@Ponn Great to have you back! As much as I mess the eldritch tentacle gentlemen I hope to get comfy with the only magical girl who can use “Killer Queen” as their theme song…actually she’d be the second since we have a Chess Magical Girl, but she’s not dynamite with a laser beam.
• Devil Arm: An ovoid shield taller then Roche herself, ending in sharp points on either side.
• Emblem: A smoothed obsidian tear dangling from a necklace always hanging under her clothes.
• Magic: Counter! In guarding against an attack or sudden impact with the environment, Earthshaker absorbs the energy into herself and stores it along the white markings across her body. This energy can then be released either through her body or her Devil Arm for a reprisal of greater force than the original as she adds her own force to it. It is not an automatic response and requires her to meet the blow with either her limbs or Devil Arm with conscious effort in order to absorb the hit.
• Background: If you put in the time, do good work, and be diligent in all things, then you will inevitably be rewarded.
There is no path can be barred if one holds these to be true. Or at least, that's what the calligraphy hanging proudly from the cramped walls of the Hananami apartment told. The kanji didn't particularly flow with grace and the lettering wasn't to the exacting standards one would find from a proper traditional household, but it held a place of pride in the small home carved out in the city where a single father and his daughter lived. They were far from comfortable but they two had each other, and an unshakable belief fostered in one another that they could prosper together.
A young Ryoba Hananami looked at her father like he was a giant, his rail thin figure and growing bald spot unseen to the wide, wonderstruck eyes of a youth. He was a salaryman by trade, toiling the long, thankless hours of their lot with a firm resolve that years spent in service would be rewarded so he could give his daughter the happiness all parents wished for their children. He worked holidays, left sickdays unused, and never refused a call even at the bleakest hours of the night.
And young Ryoba watched it all with pride in her heart, and when she entered school quickly found a welcome home in the track team of her schools. Always out at the field long after hours, running under the warm kiss of the sun, her enthusiasm and vigor an inspiration to her team mates. She was a straight laced student and her grades were as sharp as her athletic performance, putting in the work with the hope of securing herself a scholarship and spare her father the burden of paying for her college. The nickname 'Roche' had been coined for her then, as she'd developed a habit of saving up for her favorite hazelnut and chocolate confections, smudges of chocolate seen on the corner of her lips after every victorious track meet.
In these happy days she'd become a Magical Girl, protecting the city as a Miko-themed paragon of light who shielded the people with a smile. Every life saved was a good deed put forward, off setting the balance of the onerous night and lifting burdens from those who struggled ceaselessly.
Yet reality was more than welcome to provide them in her stead, and children were ever blind to the cracks of their parents thin veneers of perfection till it was too late. For all his words and brave smiles, the signs were always there. The heavy slouch that seemed to draw half a foot off his height. Heavy bags and sallow cheeks.
She only saw the unpaid bills waiting at her door because he'd chosen to throw himself from the roof of his workplace rather than his home. From father to a grimly accepted statistic in only an afternoon. Just like that, and the fragile egg of childhood disintegrated around her. The world poured in and she found the deafening silence of solitude eat her in great, sharp toothed gulps.
The day of the funeral was where her light was swallowed to the last, kneeling before a humble, unadorned gravestone in a packed space. Another service was hardly a dozen feet away, and the sky was a cheery blue fringing with fluffy clouds that didn't even offer a token effort to commiserate her suffering. Her emblem, once a pristine opal, dripped color amidst tears silently falling down her sun kissed cheeks, and she found herself stained in the pitch of blackest emotions.
In those first dark days when she found the robes of a holy maiden upholding divine order replaced with the mantel of a shaman, she fed herself on delusions of some malicious conspiracy that tore her family apart, and did things she regrets too much to ever speak of, but ultimately she came to accept a simple, defining truth.
The world is indifferent. It cared no more for her as a shining Light Magical Girl as it did then as a Dark Magical Girl. There was no malice in her father's fate. Just a lack of care.
So the Rock from which the track team was built formed hard edges, a tyrant no longer willing to serve as an example but to take command. The Light Girl who endured for others had been replaced by the Darkness who refused to yield because she wanted to break her enemies. And the Detention Club had found it's Rule Keeper, for Earthshaker wanted nothing more than to make the indifferent world bend to her rules.
Her father was hardly cold in the ground and she had fallen so far...no, to fall implied something was pulling her. She was digging herself down into the fire and the flame, and the weight of everything she had known was pulling at her to stop. She exhaled as a screech of metal and wind pulled at her magical garb, the loose garments and hood leaving her far more exposed then her old robes. Still she found them her only comfort as she stood upon the train station platform, utterly alone in a sea of humanity. A stone cast in the current from which everyone unknowingly poured around as she went unseen and unheard.
