#PLEASE AMBUSH ME ALL YOU WANT AAA | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

astralarias · 6 months

Note

please talk about your characters! i don't mind who i just wanna hear you ramble about your toons <3

Aaa thank you!! 🥺

Since I just posted a gifset of her, I'll talk a little about Aikarico, my beloved warcat, and her backstory <3

She came remarkably close to having a completely different life! Her parents were critical of the Legions as a whole and had plans to leave after the birth of their cub, as fleeing & traveling would be too strenuous on Electra (Aika's mother) during her pregnancy. Their goal was to reach Lion's Arch and settle down as a family.

However, mere weeks before Aikarico was born, her father, Theo, was killed on patrol by a Flame Legion ambush. Electra was heartbroken, and after Aikarico was born she didn't have the strength to flee the Legions alone - only to give Aikarico as much love as she could in the time they had. Being an only child, Aikarico was incredibly clingy and a very shy, sweet cub who rarely left her mother's side.

When it came time for her to join the Fahrah, she didn't cope well. Ripped from her mother's warm embrace into a world of survival of the fittest, she struggled - bullied endlessly by her peers for her softness. Until she wasn't. Until she forced herself to get tough, against her every instinct. She fought back with fang and claw, so no-one would ever hurt her again.

Her mother had promised she'd visit. She never did. Aikarico grew up believing she had been abandoned without reason by the only person who had loved her for her, not knowing the truth - Electra had died shortly after Aikarico left her side, falling ill and not having the strength to recover.

By the time she reached adulthood, Aikarico had become an arrogant, defiant problem for her warband and superiors, and had no intention of changing. It was a mask, but one she could no longer tell where it ended and she began any more. She had stopped trying to take it off long ago.

However, her higher-ups weren't about to let such subordination slide for much longer, especially after her stunts to prove herself as bigger, better, stronger, resulted in casualties in the field more than once. She always knew better, and nothing was ever her fault. It couldn't be - she was flawless, because if she wasn't, she was nothing.

After a string of complaints from her warbandmates, Aikarico was made a gladium. As the verdict was dealt, though, she stood tall and announced she was leaving, anyway, so there - you can't fire me, I quit! Denounced as a traitor and disappointment, she fled the Legions - just as her parents had meant to do all those years ago, albeit with a twist.

From there, she wandered Tyria, taking up jobs for bandits and thieves - anyone who would pay, at first - but eventually building up a reputation as a skilled assassin. She hung around human lands for a while - the least charr place she could think of, although she still held herself as charr in far-too-high regard. Among certain shady circles, she gained notoriety. If you wanted someone dead, she was the cat for the job. She was never happy, but she was feared and respected, and that was enough for a time.

Eventually she grew bored and set on the road again, winding up in the Desolation after a few years. Here, she worked with the Order of Shadows alongside her regular assassination jobs - she never became an official member, but she was known throughout the ranks as "that arrogant charr who thinks too much of herself".

During the events of Path of Fire, she was given a mark that would change her life once again; the Commander. She never did find out who put her on the job - it was all very secretive - but it payed well, and she knew to kill him would bolster her legend beyond all belief and hope. She took it without a second thought.

She followed Atlaki for days. Watched his every move, as he stopped amid the carnage to...help people? Didn't he have a god to catch? Why would he stop and show such...weakness?

She was horribly intrigued. And besides, maybe she was a little bored of the desert too, now. The Desolation was all moody skies and sulfur. Even killing here was getting dull.

So, finally, she engaged her target. But instead of shooting him from some perch, she appeared to his face and demanded he fight her. She was somewhat hurt when he appeared more tired than anything, but he agreed - and promptly kicked her ass. Okay, now she was impressed...although, of course, her losing was totally all part of her plan.

She introduced herself, told him she was meant to kill him but kind of didn't want to do that anymore, and she'd be helping him out from now on. A paw was offered to shake, and Atlaki - deciding this odd charr wasn't the worst or strangest thing to fall from the sky in recent times - took it.

Thus began Aikarico's looong, winding path to becoming a better, and certainly more tolerable person - someone her parents would be beyond proud to see flourish, with Atlaki's influence. She remains proud, arrogant, even but it's genuine now and not so much of a mask. She's charismatic, brash, and herself. She has the family she always needed, in Atlaki, and Cassien, and Aurene.

#sorry for the NOVEL but I love my girl so dearly #aikarico #oc talk tag #thank you again anon!!

16 notes · View notes

razieltwelve · 5 years

Text

Flock (Final Rose)

Sazh was angry. He was really, really damn angry. Nobody came onto his ranch and tried to steal the chocobos. But what really made him see red, what had him reaching for his weapons and firing without a shred of mercy was the sight of Chirpy surrounded by more than a dozen men with the sort of weapons normally reserved for fighting powerful Grimm. Not far away, a couple of other chocobos were down, and the smell of gunfire was still heavy in the air.

