Psyker Landshark

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Renar Hagen

Edwin struck him down, and Renar awoke in the middle of the night, a glower plastered on his face. He hadn't expected victory, of course. Renar had improved significantly since his first try against the fool, but the gap between the two was still wide enough that he'd lost handily. Still, he'd gotten what he wanted out of it. That being a useful measuring stick against which he could note his rate of improvement.

He rose from his bed, thoughts buzzing through his mind. It would be pointless to try to sleep right now. Especially after it felt he'd been slumbering for hours. Renar dressed himself in a simple tunic and breeches, belting his sword to his side before leaving his chambers. He mused as he walked, emerging out on the castle ramparts.

"Now what?" Renar murmured to himself. It was true that he'd grown much in strength and skill. But those were only one part of the equation. How would he leverage this into achieving his goals? Unless a war or some other crisis broke out, being ever so slightly better at killing wouldn't amount to much on its own. Especially when everyone around him had grown at the same rate. The thought crossed through his mind that surely, with the amount he'd improved, he could get away with killing his own father at last. But he pushed the inane musing down. Renar could have accomplished that with poison years ago. It would have availed him of nothing. Even should his father die, that just meant his elder brother would get everything.

And besides, Renar wanted Lord Brias alive so that the old man could choke on the ash in his mouth when he saw his bastard son achieve everything he deserved. He wouldn't assassinate his father until then. But that still left the question of how to go about it.

He folded his arms, staring up into the stars as he continued to plot.

SPIRITUM

Kalina Kovalic

In any other circumstance, Kalina wouldn't have bothered to give the civvie bleating for help a second thought. WARDENs were trained to kill their enemies first, not play fire rescue for every idiot that got caught in a free fire zone. But that wasn't a civvie. That was a complete and utter asshole. Then again, it'd been four years. Maybe she was remembering the voice wrong.

She leapt to the side of the RV the voice had came from, investigating the knocked out man. And...damn it. It was him. Ivan Vorokov. An associate of the Marauders by proxy, in that he ran supplies and logistics, acquiring whatever materiel the unit needed. Or at least he would be if he wasn't an unreliable cheat, swindler, coward, and all-around dirtbag. Unfortunately, his contact list in both Rassvet and Vangar was too extensive to justify giving him the boot. So Kalina needed to keep him alive. She narrowed her eyes, a low sigh coming out of her breath as she squatted down to heft his unconscious body over one shoulder.

"Gerard, bringing a casualty over to you." She intoned over the telecomm. "He's mission-critical to my father's unit. I need him alive." It was a rare occasion that Kalina actually asked for anything directly, but this was too important. She sprinted over towards Gerard and the Princess's location, dumping Ivan's sorry form off in front of her teammate and giving him a brief stare to impart the gravity of the situation on him before she turned to dash back into the fray.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

Iraleth jerked her head sharply in the Strigdae's direction as she finished pulling herself up to her feet, her eyes locked in a glare. Somehow, just somehow, she doubted he was offering to help out of any real concern for the situation. Likely this was all part of some inane plan of his. Well. She had a plan of her own.

Ciara's shadow dragon descended upon the area, and Iraleth simply presented arms, intoning.

"On borrowed wings."

The Inheritor formed into being, most of its form as radiant as ever. With one exception. A single jagged scar ran down the helmet, marring the armor forevermore. For her part, Iraleth didn't notice such, bracing the Inheritor's shield in front of her to guard against the shadow tsunami. Once it concluded, she took flight immediately.

Iraleth kept her shield braced in front of her as she flew at top speed, not bothering to slow down in her pursuit of Ciara as she crashed through doorways and walls, following the shadows and the trail of blood she left behind.

It was such a shame that there would be no possible method to keep her restrained. Iraleth would find some half-baked justification later. But after that display, she doubted she'd even need one.

Iris Ascendis

posting tonight or tomorrow, depending on how tired I feel

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Ranbu no Izayoi

Eliane and Galahad had taken two of the three hired ronin by surprise, their lives ending in an instant. The last one raised his sword, expression gobsmacked as Izayoi closed in to engage. Their impromptu duel lasted a sum total of ten seconds of back-and-forth before Izayoi kicked him away, sheathed her sword, and then dashed forward. The elite guard managed to parry her quickdraw, but was completely unprepared for her non-sword holding hand to whip her sword's scabbard out and smash it into the side of his head, crushing his skull.

