Hot glow subsiding, the mirror went dark, reflecting on its surface the remains of a small Nightmare, scorched onto the surface of the alleyway. Breath sharply inhaling at the slight cold, Lumiere’s purple eyes titled upward to look at the sky lit by afternoon. Those eyes had never seen Nightmares in the daytime quite like this, and that discovery was both curious and disconcerting. Moon shaped mirror floating to her hand, the white robes around her fluttered in glow as they vanished, returning to a typical light gray sweatcoat and jeans. Holding her emblem, she put the small hand mirror into her coat pocket and sighed, glasses slipping off her nose slightly.
Returning to the road, Kohane took to the sidewalk, mind racing as the street was empty. She hadn’t been in Miso City long but aside from taking down the odd Nightmare she really hadn’t encountered much, nor had the opportunity to find anything, but at the same time she felt like she could easily draw attention to herself if she made the effort. But if there was any anxiety around that, it was certainly about the kind of attention she might draw. Maybe she’d just have to bite that bullet: encountering a local magical girl would help her find some kind of direction, she considered.
A wind blowing through making her shiver, she pulled up the hood of her coat, pushing her hands deeper into her pocket. This place was colder than she was used to in so many ways. She felt her heart fall as she realized she hadn’t had a positive human interaction since she got here. Turning her head back to look at the street behind her, this off road remained so very empty.
• Name: Kohane Saegusa • Title: Lumiere • Age: 17 • Emblem: A pale yellow flip open pocket mirror, indents of crossed lines patterned across the back. • Divine Arm: A round mirror with gentle, gold colored protrusions that fashion it into the shape of the sun. Lumiere controls its position with a thought as it floats about her mid-combat. She can also change its size if need be, widening its diameter to about five feet (she can even fly on it, but not very quickly at all, and her weight would limit her ability to control it). It’s quite resilient but can be broken, greatly limiting its power until a recovery period is spent allowing it to repair. • Magic: Through the mirror, Lumiere’s magic is that of light and reflection.
Lumen Invocation: Lumiere’s most basic attack, allowing her mirror to fire off a beam of light. She can alter its properties somewhat: is it a soft glow merely to illuminate, or a blinding glare? She can make it shine a single color or even narrow the focus to become a searing ray. As light it moves instantaneously, but attacking requires a slight charging period, the glowing of the mirror beforehand alluding to the type of light she’ll use through color or intensity (though to a degree she can affect this, such as making the mirror glow lightly as it charges a larger attack, but the hidden light must be released, even if just before it goes off).
Boundary Reflection: A defensive technique. As long as the mirror isn’t in the process of another power, it can block and redirect attacks of certain nature, such as light, fire, lightning, or magic energy. Attacks of a suitable nature will be stored temporarily within the mirror (marked by a matching glow), Lumiere only having a few seconds to aim the redirection. If too distracted or indecisive then the attack will simply be sent back where it came from, though with as much force as it had remaining either way. Something like light or lightning that would continue on until stopped would be unaffected, but a gout of flame that only had so much power behind it would be less likely to reach its target. With the physical such as blades or ice it can only block as much as the mirror’s physical resistance will allow, but it cannot redirect anything (the magic having no special effect, basically).
Vision Release: A minor illusion. Lumiere can make her mirror transparent, no light reaching it from any angle. If struck, or if an attack is activated, it will reappear, but until then it remains hidden, giving her the appearance of defenselessness.
• Background: A child is one who wonders. Full of nothing they drink in everything. Kohane was very much like this: a curious child in a well off family with every opportunity to take in knowledge. From easily available books to the vast depths of the internet, she was well beyond her years. Expectedly enough it outcasted her, her trivia bordering on annoying rather than endearing. She was always a bit mature for her age, but that loneliness left it stagnant. Knowledge and experience were two different things, and cut off from peers she only had so many ways to grow. School came easily to her: it was merely memorization, but at age 15 with an option for early graduation lined up, her head was full of so much, yet something about it was becoming banal to her. She was learning but it was ground tread by others, discoveries of others. Through what interactions she had she could inform others of what they didn’t know, but it was mere regurgitation. In herself she had found nothing, discovered nothing. And yet when she thought of the untapped potentials in science, math, history, the arts, nothing in particular excited her. There were so many already in those fields: what could she add without passion? Nothing. She was as good as nothing.
