain of pale green hair, which she takes very, very good care of (it takes her nearly an hour to brush it out in the morning, it's a nightmare). Her skin is smooth and fine due to an equal amount of care. She has a narrow face and a sharply pointed chin. Finally we reach her brilliant green eyes, which are slightly off-putting to some people: they glow dimly in low light, and her pupils are narrow and slitted, like a snakes. She's almost always wearing a smile; it's just unclear which kind of smile it is. Personal History Nigata Kayo did not have an exceptionally good childhood. It was alright for the first couple years. Her mother—Nigata Kagami, an excellent doctor loved by all—had always been a touch strange, but she was too young to really understand anything about it. Until very early in elementary school, everything was fine. Everything was fine. And then her Quirk manifested itself just slightly later than normal. And it manifested itself while she was playing with her mother. She doesn't remember a whole lot of this time, but she does remember her mother grunting in surprise and pain and then looking at her with sudden malice. And from then on, her childhood grew harder. Her mother dropped the act, revealing herself as the raging narcissist that she was. Someone who only became a doctor for the accolades and praise. Someone who only acted nice because it made people love her. And somebody who had a minor and pedestrian Quirk to adjust her own pain tolerance. Because of her Quirk, Kayo's did very little to her. But now she knew that her daughter's Quirk was more powerful than her own. And she took offense. She became a monster to her daughter, alternately ignoring her, psychologically tormenting her, and forcing her to look in a mirror and use her own Quirk on herself until she was a screaming, crying wreck (mirrors still terrify her to this day). So it's not a stretch to imagine that Kayo began to pull inwards, and give herself the ego that her mother no longer did. This was only aggravated in school, where she would occasionally accidentally use her Quirk on other kids. And though she apologized profusely, they began to avoid her, all but one. And so, the only way for her to rationalize it and preserve the ego that she was beginning to build up for herself was to assert: they're all dumb. Everybody but Kaoru, they're all dumb idiots. And to make it worse, as her Quirk began to build in power more and more, pain stopped repulsing her. Instead, causing pain began to...intrigue her. All of these factors conspired to forge her into an obsessive narcissist who, additionally, was very fascinated by pain. And when she was a little way into middle school, these all combined to give her a horrible fixation on a classmate who she grew absolutely obsessed with. And when she fixed him with her eyes, when she caused that terrible pain, she felt a thrill like nothing else. Though she—with Kaoru's help—managed to escape her obsession, it still bubbled just under the surface, waiting for a new target. Crushing it down as best she could, she decided something then and there. If her mom was that jealous of her Quirk, then what would insult her more than becoming a hero? Character Arc As a character, Kayo is an exploration on inversions. She initially goes to IA out of spite for her mother, but eventually really, truly wants to become a hero. She starts her character arc with manipulation and obsession, and ends it with contrition and redemption. Rather than the character course of someone who wants to become a hero, aims straight for that goal and then perhaps dips down onto a dark place and becomes a villain, she is a character who starts on that dark path towards villainy, but manages to pull herself out of that doom spiral and become somebody that she can legitimately be proud of. And so, her character development over time is just that. The obsessive pit that she digs herself down into is not only a low point for everyone else around her, but a low point for her own health, safety, and sanity. The way that she crawls out of that pit—the challenges she faces in order to get there, the people that she's hurt that she needs to hopefully make amends to—is where the great majority of her character will be, and I'm very excited to see it. Quirk Description Kayo is so toxic that even looking at her can be dangerous. Her Quirk Venom Eyes can be activated any time she makes direct eye contact with somebody, directly tapping into the target's nervous system—specifically the pain receptors. With a pulse of a sickly yellow glow from her snakelike eyes, she can dial them up or down, causing either a searing, full-body pain or a deadening numbness, though she's significantly better at using the pain than she is the numbness. There are a few limits on this power. Since it requires direct eye contact, it has a limited range, and is almost completely useless, at least at the start, on people who either hide their eyes, don't have eyes to hide, can't use their eyes, or have no nerves to aggravate. Each pulse from her Venom Eyes additionally accrues a brief cooldown period where her optic nerves need to rest from the sudden stimulation.