Her eyes wide with panic at seeing her best guards cut down so quickly, Mizutani reached over in a flurry of motion to grab Ciradyl in a hold, drawing a pistol and waving it about as she screamed at Izayoi.

“Not another step, butcher! She’s MINE, do you hear me?! Not yours!”

”Imir’s breath, what are you prattling on about?” Izayoi kept her sword raised, her teeth grit in frustration. ”I should have killed you years ago, consequences be damned.”

Even if she were still fast enough to cut Mizutani’s throat in the blink of an eye, there was still a chance the bitch could get a shot off, putting Ciradyl at risk. Unacceptable. Better to keep her distracted so that one of the others had a solution.

Izayoi glared death at Mizutani as she slowly paced to the side, keeping the crime lordess’s attention on herself as she kept her sword raised. Mizutani wasn’t a complete fool, of course. She’d catch on to what Izayoi was up to should she go too far. Thus, the latter only moved about forty-five degrees from where she had been standing, leaving the slightest gap in Mizutani’s peripheral vision that any of the others could take advantage of.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Renar Hagen

"It makes little difference if you stay longer, _{headaches in the morning aside}, but I would have thought most of you would rather return to your normal lives by now."

"Sun and Moon know I would." Renar groused slightly, though his head tilted with amusement in Gerard and Fionn's direction. They'd finally figured out that they could have a full-tilt match in here. He'd leave them to it, then. Were he ever so slightly more focused on the process itself rather than the results, perhaps he'd also be chomping at the bit to have another match. But as it stood, Renar only wished to be done with the whole thing.

But, if they were going to be stuck here for a while longer regardless...

"Since it seems we won't be going that route for now...give me Edwin." Renar said to Merilla, his eyes flinty. "I've some frustrations to take out on him."

"And frankly, your trust issues are rather overblown if you're still kind enough to give us any sort of choice in the matter. Were I in your position, I would have afflicted us all with an involuntary binding and washed my hands of the matter. Words are as wind, after all."

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Ranbu no Izayoi

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT.

For what it was worth, the goon manning the gatling gun was remarkably quick to shift his aim. The corpse thrown by Rudolf and accelerated by Eve was a blur of movement in the thug's eyes, and he immediately filled it with dozens on dozens of rounds before he realized he'd been had.

"Tricky little fucks!" He bellowed down the stairs, preparing to resume his suppressive fire before he heard the sound of footsteps almost immediately upon him. "Eh?"

Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap.

Izayoi had dashed forward in the brief window of time she'd had, and was nearly upon the thug. He paled as he recognized that hateful glower, scrambling for his wakizashi.

"Th' FUCK is Ranbu no Izayoi doing here?! She's dead-"

Miina's barely-visible outline was finally noticed by him, and distracted as he was, the gunner had no recourse as he was skewered upon her basket-hilted sword. The instant he fell, choking on his own blood, Izayoi vaulted over the gun emplacement, giving Miina a brief nod.

"A fine blow. Your versatility serves you well. Now, forward!"

A floor above inside the office, the trio of former samurai hired by Mizutani to serve as her elite guard stared between each other.

"Brothers, did you hear that?"
"Finally, a worthy foe!"
"I never liked her anyway."

They drew swords, prepared to set upon the first person to enter with a storm of steel.

___

Meanwhile, in Skael...

Deputy Director Lambert sighed as she tackled the veritable mountain of paperwork on her desk. Leadership wasn't all it was cracked up to be, especially after decades of service in the field. Still, someone had to do it. A particular set of reports came off the stack next, and she cracked them open, working through the cipher they were written in.

"Ah, Mathiassen." She murmured to herself, working through the report. "Linked up with...oh for the love of-" The blonde woman bit back a curse, rising to walk over towards the operations map pinned to the side of the wall in her office.