This unhealthy headspace drove her even further into reclusion. Her grades and the few relations she had crumbled to months of a hikikomori lifestyle. She knew full well it was bad for her, for everyone. She could easily have looked up more and more information for lifting herself out of it, yet she instead let herself ruminate in that pity. Good as nothing, she did nothing, until something found her. A fantasy, a dream, a Mascot. Existence unreal, it broke the bounds of everything she’d known. Fantasy made real, no, always real. The one who had known that which she didn’t and felt nothing was suddenly granted a window into that which almost no one knew. An arena ripe for fresh discovery about everything. There was too much excitement for there to be any hesitation in her choice.
Her return to seeking knowledge was very much a return to living out her childhood. In less than a year, she’d graduate as long as she could return her grades to normal, but that would be simple enough. A distraction. What she really wanted to use the remainder of her childhood for as this excursion as a magical girl, something very much defined by its relation to childhood. She’s still quite new to the trade, having met very few magical girls and a small share of Nightmares, but her exposure to the new would not end with a transformation. Whispers of a certain place full of strange happenings caught her attention, and it was a mysterious one all its own. No one knew how Miso City came to be, and upon hearing rumors of its connection to magical girls it was only natural her curiosity would drive her there, even if it was prefaced with warnings not to go in the first place. Managing to convince her parents that she not just could, but should live alone, she would transfer and enjoy her last months of school there as best she could. Maybe she had no clue what she was getting in to, but wasn’t that the exhilarating part?
• Inventory: Smartphone • Sample Post:
Of course it was in the last box. It always was in he last place you looked: that was something Kohane Saegusa had heard many a time.
Standing up with her rice cooker, she looked around her small flat, carefully walking through the debris of half opened boxes and varied contents as she reached a bare countertop. In a few minutes the rice was beginning its cooking process, the timer counting from forty minutes. Rolling up the sleeves of her dark blue sweatshirt and checking a black digital watch, it wouldn’t be done until about 2:10 in the afternoon. She’d been at getting her things ready all morning and didn’t have much to show for it. Her bathroom was ready and good but her kitchen countertop bare, and beyond the tiled floor, the carpet of the living area where she was destined to sleep was, at this point, dominated with boxes and stuff. Alarm clock, clothing, new uniform, cutlery, laptop, trash from her convenience store breakfast...it was unsightly, but honestly Kohane had lived in worse. Still, she was a bit fatigued from working and too hungry to keep going for the moment. She wouldn’t get internet access for another day or so, leaving little for her to do here unless she wanted to do some reading...except the lightbulb burnt out an hour ago and the window only really got light in the sun. What little window light she was going off of now was fine for work, but reading?
Still, anything was better than nothing. Looking to the doorway, Kohane’s shoes on the ground, she tried to give herself the will to go outside, but her heart was resistant. Instead, she leaned against the wall, slumping down. Lengthy teal hair spilled over her shoulders, glasses tilting slightly as she rested a fist against the side of her head, Kohane simply sat, mind to herself, shadows in the room lengthening as the sunlight outside was shifted by moving clouds. Her legs, only clad in fitting short jeans, remained crossed. For ten minutes she sat, largely still, eyes closed and mind to herself. Not quite a nap, not quite a daydream, it was an adequate rest until her other hand absentmindedly reached into her pocket, touching her emblem. Fingers running down the indented lines of the hand mirror, her heart pulsed. That was reality, a reality she was putting aside as she slipped into old, lethargic habits. She was a magical girl dammit!