Lem's Stash

“Come on, come on come on come on hurry up! We're not gonna get there in time!”

Saffron Mergansett

Saffron Mergansett

Name

Saffron Mergansett

Age

17

Race

Faunus (Weasel)

Nationality

Atlesian

Physical Description

Saffron—or Saffi, as her parents affectionately call her—is a short girl, standing at just under 5'2". Despite that, though, her build is slender and lithe, resulting in a somewhat waiflike appearance and a featherweight of no more than 100 pounds. Fittingly, she's not particularly strong, although she's quite a bit stronger than she looks. She has long bright orange hair that is perpetually unruly, though she does her best to keep it looking nice, and wide teal eyes that are constantly looking around at double time.

Strangely enough, unlike many faunuses, she doesn't have any kind of animalistic ears and has normal human ones instead. No tail either. For all intents and purposes, she looks human on the outside. But what she does have is a full compliment of very sharp, very angry-looking mustelid teeth and fangs. It can be very off-putting; an innocent-looking teenager opens her mouth and you think you've seen the devil. Because of this, she can't actually eat some common foods; she has a weasel's diet as well, and mostly eats meat, with some fruits and vegetables thrown in for flavor and nutrition that she can't get elsewhere.

Characterization

The best metaphor to describe Saffron is taking a car, filling it up, and duct taping the gas pedal down. She's incredibly energetic, extremely outgoing, and relentlessly high-strung. She's has a hard time sitting still for any length of time and is usually just...bouncing off the walls. A good word to describe her might be 'frenetic.' Friendly, too. She's always ready with a laugh and a smile, and has a tendency to drag other people along behind her in a kind of social gravity that she spends a significant amount of time engaging in.

Despite all that, though, and despite how hard she finds it to study, she is surprisingly smart, though it comes more in bursts of gunpowder knowledge and sudden insight than in any controlled release that someone a little bit more studious might have an easier time with (despite her smarts, she doesn't do extremely well in school). But because of that burst-of-insight knowledge, she's a...pretty terrible strategist, all things considered. It's certainly her weakest aspect as a Huntress. She much prefers going in quick and fast, making it out through sheer skill and quick wit. Consequently, of course, she has a bit of a reputation for being super reckless, and needs to consciously keep her cool most of the time to stop herself from going in guns blazing.

Backstory

The Mergansett family were...not well off. Like so many Atlesian faunuses, they were employed by the Schnee Dust Company, and all the horrible working conditions and wages that came with it. They barely had enough to live on. And life had been like for for both of them since the beginning. So, when they had their daughter Saffron, they determined: she was going to have the opportunities that they never did. And so, as she aged, they worked tirelessly, taking an insane amount of hours. They took out as many loans as they could to help their little girl find a better place in the world. And that little girl decided very early on what that place would be: she wanted to be a Huntress.

They beamed with pride, sending her to the best schools they could possibly afford, hoping she would get the best education possible and wouldn't be bullied (which, unfortunately but predictably, she was). But...she shouldn't go to Atlas Academy, right? The militarized school in this place that had sucked their souls out? Somewhere else would be better. Anywhere else. Shade Academy was too far away; it was going to be difficult for them to pay for the school, let alone transportation, and the whole family knew it. When she applied to Beacon Academy, they rejected her. The only place that was both close enough and allowed Saffron in was Haven Academy. And so she went. She'd finally made it in!

But still...she nursed an awful fear in her gut. All those loans her parents took out to put her through the best schools and get her here? They'd need to be paid back sometime. And they wouldn't have the Lien to do it. So, she decided to put absolutely everything into becoming a Huntress to help pay the bills. It's not just to protect people anymore. Now, it's to protect family.