He didn’t didn’t shout a warning. He didn’t tell them to surrender. He just started shooting.

See, the biggest mistake people made was forgetting how deadly he was. Sure, he was arguably the greatest pilot who’d ever lived, as well as one of the finest trainers and instructors in the world, but he was also qualified as a huntsman. Oh, he’d never be able to hack his way through an army the way some of his students could, but there was a reason even S and SS Ranked huntsmen and huntresses were told to avoid combat with him if he turned hostile. Heh. If they ever wanted him dead, they’d probably send one of his old students after him.

His Semblance was perfect for training people. It let him identify their strengths and weaknesses, and it allowed him to grasp all of the ways people and things could work together to bring out the best in each other. But it could also be used in the opposite way, to point out every flaw, every weakness, and every little bad habit somebody had. He could enhance people and things too… or make them weaker.

He put bullets through the eyes of seven of the men before they’d even realised he’d started shooting. As the others scrambled to get a bead on him, his Semblance roared to life. He fired again, targeting the ones with better aim and defensive skills. Their aim suddenly turned shaky, and their guns jammed. Their Auras and Semblances stuttered, disrupted for a split second. Enhanced by his Semblance, Sazh’s bullets were travelling at more than three times the speed they should have while packing more than five times the punch. He might as well have been shooting shotgun shells that travelled at the speed of sniper rifle rounds. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that the bullets used Dust and had been custom made for maximum damage.

Another five of them fell, their Auras flaring and then winking out so rapidly that it was like they weren’t even there. As the other finally began to return fire, Sazh jerked to the side, throwing himself into a roll as he fired smoke rounds into the ground to conceal him from view. He knew how to fight without relying on his eyes - and so did Chirpy.

The instant the men took their eyes off Chirpy, the chocobo burst into motion. Sazh heard the wet thump of Chirpy tearing someone in half with his claws before several more men fell in quick succession. A thunderous ‘kweh’ shook the night, and the screaming got louder as Chirpy began to warm up. He’d been caught off guard, and with so many of the other chocobos around, he hadn’t been able to fight at his full strength. But Sazh had gotten the initiative back, and the other chocobos had scattered as soon as the shooting started.

Neither of them were playing nice anymore. An explosion followed, a blur of gold, as Chirpy rushed forward, his whole body coated in Aura. He was basically a chocobo-sized wrecking ball moving at more than three hundred miles and hour.

As Sazh burst out of the smoke, his twin pistols locked together and turned into a shotgun. He tripped a man over, shoved the gun into his face, and pulled the trigger. The roar of the shotgun was still in the air as Sazh ducked under a stream of gunfire and then replied, the shotgun roaring over and over again. The modified and enhanced shotgun shells were basically mini-artillery. They didn’t blow holes in the men, so much as they blew them apart.

One of the men managed to close in, and Sazh jerked away from a knife thrust. With clinical precision, he caught the man’s wrist in one hand, yanked him off balance, and then blew him apart with the shotgun. Blood and viscera sprayed outward, and Sazh continued forward, grimly blasting opponent after opponent apart.

When there was only one of them left, he let Chirpy knock the man to the ground.

“Who hired you?”

“Please…”

“Tell me who hired you, and I won’t kill you.” The man told him. Sazh smiled. “Thanks.” Then he turned and walked away. “I never said anything about Chirpy though.”

The man’s screams were cut short a moment later.

X X X

A week later…

Sazh walked forward, his boots loud in the bloody stillness of the warehouse. A man in a suit was pinned against the wall of the warehouse, a long, sharp piece of metal driven through his shoulder and into the wall. Around them, the bodies of more than a hundred men and women were scattered around the warehouse.

“You had to know this was coming,” Sazh drawled. His eyes were cold. “The moment you sent people around to my ranch, you were a dead man walking.”

“They’re just chocobos,” the man in the suit screamed. “They’re just damn animals.”

“Not to me, they’re not.” Sazh bared his teeth. “I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. Oh well. I’ll make sure nobody ever even thinks of it again.” He chuckled. “Do you want to know how?”

“…”

“Because I’m going to make an example out of you, so that the next time someone thinks of coming to my ranch to make trouble, they don’t.”

X X X

James Ironwood stared at the headline. Good grief. The entire Northern Eagles cartel had been wiped out. Their leader had been found nailed to the wall of a warehouse with gunshot wounds to his knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and ankles. He’d died only a few minutes before police had arrived, and the scene around him was even worse.

A hundred or so people slaughtered. Gun shot wounds. Pistols. Rifles. Shotguns. Someone had used those three weapons to wipe out the lot of them. Most troubling were the sheer number of critical shots. Almost half of the people had been killed with a single gunshot wound, and none had needed more than three to be killed.