Shooting up, Kohane moved to the door. 15 minutes anywhere, 15 minutes back. If she stopped by a store maybe she could pick up some appropriate miso stock rather than be stuck with plain rice. Something, anything to move and be a little more active, a little more in the sunlight. A little more on the...ground? In standing up so quickly the blood rushed to her head, making her head rush to the floor as she lost balance. Picking herself up from the entryway, once she verified that her glasses were unharmed, she was overcome with a fit of silent giggles, aimed purely at her own stupidity. Wiping a tear from her eye, she giggled, “What was thaaaaat?”
---
Spirits still fairly high, that began to be challenged as Kohane went about Miso City. She was still new here, so maybe it took some getting used to, but the mood of the whole place was just...off. Sometimes it would just hit her and make her hair stand on end. She’d never really been outside her birth town, so she was prepared to brush it off as growing pains of this new home, but things were just...eerie. She’d at least stopped squealing whenever she saw a rat but they still made her jump, wishing she’d have gotten a place in a better part of town. And maybe it was her imagination fitting in the knowledge of the massacre that was said to have had happened fairly recently (despite little news of it circulating), but any weird brown or reddish stain was immediately assumed to be blood. That was to say nothing of the people: maybe it was her imagination but she always felt like she was getting odd looks, sometimes even when she wasn’t watching, but whenever she turned to see if anyone was looking at her, no one was. Sometimes it happened even when nobody was around, which tended to make her pick up her pace. She’d heard it was a strange place but despite that fear, her curiosity pushed her to quell those doubts.
Minutes later, grocery bag in hand with miso and a fresh lightbulb (convince stores were really convenient), her path back home took her by an older man with glasses hobbling about, peeking down alleyways and disturbing random trash as he seemed to be searching for something. Kohane considered avoiding him, but Daring to get closer, Kohane asked, “Can I help you?”
Giving her an incredulous look, he muttered, “Did I ask?” Kohane blinked, knocked off guard, and that wasn’t helped when the man continued, apathetic to her reaction, “Lost my phone.”
Reaching into her pocket and pulling out hers, Kohane asked, “I can-”
“I don’t really want you to have my number.”
Kohane was taken aback yet again, but this time she held firm, stretching out her hand. “Put it in so I don’t see it, then I’ll delete the number after!”
The man stared blankly, before casually taking the phone. A few moments later, a faint ringing was heard a ways off. Following the noise, the two found the phone sitting precariously on a gutter grate. As the man went to grab it, Kohane thought back to earlier, stating, “They say you always find things in the last place you look.”
Brushing off his phone and handing back Kohane’s, the man muttered, “That’s because when you find it you stop looking.” With that he took his leave, a ‘humph’ in his wake.
Three for three Kohane had been thoroughly beaten down. Letting out a deep sigh, she picked up her pace, at least glad that by the time she got home her rice would be ready. Though the thought nagged at her that the rice was going to be exactly where she left it, which would also be the last place she looked, technically...
Kohane is nearing high school graduation, yes. The light emanated from charging her attacks is limited to Lumen Invocation and Boundary Reflection (which I've added, since it would make sense for it to glow when the mirror has absorbed something). I've also removed Vision Catcher.
• Name: Kohane Saegusa • Title: Lumiere • Age: 17 • Emblem: A pale yellow flip open pocket mirror, indents of crossed lines patterned across the back. • Divine Arm: A round mirror with gentle, gold colored protrusions that fashion it into the shape of the sun. Lumiere controls its position with a thought as it floats about her mid-combat. She can also change its size if need be, widening its diameter to about five feet (she can even fly on it, but not very quickly at all, and her weight would limit her ability to control it). It’s quite resilient but can be broken, greatly limiting its power until a recovery period is spent allowing it to repair. • Magic: Through the mirror, Lumiere’s magic is that of light and reflection.
Lumen Invocation: Lumiere’s most basic attack, allowing her mirror to fire off a beam of light. She can alter its properties somewhat: is it a soft glow merely to illuminate, or a blinding glare? She can make it shine a single color or even narrow the focus to become a searing ray. As light it moves instantaneously, but attacking requires a slight charging period, the glowing of the mirror beforehand alluding to the type of light she’ll use through color or intensity (though to a degree she can affect this, such as making the mirror glow lightly as it charges a larger attack, but the hidden light must be released, even if just before it goes off).