Semblance

Saffron's Semblance is Flickerswitch, a powerful—if risky—ability. Saffron doesn't have a huge amount of Aura to begin with; Flickerswitch essentially turns it into a fuel gauge, allowing her to consume it to dramatically increase her speed, flipping and dashing around so quickly she's hard to keep track of and leaving a trail of blazing yellow light behind her. She's generally okay with it, but her energetic recklessness can get the better of her, and as of now, it's on a pretty high burn. She needs to be really careful with it, or else she can put herself in a great deal of danger.

Weapon & Fighting Style

Named (ironically) for her lack of skill in strategy, her main armament is Checkmate, a pair of quick, powerful machine pistols that can flip to a pair of chunky, tanto-point knives with frankly concerning speed, which is only exacerbated by how quickly she moves around.

And that's really what her fighting style is based around: speed. She's small and relatively weak, so she relies on blistering speed and overwhelming volume to drill through her enemies before they can tire her out and drain her down. While against one or two foes she goes all-in from the start, the strict limits on her Semblance means she is—or, at least tries to be—much more careful during extended combat.

Intangibles

Despite her recklessness, Saffron is a surprisingly good team player. It becomes much easier to hold herself back when someone else is actively creating a plan, so it makes her significantly easier to work with if there's a strategist worth their salt along for the ride.

Though of course she makes heavy use of it with her guns, she's pretty helpless at using Dust in any other way. She understands that there is a principle to it, but it would take so long to learn it! Why do that when she could be working on her strengths instead?

Pokémon Showdown! [Invite Only]

Amy

"We can do it this time! We just need to try a little bit harder!"

<sub>18 | Femme

Character Synopsis</sub>

Born in a high rise in Castelia City, Amelia—but please, call her Amy—has been a social butterfly since she reasonably could. When she was in middle school, someone tried to bully her by throwing her backpack into a trash can. Those two became the best of friends and he cried when Amy's mom got a new job out in Mistralton. She still talks to him regularly.

It was a bit of a culture shock, going from the glitz and glamor of Castelia to the more industrial Mistralton, but she adapted to it quite well, and early in her high school career at the Academy—already well on her way to becoming a skilled trainer, despite having no real gift for it, through pure persistence—she'd already amassed quite a crowd of people that she was happy to call friends. She's more than ready to cheer them on all the way to Regionals!

And hey, if that means she can take Rhubard, Dumpling, and Lemon to the top with her hard-won skill, that just makes it better!

_{Character Ties}

1) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out. Add more if needed.
2) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out. Add more if needed.

_Pokémon

1) Rhubarb the Servine | Male | Overgrow

Tackle
Growth
Leaf Tornado
Leech Seed

2) Dumpling the Minccino | Female | Cute Charm

Double Slap
Encore
Pound
Tickle

3) Lemon the Emolga | Female | Static

Thunder Shock
Quick Attack
Charge
Spark

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

---

The kids apparently did not appreciate the little lesson she attempted to give them. Looked even more scared, actually. Fucking cowards. And Galeil also didn't seem to happy. Ah well, at least he recognized that they were her lessers. She gave an exaggerated shrug as she asked her to directly channel into the crystal herself.

"Oh, don't me wrong, I'd love to. Maker knows you need it up here. Problem is, my magic's real strong and real wild. I try to channel a crystal, it goes crack-pop-boom. And I assume you're not looking for fireworks in here." She gave him a half-grin and tapped her eyepatch. "How do you think I lost this eye?"

Still. As much as she joked with him, she was kinda pissed. She went to all the trouble to give those pyromancers a lesson and this was her thanks? They fucked up harder and now their teacher was angry with her? If there was a problem with their form and focus, it's because he didn't do a good enough job training them. Incompetent. But hey. She knew when she wasn't wanted. This wasn't any fun, anyway, and her cannon just hit full charge. Another exaggerated, theatrical shrug, at odds with the focused frustration in her voice. "Still, looks like I'm not needed here after all, right?" Her eye flashed a blazing yellow as she ripped a soulflame from one of the windows, hopping up into the frame and preparing to jump down again.