Invisibility was good enough to be a super power on its own, but to Magical Girls and the monsters they hunt, it was a given. It made it easy to forget how useful it was for everyday life, but the necessity of her new situation had forced her to experiment. What wonders she could hear, standing in the offices of her father's employer. Listening. Reading over shoulders. Watching what was his world outside their home with hardened eyes, she hoped to find wickedness. The jeers of coworkers gloating over a deadman and his silly ideals, or perhaps someone preening over getting the promotion long due to the man.
Instead she was met with coldness of the grave. She'd never understood the term "Wage Slave" till seeing the bloodshot eyes glued to screens, murmurs barely passed as they worked and worked and worked, yet grew no close to a reprieve of success. Yet Earthshaker's heart still clung to it's resentment, and she turned from those besides her father to the one above.
She blinked to awareness as the train pulled away and she saw a man move to the front, waiting for the next one. She'd grown quite used to his appearance, from his rounded gut and the obvious hair plugs that gave him an air of a man gone out to seed. This had been her father's direct boss. A man who'd passed her father up for advancement in favor of others many times over the years. She could recall hearing nothing but praise for the man from her dad, and just recall those happier days set her fists curling at her side.
It had to be his fault. He was the one who could have opened the door and let her family flourish. The hate in her heart turned it to stone, a flinty thing that cut her as deeply as her foes. Distantly, she knew what she'd planned was abominable. Even to the order of Dark Magical Girls she knew flitted through the city, it was taboo.
Roche's unseen hand hovered between the manager's shoulder blades as she heard the roar of wind and shrieking metal, a moment where she asked herself if this would make anything better. The answer was a clear and resounding negative.
With an unheard grunt she pulled back, hand drifting from her unwitting prey, and alighting upon the man next to him. An utter stranger that then stumbled to the side and cast the target of Roche's enmity right into the tracks while she watched with a cold gleam in her eyes.
And in the coming weeks she learned that the world kept on turning, indifferent to either man's departure. The flame's she'd been digging towards grew cold, the earth hard, and she realized all that was left to her was the cold stone of her nickname. A hole so deep she couldn't see the light that once bathed her, but it didn't matter anymore.
Her taboo went unknown and she settled in among the Dark Magical Girls, a firm presence beside their charismatic leader. The girls around her were right there with her, in the dark and the dirt as they hoarded power like dragon's their gold. A cold world would see them stripped and worn to the bone, so she'd see the world break before her, and made to fit their dreams.
• Devil Arm: An ovoid shield taller then Roche herself, ending in sharp points on either side.
• Emblem: A smoothed obsidian tear dangling from a necklace always hanging under her clothes.
• Magic: Counter! In guarding against an attack or sudden impact with the environment, Earthshaker absorbs the energy into herself and stores it along the white markings across her body. This energy can then be released either through her body or her Devil Arm for a reprisal of greater force than the original as she adds her own force to it. It is not an automatic response and requires her to meet the blow with either her limbs or Devil Arm with conscious effort in order to absorb the hit.
• Background: If you put in the time, do good work, and be diligent in all things, then you will inevitably be rewarded.
There is no path can be barred if one holds these to be true. Or at least, that's what the calligraphy hanging proudly from the cramped walls of the Hananami apartment told. The kanji didn't particularly flow with grace and the lettering wasn't to the exacting standards one would find from a proper traditional household, but it held a place of pride in the small home carved out in the city where a single father and his daughter lived. They were far from comfortable but they two had each other, and an unshakable belief fostered in one another that they could prosper together.
A young Ryoba Hananami looked at her father like he was a giant, his rail thin figure and growing bald spot unseen to the wide, wonderstruck eyes of a youth. He was a salaryman by trade, toiling the long, thankless hours of their lot with a firm resolve that years spent in service would be rewarded so he could give his daughter the happiness all parents wished for their children. He worked holidays, left sickbays unused, and never refused a call even at the bleakest hours of the night.
And young Ryoba watched it all with pride in her heart, and when she entered school quickly found a welcome home in the track team of her schools. Always out at the field long after hours, running under the warm kiss of the sun, her enthusiasm and vigor an inspiration to her team mates. She was a straight laced student and her grades were as sharp as her athletic performance, putting in the work with the hope of securing herself a scholarship and spare her father the burden of paying for her college. The nickname 'Roche' had been coined for her then, as she'd developed a habit of saving up for her favorite hazelnut and chocolate confections, smudges of chocolate seen on the corner of her lips after every victorious track meet.