Boundary Reflection: A defensive technique. As long as the mirror isn’t in the process of another power, it can block and redirect attacks of certain nature, such as light, fire, lightning, or magic energy. Attacks of a suitable nature will be stored temporarily within the mirror (marked by a matching glow), Lumiere only having a few seconds to aim the redirection. If too distracted or indecisive then the attack will simply be sent back where it came from, though with as much force as it had remaining either way. Something like light or lightning that would continue on until stopped would be unaffected, but a gout of flame that only had so much power behind it would be less likely to reach its target. With the physical such as blades or ice it can only block as much as the mirror’s physical resistance will allow, but it cannot redirect anything (the magic having no special effect, basically).
Vision Release: A minor illusion. Lumiere can make her mirror transparent, no light reaching it from any angle. If struck, or if an attack is activated, it will reappear, but until then it remains hidden, giving her the appearance of defenselessness.
• Background: A child is one who wonders. Full of nothing they drink in everything. Kohane was very much like this: a curious child in a well off family with every opportunity to take in knowledge. From easily available books to the vast depths of the internet, she was well beyond her years. Expectedly enough it outcasted her, her trivia bordering on annoying rather than endearing. She was always a bit mature for her age, but that loneliness left it stagnant. Knowledge and experience were two different things, and cut off from peers she only had so many ways to grow. School came easily to her: it was merely memorization, but at age 15 with an option for early graduation lined up, her head was full of so much, yet something about it was becoming banal to her. She was learning but it was ground tread by others, discoveries of others. Through what interactions she had she could inform others of what they didn’t know, but it was mere regurgitation. In herself she had found nothing, discovered nothing. And yet when she thought of the untapped potentials in science, math, history, the arts, nothing in particular excited her. There were so many already in those fields: what could she add without passion? Nothing. She was as good as nothing.
This unhealthy headspace drove her even further into reclusion. Her grades and the few relations she had crumbled to months of a hikikomori lifestyle. She knew full well it was bad for her, for everyone. She could easily have looked up more and more information for lifting herself out of it, yet she instead let herself ruminate in that pity. Good as nothing, she did nothing, until something found her. A fantasy, a dream, a Mascot. Existence unreal, it broke the bounds of everything she’d known. Fantasy made real, no, always real. The one who had known that which she didn’t and felt nothing was suddenly granted a window into that which almost no one knew. An arena ripe for fresh discovery about everything. There was too much excitement for there to be any hesitation in her choice.
Her return to seeking knowledge was very much a return to living out her childhood. In less than a year, she’d graduate as long as she could return her grades to normal, but that would be simple enough. A distraction. What she really wanted to use the remainder of her childhood for as this excursion as a magical girl, something very much defined by its relation to childhood. She’s still quite new to the trade, having met very few magical girls and a small share of Nightmares, but her exposure to the new would not end with a transformation. Whispers of a certain place full of strange happenings caught her attention, and it was a mysterious one all its own. No one knew how Miso City came to be, and upon hearing rumors of its connection to magical girls it was only natural her curiosity would drive her there, even if it was prefaced with warnings not to go in the first place. Managing to convince her parents that she not just could, but should live alone, she would transfer and enjoy her last months of school there as best she could. Maybe she had no clue what she was getting in to, but wasn’t that the exhilarating part?
• Inventory: Smartphone • Sample Post:
Of course it was in the last box. It always was in he last place you looked: that was something Kohane Saegusa had heard many a time.