You must not shirk in your duty. You must not leave the fire. And you must not abandon your comrades.

"Maker damn you, Mom," she muttered. No matter how much Galeil had galled her by not training his stupid students well enough, they were still the pyromancers keeping them alive, and they still needed protection. It was her duty as a pyromancer of Midnos, and as goddamn annoyed with them as she was, she wasn't quite mad enough to ignore what she'd been taught and leave them to their own devices. It wasn't their fault Galeil hadn't trained them properly, and it wasn't really Galeil's fault that they needed to be coddled as much as they apparently did. A flash of memory flickered against her mind and she shut it down with a snarl.

So instead of leaping down like she so desperately wanted to, she remained in the arched window, sighting along her cannon just in time to watch Fianna the Bloody turn into her sobriquet's namesake. Her sword exploded into the air until it embedded itself in the keep wall. Quinnlash smirked. "Least I'm not the first one to go this time, Freakshow." She'd be back soon anyway. Death wasn't really a big deal for her. Well, it wasn't a big deal for Hunters in general as long as it didn't come too often, but it was an even smaller deal for Fianna. The blue-haired woman with the long spear was falling towards the city, still gripping the back of a dying Void roc. No point shooting that one anymore. The Ldranti with the huge fuckoff shield had gotten slapped to the side, and the melter was...still alive, actually. Quinnlash raised an eyebrow. She expected her to be a stain of charcoal on the ground by now. Seemed like this one was made of tougher stuff than the others she'd seen. And she'd just ripped the ogre's chest wide open, revealing its pulsing innards as she exploded on it.

"Goddamn. Not bad," she said absently as she sighted up her shot. The angry kid had been tossed far enough that she wasn't too close. The Ldranti had been knocked a good distance away. Both of them could still move, so neither was too much in danger, and Fianna was currently a red stain on the ground. They were mostly out of the splash zone. It wouldn't be a big explosion anyway, not like the previous ones; her soul was pretty fragmented, and she could feel her magic weakening substantially. And she was really, really bored. So, as the cannon roared beside her and she felt the burning metal blistering her skin, she belted out over the twin storms of thunder and Void in a voice that would carry for a mile:

"SHOT GOING DOWN! WATCH YOUR SHIT!" She waited for a moment, giving time for people to move out of the way if they wanted to.

And then, a whispered "Boom."

With an enormous smile on her face, she let the shot fly. A burning fireball hurtled forth, rocketing down to the ogre at tremendous speed before detonating. She'd aimed for its chest cavity, but she was high up enough that she honestly had no idea where it'd gone. It had been even smaller than she'd anticipated, honestly. Guess she had the four flames she'd ripped out of her a minute or two prior to thank for that. But the sound lit her up inside nonetheless. She leaned back slightly and called into the crystal chamber, "If you need me, I'll be up here. Keep channeling, Galeil. I'll deal with it if you need defense."

Another cracking sound. Another reload. And as she waited for the charge, she turned her attention inward, fire dancing along her fingertips. Wouldn't do to make that promise and not keep it, after all. And though the soulflames in the windows should help, one never did know, and she should never shirk her duty.

Maker damn you, Mom.

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

---

"Fucking lunatic," Quinnlash muttered as Fianna did...well, Fianna things. Maker, the woman was goddamn creepy sometimes. Still, she'd told Quinnlash what she needed to know. Everything was at least nominally handled down here; she could get herself back up to the tower and do her best to stop those pyromancers from letting everybody die horribly. She turned her wary eye away from the Void all around her, squinting against the blinding rain to look up at the arched window that Galeil's fire had splashed against and through. It certainly wasn't a big target, all told, and it would be unfortunate if she missed. Still, her cannon had been building charge for a bit now, it should be okay to—

Her thoughts were cut off as a sky-ripping cry echoed from above her and she looked up in time to see the shadow of a fully-grown roc, corrupted by the void, cast in harsh relief against the clouds by sweeping lashes of blue fire. Her eye widened fractionally for a moment. That was the blue-haired Hunter again. She wondered for a moment how she managed to get up there before a grin spread across her face. Didn't matter. No way she was letting her have all the fun. Just because she was headed into the tower didn't mean she couldn't make a detour along the way.