In these happy days she'd become a Magical Girl, protecting the city as a Miko-themed paragon of light who shielded the people with a smile. Every life saved was a good deed put forward, off setting the balance of the onerous night and lifting burdens from those who struggled ceasless.
Yet reality was more than welcome to provide them in her stead, and children were ever blind to the cracks of their parents thin veneers of perfection till it was too late. For all his words and brave smiles, the signs were always there. The heavy slouch that seemed to draw half a foot off his height. Heavy bags and sallow cheeks.
She only saw the unpaid bills waiting at her door because he'd chosen to throw himself from the roof of his workplace rather than his home. From father to a grimly accepted statistic in only an afternoon. Just like that, and the fragile egg of childhood disintegrated around her. The world poured in and she found the deafening silence of solitude eat her in great, sharp toothed gulps.
The day of the funeral was were her light was swallowed to the last, kneeling before a humble, unadorned gravestone in a packed space. Another service was hardly a dozen feet away, and the sky was a cheery blue fringing with fluffy clouds that didn't even offer a token effort to commiserate her suffering. Her emblem, once a pristine opal, dripped color amidst tears silently falling down her sun kissed cheeks, and she found herself stained in the pitch of blackest emotions.
In those first dark days when she found the robes of a holy maiden upholding divine order replaced with the mantel of a shaman, she fed herself on delusions of some malicious conspiracy that tore her family apart, and did things she regrets too much to ever speak of, but ultimately she came to accept a simple, defining truth.
The world is indifferent. It cared no more for her as a shining Light Magical Girl as it did then as a Dark Magical Girl. There was no malice in her father's fate. Just a lack of care.
So the Rock from which the track team was built formed hard edges, a tyrant no longer willing to serve as an example but to take command. The Light Girl who endured for others had been replaced by the Darkness who refused to yield because she wanted to break her enemies. And the Detention Club had found it's Rule Keeper, for Earthshaker wanted nothing more than to make the indifferent world bend to her rules.
Her father was hardly cold in the ground and she had fallen so far...no, to fall implied something was pulling her. She was digging herself down into the fire and the flame, and the weight of everything she had known was pulling at her to stop. She exhaled as a screech of metal and wind pulled at her magical garb, the loose garments and hood leaving her far more exposed then her old robes. Still she found them her only comfort as she stood upon the train station platform, utterly alone in a sea of humanity. A stone cast in the current from which everyone unknowingly poured around as she went unseen and unheard.
Invisibility was good enough to be a super power on its own, but to Magical Girls and the monsters they hunt, it was a given. It made it easy to forget how useful it was for everyday life, but the necessity of her new situation had forced her to experiment. What wonders she could hear, standing in the offices of her father's employer. Listening. Reading over shoulders. Watching what was his world outside their home with hardened eyes, she hoped to find wickedness. The jeers of coworkers gloating over a deadman and his silly ideals, or perhaps someone preening over getting the promotion long due to the man.
Instead she was met with coldness of the grave. She'd never understood the term "Wage Slave" till seeing the bloodshot eyes glued to screens, murmurs barely passed as they worked and worked and worked, yet grew no close to a reprieve of success. Yet Earthshaker's heart still clung to it's resentment, and she turned from those besides her father to the one above.
She blinked to awareness as the train pulled away and she saw a man move to the front, waiting for the next one. She'd grown quite used to his appearance, from his rounded gut and the obvious hair plugs that gave him an air of a man gone out to seed. This had been her father's direct boss. A man who'd passed her father up for advancement in favor of others many times over the years. She could recall hearing nothing but praise for the man from her dad, and just recall those happier days set her fists curling at her side.
It had to be his fault. He was the one who could have opened the door and let her family flourish. The hate in her hurt turned it to stone, a flinty thing that cut her as deeply as her foes. Distantly, she knew what she'd planned was abominable. Even to the order of Dark Magical Girls she knew flitted through the city, it was taboo.
Roche's unseen hand hovered between the manager's shoulder blades as she heard the roar of wind and shrieking metal, a moment where she asked herself if this would make anything better. The answer was a clear and resounding negative.
She pushed anyway.
And in the coming weeks she learned that the world kept on turning, indifferent to either man's departure. The flame's she'd been digging towards grew cold, the earth hard, and she realized all that was left to her was the cold stone of her nickname. A hole so deep she couldn't see the light that once bathed her, but it didn't matter anymore.
Her taboo went unknown and she settled in among the Dark Magical Girls, a firm presence beside their charismatic leader. The girls around her were right there with her, in the dark and the dirt as they hoarded power like dragon's their gold. A cold world would see them stripped and worn to the bone, so she'd see the world break before her, and made to fit their dreams.
Chevaleresse
Fetzen
Neziul
Villamvihar
mickilennial
shylarah