Standing up with her rice cooker, she looked around her small flat, carefully walking through the debris of half opened boxes and varied contents as she reached a bare countertop. In a few minutes the rice was beginning its cooking process, the timer counting from forty minutes. Rolling up the sleeves of her dark blue sweatshirt and checking a black digital watch, it wouldn’t be done until about 2:10 in the afternoon. She’d been at getting her things ready all morning and didn’t have much to show for it. Her bathroom was ready and good but her kitchen countertop bare, and beyond the tiled floor, the carpet of the living area where she was destined to sleep was, at this point, dominated with boxes and stuff. Alarm clock, clothing, new uniform, cutlery, laptop, trash from her convenience store breakfast...it was unsightly, but honestly Kohane had lived in worse. Still, she was a bit fatigued from working and too hungry to keep going for the moment. She wouldn’t get internet access for another day or so, leaving little for her to do here unless she wanted to do some reading...except the lightbulb burnt out an hour ago and the window only really got light in the sun. What little window light she was going off of now was fine for work, but reading?
Still, anything was better than nothing. Looking to the doorway, Kohane’s shoes on the ground, she tried to give herself the will to go outside, but her heart was resistant. Instead, she leaned against the wall, slumping down. Lengthy teal hair spilled over her shoulders, glasses tilting slightly as she rested a fist against the side of her head, Kohane simply sat, mind to herself, shadows in the room lengthening as the sunlight outside was shifted by moving clouds. Her legs, only clad in fitting short jeans, remained crossed. For ten minutes she sat, largely still, eyes closed and mind to herself. Not quite a nap, not quite a daydream, it was an adequate rest until her other hand absentmindedly reached into her pocket, touching her emblem. Fingers running down the indented lines of the hand mirror, her heart pulsed. That was reality, a reality she was putting aside as she slipped into old, lethargic habits. She was a magical girl dammit!
Shooting up, Kohane moved to the door. 15 minutes anywhere, 15 minutes back. If she stopped by a store maybe she could pick up some appropriate miso stock rather than be stuck with plain rice. Something, anything to move and be a little more active, a little more in the sunlight. A little more on the...ground? In standing up so quickly the blood rushed to her head, making her head rush to the floor as she lost balance. Picking herself up from the entryway, once she verified that her glasses were unharmed, she was overcome with a fit of silent giggles, aimed purely at her own stupidity. Wiping a tear from her eye, she giggled, “What was thaaaaat?”
---
Spirits still fairly high, that began to be challenged as Kohane went about Miso City. She was still new here, so maybe it took some getting used to, but the mood of the whole place was just...off. Sometimes it would just hit her and make her hair stand on end. She’d never really been outside her birth town, so she was prepared to brush it off as growing pains of this new home, but things were just...eerie. She’d at least stopped squealing whenever she saw a rat but they still made her jump, wishing she’d have gotten a place in a better part of town. And maybe it was her imagination fitting in the knowledge of the massacre that was said to have had happened fairly recently (despite little news of it circulating), but any weird brown or reddish stain was immediately assumed to be blood. That was to say nothing of the people: maybe it was her imagination but she always felt like she was getting odd looks, sometimes even when she wasn’t watching, but whenever she turned to see if anyone was looking at her, no one was. Sometimes it happened even when nobody was around, which tended to make her pick up her pace. She’d heard it was a strange place but despite that fear, her curiosity pushed her to quell those doubts.
Minutes later, grocery bag in hand with miso and a fresh lightbulb (convince stores were really convenient), her path back home took her by an older man with glasses hobbling about, peeking down alleyways and disturbing random trash as he seemed to be searching for something. Kohane considered avoiding him, but Daring to get closer, Kohane asked, “Can I help you?”
Giving her an incredulous look, he muttered, “Did I ask?” Kohane blinked, knocked off guard, and that wasn’t helped when the man continued, apathetic to her reaction, “Lost my phone.”
Reaching into her pocket and pulling out hers, Kohane asked, “I can-”
“I don’t really want you to have my number.”
Kohane was taken aback yet again, but this time she held firm, stretching out her hand. “Put it in so I don’t see it, then I’ll delete the number after!”