She stared up a moment longer, calculating distances, trajectories, running through backup plans. The explosion would be too big to drop it on the ogre without injuring Fianna, the Ldranti, and the melter, so best not do that. Then, with another bellowing laugh, she jumped outwards from the wall, towards the endless Void.

Just as she was about to hit the ground, she slammed an almost fully-charged shot into them, leaving a hole thirty feet across. As the shockwave blew painfully through her, she blasted skyward towards the roc, howling with mad laughter. The remnants of fire from her cannon seared across the sky as she went, a meteoric tail as she rocketed upwards, already charging another shot. She directed herself with small, powerful bursts of pyromancy; rotating, sliding, getting herself in place as she shifted herself around and twisted backwards, placing herself firmly between the enormous void and the Hearthfire keep as she neared the apex of her flight, only perhaps fifteen feet beneath the massive corrupted creature. From here, she could see the iced hole in its wing, could see the azure hair of the Hunter on its back, could hear her crazed laughter so familiar to her own. Her smile spread wider. "Heads up, Ice Queen!" No more than a second later, she blasted it with another explosion. Though it was of course weaker than the last, it was enough, with gravity's help, to send her bolting towards the window. One more course correction with pyromancy, and—

A roc hatchling, its cry like a knife scraping against a sheet of steel, dived towards the opening itself, drawn to the glow of the Emberstone within. With a deft movement, she slammed into it as she fell, catching it between her legs. It snapped at her, clawed at her, but she just smiled harder as she sailed through the window, crushing it between her thighs with one last burst of applied pyromancy. It let out one last strangled cry as it split into two, the halves crumbling to ash and falling to the ground just a heartbeat after she landed ten feet from Galeil with a thunderous crack and a madcap grin. "Sorry I'm late!"

As she straightened up, she tossed her rapidly-failing braid back behind her and gave an offhanded salute. "Hunter Quinnlash Loughvein, reporting for duty!"

A moment later, as she watched the pyromancers staring at her, her smile vanished, replaced with a stormy frown. She gestured angrily at the apprentices. "What the hell is this?" More confused looks.

She flung an accusatory finger at the apprentice just clockwise of Galeil, which steadily traveled around the circle and pointed to each in turn. "Your form is completely wrong! Your focus is clearly almost completely shattered! Your form is off too, even more than hers is! Your form is off too—do you people have no idea how to channel a Hearthfire?" Sparing a second or two, she adopted a mock channeling stance in front of the crystal, though of course a Hunter couldn't actually channel into it. "Like this, morons! Head up, back straight, legs evenly spaced, shoulders back, arms fully out in front! How long have you been doing this, three days? And all of you are too nervous! Your arms are trembling so much they can barely channel at all, let alone properly!"

Another Void rocling screamed through the window, and without stopping her rant or even looking, she thrust out a hand, roasting it to an ashen crisp with a jet of scorching flame. "Galeil's clearly needed in the defense effort, since he's the only one of you that's at all competent. So you need to be able to hold this without him! Maker help us if this is what's supposed to preserve the Hearth! You need to ignore this shit! Don't be afraid of the Void!" She lifted her cannon to her shoulder and reloaded it, pointing it threateningly at the kids. With any luck, the golden flash of light and the sudden sharp report would get them properly intimidated of her. "Be afraid of me if you don't calm down and fucking FOCUS!"

That said, she whirled around and stalked to the wall, leaning against it, but keeping her attention sharp. Whatever happened, she needed to be ready. These stupid kids got Void anywhere near them, and the Hearthfire was probably doomed. The cannon in her hands, ready to fire at any moment, began once more to rumble and roar. It was louder now, with the rain and Void outside muted by the thick stone walls. She rent her soul into four more pieces and flung a hand wide, placing an everburning soulflame within each of the windows. She hissed and swore as the pain redoubled before she spoke one more time. Aggravation dripped from her words, masking the pain in her voice.