The first thing that came to mind was Saviour. Lightning’s Semblance could enable that level of accuracy, but she’d been at home, apparently forcing her children to eat vegetables if Vanille’s comments had been anything to go by. That left only one person. Sazh.

He picked up a phone. He wanted a secure line for this. It didn’t take long for Sazh to answer.

“Sazh, it’s James. I need to know. The Northern Eagles… was that you?”

“They came around to my ranch, James. Hurt some of my chocobos really badly. They were going to hurt Chirpy too. I didn’t take kindly too that, so I thought I’d make my feelings known.”

“You left quite a body count.”

“My feelings were not very charitable.”

“I see.” James rubbed his temple with one hand. “I don’t condone this sort of thing, you know.”

“I know.”

“However, the Northern Eagles have been a thorn in Atlas’s side for years now. Please, tell me the police won’t find anything that can be traced back to you.”

“Of course not. Those rounds were all custom cast using machinery a friend of ours threw together - machinery that was destroyed after it was done making them. I didn’t use my normal weapons either. The ones I used were made the same way as the ammunition.”

“I see.” James sighed. “Be careful, Sazh. You’re a good friend, and it’d be a shame to lose you. I’ll keep an eye on things here. I doubt the police will be able to find anything if you’ve been as careful as you say, but I’ll step in if I have to.”

“Good.” Sazh paused. “But if there are rumours… leave them be. I don’t want anyone else getting any ideas.”

X X X

Author’s Notes

There is a reason Sazh is considered scary by people in the know.

Sazh’s Semblance has two main components: identification and action. The identification component allows him to identify people’s abilities (e.g., strengths, weaknesses, Semblances, etc.). This allows him to instantly determine which opponents are most dangerous and what makes them dangerous, as well as any flaws they might have. The action part of his Semblance can be used to buff people and objects (e.g., boosting someone’s speed or making a weapon sharper), but it can also be used to do the opposite (e.g., making someone’s aim worse or making a weapon fragile).

As a result, Sazh is exceptionally dangerous. The group that hit his ranch had multiple members that could be class between A to AAA (they knew about Chirpy and some of the other chocobos and were prepared), but reading the story, you wouldn’t realise they are that powerful. The reason is that Sazh’s Semblance is perfect for ambushes and gunfights.

Sazh immediately identified who they were, and he attacked them first, using his Semblance to lower their abilities while simultaneously boosting his weaponry. By the time they realised their Auras and Semblances were not working properly, Sazh had already shot them, and they were dead. He used similar tactics to slaughter the Northern Eagles.

Sazh’s weakening ability doesn’t work for very long if it’s being resisted, which is why he likes using guns. A single bullet can be deadly if its well placed. There are limits though. The more Aura someone has and the better their control over their Semblance and Aura they have, the less effect Sazh’s Semblance will have on them.

This means that anyone below S Tier is probably just dead when fighting him. However, people above that should still be able with withstand some level of gunfire when fighting him, and once they realise what is happening, the technique will be less effective. In practice, Sazh’s weakening ability is not going to let him kill someone like prime Yang with firearms. Prime Yang’s Aura is simply too large, and her grasp of it and her Semblance is too good.

Against an opponent in the S and EX Tiers, Sazh will rely primarily on enhancing his own abilities and using the identification part of his Semblance to work out what their weaknesses are.

Sazh’s weakest match ups are against people who can overwhelm him (e.g., prime Yang, Fang, Lightning, and Elsa), or people who can nullify his preferred way of fighting. For example, Taren is a hideous match up for Sazh since he has the Aura and control to withstand Sazh’s weakening ability, and his space manipulation makes projectile weapons completely useless. Sazh’s best match ups are against finesse fighters or those who have skillets with holes in them. For instance, he basically murders even prime Weiss since he can instantaneously tell what her Glyphs do and most likely disrupt them while Weiss isn’t durable enough to shrug off his attacks while being hit with his weakening effect (she will have EX level control, but her reserves are not large enough to shrug off multiple hits if he commits heavily to it). Likewise, a guy like Ren is going to be in a world of hurt against someone like Sazh.

Basically, Sazh is tailor made to go after people below S tier and to hunt support types. In an ambush situation or with the right preparation and weaponry (his weakening effect gets more dangerous as his weaponry gets more powerful), he is a legitimate threat to anyone except the most obnoxiously broken of people (e.g., Lightning, Fang, Caius, Snow, prime Elsa).

Sazh is actually correct in that if he ever goes rogue, the recommendation will be to send Lightning or Fang after him, or failing that, Caius or Snow.

#final rose #fanfiction #sazh katzroy #chirpy #james ironwood

4 notes · View notes