The man stared blankly, before casually taking the phone. A few moments later, a faint ringing was heard a ways off. Following the noise, the two found the phone sitting precariously on a gutter grate. As the man went to grab it, Kohane thought back to earlier, stating, “They say you always find things in the last place you look.”
Brushing off his phone and handing back Kohane’s, the man muttered, “That’s because when you find it you stop looking.” With that he took his leave, a ‘humph’ in his wake.
Three for three Kohane had been thoroughly beaten down. Letting out a deep sigh, she picked up her pace, at least glad that by the time she got home her rice would be ready. Though the thought nagged at her that the rice was going to be exactly where she left it, which would also be the last place she looked, technically...
I'm still in progress on the backstory/sample but yeah, that's fine. I've never joined a game partway or ended one so it could be a couple new things for me.
Boots tramping through the battleground, Balder silver rebuking Azure masses, a hulking figure passed through the battlefield undettered. His gait and confidence gave the impression that he was on a midday stroll, even through swords a guns clattered and fired around him.
Boss Cerulean was only impeded just as he reached the gate, one of the knights driving a sword into his face, which glanced aside, repelled. Cerulean raised a hand, palm pressing into his armor, which scraped as it was torn asunder, blood spilling from the flesh that had come with it as Cerulean had scooped into his body as if it were sand. As the solider fell, those around him stopped, morale faltering.
"Let him by!" roared a pompadour sporting knight, gold cape signifying his position as second in command. As Cerulean shot him an eye, he elaborated, "Johannes will handle him!"
Moving past the fighting and tearing through the gate, he scoffed, "He'll try." The line broken, the Azure Company tried to press on, but were held at bay, though they were being pressed more and more...
---
Saffron, clearly exhaused from his speed technique, made no move against Lina, who'd held her sword, but clearly favored one side, blood running down her other, the royalty looking on, locked in silence.
"I'll recover before you, you know," Saff muttered, still catching his breath. Lina's eyes narrowed, before her feet shuffled after him, sword flashing. Saffron kept it at bay handily, shifting his feet only slightly. Growing frustrated, Lina's attacks increased in intensity, making Saffron smirk slightly.
One strong blow later, Lina's arms were deflected, Saff shifting his feet, eyes darting to the king or queen. Unable to get herself in his way, Lina shouted, "Duck!" Saffron darted off just as the king and queen fell away, Bucky grabbing Sika and dropping them to the ground. Saffron's sword slashed into his arm, spraying the floor in blood as the boy sailed past, shoulder slamming into the opposite wall.
Saffron clicked his tongue, "Shouldn't have gone for both." As Lina readied herself to go after him, Saffron shifted to a sitting position, scoffing, "Why help them?"
Lina charged, "You went after us!" Rage bubbling, her blade clashed with his, Saffron being pressed against the wall, his legs still wobbly. "You Companies attacked my Captain and held my home under your thumbs!"
"That's the way of the world!" Saffron argued, pushing away from the wall, angling his blade in a way that cut Lina's face.
"That's your world!" Lina said, conceding ground, forced back. "You brought us into it."
"And what matters most in this world? Azure says power, Verdan luck, Crimson majority, and Quartz influence. If you lack in those, then you're not going to last!" Lina was pushed back, heels bumping against some of the stacked bills, making her fall. Shifting her body, she rolled across it, landing on the other side as several stacks of bills plopped down next to her. Sensing that they were in danger, the royal pair moved away, but the two fighters had stopped, exhausted from the fighting.
Raising her sword again, after a few moments Lina swung it across the bills, but Saff stepped back out of range. Lina said, "If you brought us in to your world, then we'll just have to beat you at your own game."
Saffron scoffed. "With what power? With what influence?" Raising a hand, he said, "Why not just join me instead? Give up on your friends and I'll show you what it takes to run our world."
"My father is too old for his duty, and the other Heads...Cerulean thinks in terms of power, Vermilion in majority, but that's just a means to an end. Power enforces influence. Majority is the result of influence. Quartz is poised to dominate in ideals alone!" Lina was quiet, head slightly lowered. "Thinking about it? You can't beat me."