"You super-special kids have a full-fledged Hunter here for the sole purpose of keeping the Void off you. So focus up and do it right."

Pokémon Showdown! [Invite Only]

Amy

"We can do it this time! We just need to try a little bit harder!"

<sub>18 | Femme

Character Synopsis</sub>

Born in a high rise in Castelia City, Amelia—but please, call her Amy—has been a social butterfly since she reasonably could. When she was in middle school, someone tried to bully her by throwing her backpack into a trash can. Those two became the best of friends and he cried when Amy's mom got a new job out in Mistralton. She still talks to him regularly.

It was a bit of a culture shock, going from the glitz and glamor of Castelia to the more industrial Mistralton, but she adapted to it quite well, and early in her high school career at the Academy—already well on her way to becoming a skilled trainer, despite having no real gift for it, through pure persistence—she'd already amassed quite a crowd of people that she was happy to call friends. She's more than ready to cheer them on all the way to Regionals!

And hey, if that means she can take Rhubard, Dumpling, and Lemon to the top, that just makes it better!

_{Character Ties}

1) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out. Add more if needed.
2) TBD later if accepted. Do not fill out. Add more if needed.

_Pokémon

1) Rhubarb the Servine | Male | Overgrow

Tackle
Growth
Leaf Tornado
Leech Seed

2) Dumpling the Minccino | Female | Cute Charm

Double Slap
Encore
Pound
Tickle

3) Lemon the Emolga | Female | Static

Thunder Shock
Quick Attack
Charge
Spark

In Search of Gaea A Seafaring Fantasy Adventure (REBUILD)

---

The Sharkfin, Lower Decks | South Seas Ocean

---

Tella looked quickly down at her feet as Marina entered the diving chamber with her typical flair for the dramatic.

She hadn't been too fond of Marina for longer than she cared to think. Being neck deep in devotion and propaganda to the Imperial cause had the lovely little side effect of her deeming anybody that had left as a 'coward' and a 'deserter' and 'unfit to lick the Emperor's boots.' Of course, she thought different now; she'd gained a great deal of perspective recently, after all, or she certainly wouldn't be preparing to drop from a Diver vessel.

But still. The pure embarrassment over her former steaming, simmering resentment had her looking at the floor whenever the fellow 'Imperial' was around, and very pointedly avoiding most contact with her. Still...she'd been looking back on her days in the Academies more often recently, at the people that she'd known and the bridges she'd burned, and she found herself profoundly missing Marina. It had been years since they'd known each other. Eight since they'd talked? She remembered them being fairly good friends once upon a time.

But then again, she thought bitterly, she was a very different person back then. The Tella of today was a shattered shell of her old confidence, especially in her headstrong adolescence.

Still. As silly as it was, as burnt out the embers of that ancient friendship were, Tella missed her. And hearing her again, recognizing that same cadence even now, only made her miss Marina more. And so, as she made one last check of everything, she raised her eyes shyly from the floor. Her voice trembled slightly when she started, but as she continued, it steadied out:

"If the sea really was sick of us, then we'd have all sunk to the bottom long ago, no?" A deep breath, and she finally brought her eyes up to Marina's soft violet ones. Not entirely sure what to say, she fumbled some over her words, but kept speaking. "The tides may bring terror, but they—Mother Ocean also brings hope too, right? And joy. And...forgiveness as well. And we should thank her for that."

Contradicting Marina in that particular way would probably get her labeled as a wet blanket, which was...well, certainly not conducive to rekindling any faint embers of the friendship that she remembered.

But she'd at least talked to her. And that was a start, right?