"Those little idiots." Kayliss ran a hand across her head, already feeling a migraine coming on. "Why did he go to Osprey first? We don't have the coverage abroad to double up like this."

Five minutes later, an older, eyepatched man sighed as Kayliss glared at him from across his desk, taking a puff from his cigar.

"Lambert, you were chosen as my second for a reason. You can't just go tearing across half the continent because we're short on manpower."

"Then consider me on leave, Director. I'm fairly certain I've built up enough of it over the years. Costa del Sol sounds nice this time of year." Kayliss riposted, leaving almost immediately after she said that. The aforementioned Director took a look at his cigar, sighed, and reached into his desk to pull out the vodka.

"Dhinas above, I hate Mondays."

Iris Ascendis

>Iraleth tries to get up
Undermage: "Nope, you're going to the hospital."

And thus, only 'capture' is left.

@ERode

I seriously debated just sitting the round out with Iraleth justifiably KOed or kept down

Honestly, Nanaya could still have Iraleth sedated or restrained or something and I wouldn't mind

Final Fantasy: Lightseekers

Ranbu no Izayoi

“The hell is this?!”

“GRENADE! Get down!”

“M’gun feels like a sack of bricks! Th’ fuck’s going on?”

“My eyes!”

“OH GODS OH FUCK WE’RE GONNA BURN-”

Rudolf crippled the gunners, Eve slaughtered the majority of them while detonating Eliane’s grenade, and Robin mopped up those that weren’t caught in the former two’s assaults. Nonetheless, Izayoi gave an annoyed huff towards Eve in particular.

”You underestimate the flammability of Osprean structures, and we must still needs exfiltrate once we are finished here. Pray that the fire does not spread before we can make our escape.”

whirwhirwhirwhir…

The next floor up, Esben and Miina were met with yet another thug under Mizutani’s payroll, albeit with this one rolling out a Valheimr-class gatling gun from the top of the staircase leading up to where Mizutani Tane resided, and Ciradyl with her.

“Gahahaahaha! That’s right, you little bastards! Twelve barrels of HELL, coming your way!” The thug aiming the weapon cackled, opening fire. “Lady Tane will reward me over your punctured CORPSES!”

The remainder of the Kirins ascended up to the next floor at this time, and were met by the same barrage, the gatling gunner pivoting to fire at them the moment they ascended from the staircase.

”Damn that wench!” Izayoi hissed in sheer fury, forced to take cover. Even in her prime, she couldn’t have deflected so many shots at so high a speed without taking a bullet or three dozen in short order. She grit her teeth as she dove behind a pillar, the thug on his gatling gun rapidly chewing through cover with sheer volume of fire.

At this rate, it seemed the Kirins were well and truly suppressed without alternative measures. The shield mounted atop the gatling gun was adorned with magic suppression runes, likely nullifying Rudolf’s previous trick with the gunline, as well as Robin’s light sparkles. To say nothing of deflecting head-on gunfire and spellcraft. If they wanted to get past this one, more creativity would be necessary.

SPIRITUM

Kalina Kovalic

"!!!" Kalina exhaled in surprise as a quick duck took her to the ground, her reflexes being all that saved her from sudden decapitation by...ah. Target identified. Bullet sharks. Fast movement, bulletproof hides, and razor sharp claws. Terrible eyesight, but very good at sensing Mist usage.

She drew her gunblade, cartridges loaded. Beside her, Valerie and Morden were already engaging. The landshark charged. Kalina matched its head-on rush with one of her own. As she expected, it leapt off the ground in a lunge, and Kalina fell into a slide in response, her blade raised to tear through the creature's softer underbelly. The moment before her gunblade made contact, she pulled the trigger, and her sliding slash evisecerated the bullet shark as she passed underneath.

"Engaging." Kalina responded to Valerie over the telepathic comms, taking a brief note of Morden's observation. "Underbelly is vulnerable too. Gerard, is the package secure?"

The Third Class blurred in a flurry of movement, flipping atop a crashed vehicle for better line of sight. She remained crouched on its roof, trying to suss out where any more bullet sharks would be coming from.

"Use the Etherium spills to our advantage. They'll have more trouble sensing us while we're in proximity to the puddles."