Stepping around the pile of bills, Lina said, "Maybe we can work something out..."
Saffron shrugged, "The king and queen don't have to die: they'd potentially be of use alive."
Still on guard, Lina cautiously approached, but Saffron made no move, sword lowered. As she got closer, he raised his hand, reaching to hers. Lina's eyes lingered on it, before she raised her own, coming closer to his.
Saffron's sword founder her chest, the stab making her gasp out.
"Pity, the girl I came to fancy wouldn't have taken my hand so easily."
Lina's eyes were wide as she glanced down as the sword in her chest, before looking back up at Saffron. They narrowed, "You sure didn't stab that hard."
Saffron gasped as Lina slipped half a step back, sword coming out without a drop of blood, before she streaked forward, cutting by Saffron with a spurt of blood. Clutching his torn front, Saffron sputtered, already wobbly legs finally collapsing in full.
From behind him, Lina loosened her dress a bit, letting a few stacks of bills fall out. Picking up one that had a hole pierced into it from Saffron's sword, she mused, "Guess money isn't as unhelpful as I thought~"
---
Just outside the cell door, a dark clad ninja waited, hands going over the mechanisms keeping the door locked tight. He chortled, "My plan was a success. Now that they're trapped like rats, once the run out of air they'll have to come out!" Marv would never acknowledge that his detour had made him fall behind and now he was out of options.
Ninja skills detecting a presence, the hairs on the back of his neck perked up just as a metal clad hand grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. "Aha! I have you now!" Marv cried before his head was smashed relentlessly against the safe door.
"N-ninja Hart – A-anti Feshbash no Jutshu," he sputtered through gurgles of blood and missing teeth, before passing out.
Standing over his fallen body, armor scraped, blood coming from a few spots, Johannes still had the strength to stand resolute, and it refused to waver, even some minutes later when the unscathed Boss Cerulean came down, all by his lonesome.
"You have a lot of strength for someone fighting in a country that's not yours."
Grabbing his halberd in both hands, Johannes offered, "Then perhaps I can show you what it means to have honor."
"When our allies swarm in..." Saffron said, but his words died as the King and Queen were rushed away, flanked by a pair of guards, whistles blowing. Not just from the throne room, but beyond as the palace went up in arms at the incursion.
Lina charged at Saff while Marv met blades with the guards. Blades sparking, moving down, hilts bumping each other, Lina moved in, grunting, "Yeah, you'll need them."
Saff shot a foot out behind Lina's, one arm looping between their swords and Lina's body. Shifting his stance, he gave her a shove, Lina's foot backing up into Saff's as she tried to counterbalance, failing and dropping onto the ground, sun dress fluttering as she tumbled. Lina braced herself, lying on her back and holding her sword at the ready, prepared for an onslaught, but rather than press the advantage, Saff's expression was flustered, face flushed as he turned away.
Returning to her feet, Lina said, "I'm not going to go easy on you because you're a gentleman."
Eye twitching, Saff leaned into his blow, stabbing his sword at her, but Lina was already on the move, following after the King and Queen while his blade poked only dead air. The first after her was not Saff, however, but Marv, who'd slipped past the guards, several of which he'd down, sprinting towards Lina with his unreal speed.
"You'll pay for embarssing me, you little pest! I'll end you in an instant!" Tanto brandished he moved in as Lina turned to face him, kicking out and smashing him right in the face, before continuing her run as he fell back.
"H-how did you keep up with my speed!?"
Lina grunted, exasperated, "You don't move faster than sound, so learn to shut the hell up!" Saffron snorted, before the two pursued. She'd had the upper hand thus far, but having crossed blades with both of them, she could tell that if they got serious, she'd be in a pickle...
---
"Sir! The King and Queen are under attack!"
Pulled back from the battle, the trained Balder Knights meeting the Azure Company evenly, despite being outnumbered, Johannes clenched his fist, before turning back to the palace. "They cannot die, not on my watch! I'll handle it personally."