Pariah Online: A Voyage into the Intangible Aether

---

Alja bit her tongue in frustration. Looked like Kazuki was dodging around things again. But at least Luci seemed...well, she didn't seem like she was doing great, but she seemed reasonable, at least. Last she'd heard, the swordsinger had still been absolutely catatonic. If nothing else, that was comforting. And the two of them were speaking pretty normally. A sudden spike of doubt punched through her. Had she been wrong about what was going on between Luci and Kazuki? She'd gotten better with people as Alja, but she still couldn't read these situations instinctively like she wished she could. In situations like these, Kelly was far too prominent for her liking.

As they spoke, she found her eyes wandering past Luci and into the chapterhouse proper, roving to the side where she knew Leaves' room was. She was worried about her. Really worried. She hadn't seen her at all since Arnaakus, and she'd seemed shot all to hell at that point. It was only natural to worry, regardless of feelings she might hold for her. Right?

Still. At least they had an objective now. Or she did; she didn't know how the rest of her party would react. She nodded to Luci, leaning against the wall herself. "Children of Letria, huh? I've played with 'em once or twice, on decent terms. See if I can bring 'em into the fold, get some lines of communication opened." A moment passed, and she moved away from the wall, nodding at the other three. "If you want to get a head start, you can head on over there. Or go do somethin' else, I can probably back Pris up on my own if you have pressin' stuff to get done." Her eyes roved again, back towards Leaves' room. "I've still got some business here, so I'll meet back up with ya later. Capisce?"

Steal Away The Light

Location: Uhladein, Eastern Marches

---

Quinnlash leapt backwards, breaths coming fast heavy. The flames dropped from her hands and feet as she hopped up on a shattered-off piece of the tower, taking a moment to survey the fight. It was going...well? Or if not well, at least it was going predictably. The Void was encroaching, and normal humans were falling back and taking shelter. Whirls of blue flames and ice spat from the rooftops, alternately torching and freezing flying Void in its wake. It moved smoothly, quickly, as though gliding. That would be the Hunter with the spear and blue hair, she thought. The one that held herself like she was some kind of special. The one that looked at Quinnlash like she was better than her or something. She twitched, and her lip curled up in a sneer.

In front of her, the paltry remnants of a guard patrol ran from the army of Void goblins, and the enormous ogre-shadow at their head. Between the two of them was the little one, the small Hunter with the angry eyes. She radiated heat, steam rising from her constantly as the rain poured down. Her claw-talons, the ones that Quinnlash had thought were inefficient weapons, were blazing white-hot. Perhaps not inefficient at all. But certainly painful. As she watched, the girl rushed to meet the mass of Void, shearing through them with ruthless savagery. She left molten footprints as she went, the stone itself yielding to the immense heat before the rain darkened it once more. Quinnlash snorted scornfully. We've only got five and one's a Melter. Of course. Thanks, Maker.

She hadn't seen where the tall pink-haired Ldranti had gone, but from the horrifying sound of a Void creature being butchered and bellowing in pain coming from around the other side of the keep, she could probably guess.

And, of course, along the top of the wall was the only Hunter here that she knew personally. As usual, her body was some degree of twisted, and the metal...meat...sword...thing that twisted out of her arm gave Quinnlash a chill that few other things could. She'd had the...dubious pleasure of working with Fianna a few times. Midnosian Hunters both, after all. And every time. Every time. It always ended up with her dying. Sometimes once or twice. Sometimes over and over. She growled deep in her throat, and her cannon growled with her.

There was a grating shriek from above and she snapped her head skyward in alarm in time to see a blast of fire explode from a tower window. The Void had taken hatchlings from a roc, seemed like, and they dipped to strike at the pyromancers that tended the Hearthfire crystal. Their mother couldn't be far behind. As skilled a pyromancer as Galeil—it had to be him, she didn't respect any of the other idiots up there—seemed to be from that blast, the Void was far more than he could handle, or else the Hunters wouldn't be here. A half-forgotten memory of a voice whispered in the hidden recesses of her mind: You are a pyromancer. Pyromancers like us are the final line, and have the final say. You must not shirk in your duty. You must not leave the fire. And you must not abandon your comrades. We are the final line. We have the final say. All of us. The phantom memory galled her, and she waved it away with a snarl and a swear, spitting foul-tasting Void blood and dry ash from her mouth in disgust. "Fine! I'll go! Now fuck off!"