Ceding command to his next in line, Johannes slipped through the gates, streaking across the empty courtyard, only such because of Macario, still hard at work fending off the Crimson Company. He also noted the shelling had stopped, mentally thanking Kuhn. He might have considered Chester, but he wandered off when he realized that Johannes hadn't literally meant that his men were at Chester's disposal. Some sort of unfortunate wording, or bizarre interpretation had left Chester moping off somewhere. His comrades insisted he would be fine, yet Johannes hasn't seen hide or hair of him since. At least his comrades were reliable.
---
Like a bullet, Saffron flew again, Lina jumping to the side as he tore into the wall. The halls had become tighter, and now Saffron seemed to be using that to his advantage, hopping off the walls and jumping right at her, blade poised like an arrow. The first time she'd found out the hard way, shoulder torn and blood pumping out of it as she ran. Marv was gone for some reason, but she wasn't about to complain.
Panting, she called ahead to the King and Queen, now only protected by a lone guard, "Are we close!?"
"One more tur-ghrk!" The guard tried to explain, before Saffron darted out again, running him through.
"I missed," Saffron muttered, clicking his tongue as he drew his blade out. Bearing in on him, Lina eyes flashed red as she struck out with a flurry of strikes. Saffron was gashed twice on the chest before he tried to back off, eyes widening with surprise at Lina's ferocity. Despite her anger though, the openings in her stance shrunk rather than grew. Saffron was put on guard, being pushed back as she hemmed him in. Eyes darting towards the fleeing royalty, he hopped back, crouching against the wall before shooting off after them, once again missing, shattering the stone and pelting the two with debris.
"Lina!" Queen Sika cried out in horror.
Saffron hit the ground, legs shaky from the rapid uses of his speed, just as Lina's eyes returned to their natural deep green. Catching her breath, Lina shut her eyes tightly, shuddering for a moment, before she picked up her pace, skipping past Saffron as she rejoined the royal pair, taking the final turn, down the last stretch to the safe area.
Saffron caught his breath, starting to fear that woman. That anger was so unlike anything Saffron had felt, yet is was such a bright flame. Wishing things had been different, he returned to his feet, giving chase.
As he made the turn, he saw that two guards from the end had passed the two royals and Lina, blocking him. Pumping his pained legs, he met the guards, cutting one down instantly, before ducking down on his knee, dodging the incoming axe head before returning the favor. Clear of interruptions, he grunted as he stood back up, hobbling after them as he started to recover his breath, before buckling his legs for another jump, just as the bunker door was opening. Once it was at its peak, the king and queen entering, Saffron jumped, launching forward and speeding down the hall. Lina tried to close the door behind her, but he launched past her, slipping through just as it closed. Slamming into a pile of beri bills, scattering them about as he slid out of sight, Saffron took a breath, muttering, "The vault, huh? Of course..."
"Y-you can take as much as you can carry!" the king pleaded desperately, Lina scowling at the proposition.
Saffron chortled, "You speak the Quartz Company's language." Standing up, he took a series of breaths, before throwing off the remainder of his guard disguise, revealing a yellow vest and white dress shirt. "Shame I'm more literate than you: you couldn't afford to sway me." Glancing around the vault, the only other wealth inside besides the cube of bills he'd smashed into being a few dozen of gold bullion and bags of coins.
Back leaning against the vault door, blood still running from her shoulder, legs shaking, Lina sputtered, "You guys learned the hard way that money doesn't solve all problems last time."
Recovering from his fatigue faster than Lina, Saffron scoffed, "If I was there it'd have been different."
"Yeah, I'd have pushed two of you through a window~" Lina jeered, sticking out her tongue.
Saffron's nostrils flared as he grasped his hand over his heart. "Dammit, why'd she have to be so cute?"
A dead silence crossed the vault, Saffron raising an eyebrow, before his mind finally recognized the echoing of his own words on the walls. If it were possible, he'd have liked to find a hole to crawl into so he could die.
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