With a few deft steps, she bounded over broken chunks of masonry, bouncing across crumbling, rain-slicked fragments of stone towards the wall. Crazy or no, molten-hot or no, that girl wouldn't last long against a horde like that. She was a Melter, after all. Mostly cannon fodder. But the longer the cannon fodder lived, the easier the real Hunters' job would be. She moved like a wildfire, burning without stopping through any Void in her way, until she topped a steep pile of rubble where she could have a moment to aim and unslung her cannon.

She pressed it to her cheek, pointing towards the lone, white-clawed figure that blazed incandescent within the swelling Void sea. She had a much better angle here. Wouldn't risk immolating the guards if she twitched. The world was lit with the cold white glare of lightning, and with an abrupt exhalation, she pulled the trigger. Another tremendous explosion burned through the night as she unleashed a blazing pyre upon the ogre, careful to catch the other Hunter out of the blast radius. Or at least only slightly within it. The ravaging inferno consumed the enormous beast and anything even remotely near it in golden radiance. It certainly wouldn't die from that. It would take at least two or three fully-charged shots to bring one of those to its knees, let alone kill it, and this was far from that level of power. She could tell it was in pain, though, and the burning goblins streaking through the air like little meteors brought a smile to her face. She gave a casual salute towards the girl. Least she had some breathing room for a couple seconds until more came to fill the gap.

Thunder rolled in the distance, and just like that, the smile winked out. She couldn't spare the time to really enjoy it anyway, not before the anger flooded back. With a few more nimble leaps and some well-applied bursts of pyromancy, she topped the wall, staring out at the endless Void ocean. In the lull that followed the last crash of thunder—the comparative lull, at least, only the hissing of the rain and the horrifying sounds of the Void—she turned and shouted at Fianna with a sharp and loud voice, another lightning-harsh sound accompanying another golden crack and another soul-deep pain as she reloaded. It took some doing, breaking the crazy woman out of her battle trances, but she was still the only Hunter here that Quinnlash was familiar with, and as much as she hated to admit it, the only one she could even moderately trust. At least as far as she knew. But that didn't hold if she couldn't even think. She needed her to listen and talk. Now. "Hey! Freakshow!" She kicked a fist-sized rock at her, smacking her in the back of the head. "Snap the fuck out of it, dumbass! You—"

She broke off, whirling a high kick at a Voidling that came scuttling up the wall. As it connected, a burst of flame surged out of her booted foot, launching the sickening creature back into the rest of its kind with a chittering scream. Three more followed and she gnashed her teeth. The enormous barrel of her cannon was suddenly wreathed in ethereal flames and she swept it back and forth like a warhammer, slamming it through their chitinous shells and sending them flying as her pyromancy consumed them. She glanced down and saw a swarm of the insectoid creatures skittering up the wall at her. Her cannon wasn't charged very much, but it was more than enough for this, and so she brought it to bear and it poured out a curtain of blazing light, knocking them from the stones.

As the swarm collapsed, it let out a sound like ten thousand knives on ten thousand stones, and this time she beamed, throwing back her head in a laugh of absolute euphoria and letting the freezing rain dull the pain, if only a little, as it washed the ash and ichor from her face.

When her joy abated, she huffed out another heavy breath and stood straight again, tossing her sodden braid behind her. She turned to Fianna, Undying Light resting on her shoulder and still leaking remnants of the pyromantic flare. The searing light flashed again on her chest as another soulflame nestled into the core of her cannon and began to swell as fast as she could grow it. In defiance of the rain, the familiar pain surged back stronger, carving its way through her whole body. Her eyes darted skyward at the boiling rainclouds overhead. Who knew how much time the pyromancers in the keep had left?

"You all up shit's creek down here, or can I head up?"