#shes a cavalry slayer :^)

[theexaltedbride]

Dead Island 2 Slayers X New Numen Reader. (Female).

You failed to get to the evacuation zones in time. There were just so many zombies around, so much chaos, and the earthquakes damaged the roads, preventing you from taking any of the pre-prepared routes. By the time the military pulled out and set up the quarantine zone, it was already too late. 

You were trapped in Hell-A, and you had no choice but to run, hide, and pray for the storm to pass. Days turned to weeks, and the earthquakes continued, causing power and water to be inconsistent until it shut down completely. You had to survive by moving from house to house, hoping to find enough resources to live just one more day, and not to run into any marauders who might be interested in taking advantage of the situation and a lone woman without a group.

You were pretty lucky at first, none of the infected around you were anything more than rotting Shamblers who could be outpaced by a fast walk or a light jog. But your luck was set to run out, as a Butcher moved into your area, and began stalking you. It could smell your blood, hear it pulsing in your veins, and it wanted to hear the musical rhythm of your heart beating in terror as it slaughtered you. Like a skilled predator, it waited until you were vulnerable, when it came in for the lunge, and you first knew of its presence by being impaled in the side by one of its bone spikes, then by a bite on your face.

You were mauled by several of the infected, tossed about like a ragdoll, bitten into. You only barely escaped with your life by biting the Butcher right back and tearing off its nose. While it was confused and in pain you fled and found an alleyway to recover and think up a better plan, hiding in a dumpster, where the stink of it hid your scent from the Butcher, long enough for the virus to course through your body and begin repairing you. Parts of your body are different now, your eyes are a different color, almost like one of the infected, your jaw feels strong enough to crunch bone (like a dog does), and you feel like you have way more energy than you did before your infection.

Something in your blood responded to the virus, and it began to work with you rather than against you. It called out to others like you, and you could sense them nearby, but so could the Butcher, as it finally chased you out of the dumpster and into the streets, where someone else finally came to your rescue. 

Amy:

-Amy saved you from the butcher by running in with a war cry and a pistol, firing off bullets as fast as she could pull the trigger. While the Butcher was fast, she was even faster, moving like the wind. She ducked and weaved round the Butcher’s strikes, using some old cavalry sword that she’d made sharp with some mods to slice the Butcher up. Once it was dealt with, she focused on getting you to safety, and has been by your side since then.

- Amy has been a great help in getting you used to your new status and keeping your spirits up. She’s had to go through the loss of a leg, and turning that into a positive, as well as the shock of discovering she was a Numen. She knows what you are going through even more than you do, and is always there to empathize with you.

-When Amy trains you she focuses on building up your stamina as much as possible. Even if you have super speed you wont always be able to use it and sometimes being able to outlast an enemy in a fight is more important than being stronger than them.

-Whenever you feel ashamed about your bite and stab scars, Amy will take time to ask you to help her adjust her prosthetic leg as a subtle way of showing she understands, and to show how much she trusts you by letting you help her in that way.

Bruno:

-Bruno showed up by doing one of those action movie slides over the hood of a car and shouting for the Butcher attacking you to “Pick on someone who hits back!”. Bruno brought the hurt on the Butcher with an electrified machete, that sent the monster reeling back and screaming as 1.21 Gigawatts of ‘payback’ flowed through its body. Once it was dead, he used that same electric machete to jumpstart a car and use it to take you back to Emma’s mansion where you could be given first aid.

-While you were recovering and still healing from the Butcher’s attack, Bruno was always there to help you out and had several calming playlists to keep your mind from panicking too much as your body put itself back together and the group slowly introduced you to what they knew about being a Numen.

-Bruno teaches you a lot about gadgets and inventions (almost as much as he does about music and videos) and wants to make sure you always have some trick up your sleeve if you are ever in danger.

-You’re starting to pick up that Bruno goes out of his way t make your music playlists empowering to you or to help you come to terms with being humanity 2.0, but in a good way, more heroic than what the Eschaton Group is like.

Carla:

-Carla came roaring in on one of her fixed up motorcycles when she sensed you in danger. Like something out of an action movie she jumped off the back of the bike and let it slam right into the Butcher, knocking it off its feet, while she pulled out a tricked out mace to smash the Butcher’s head in. Once the threat was dealt with, she put you into a princess carry and ran with you all the way to Emma’s place, kicking zombies to death along the way while constantly talking to you to keep you from going to sleep.

-Carla knows your fast, but she trains you to build up some upper body strength. You can use both speed and strength to get the upper hand on any Butchers who come after you in the future. Carla won’t always be around, but she wants you to be safe.

-Whenever she gets a motorcycle working again, she loves pulling wheelies and showing off that same trick which helped her to save you. Sure she’s wrecked a few bikes, but its worth it for her to see that glimmer in your eyes.

-Carla sometimes struggles to train you as much as she wants during sparring sessions because she doesn’t want to accidentally hurt you.

Dani:

-Dani’s accent was one of the first things you noticed when she came to your rescue. Matched only by the constant cacophony of gunfire from her. She seemed to have guns hidden in hammerspace, as each time a magazine ran dry, she just pulled out a new one and kept on firing, even with how a Butcher seems supernaturally able to block bullets, it wasn’t able to stop every single shot and soon Dani had turned the Butcher into paste, before taking the time to provide you some initial First Aid. 

-Dani comforted you as you were taken back to Emma’s mansion, and you learned that a lot of hard swears can actually be pretty endearing when said with a comforting tone and some genuine care. 

-Dani has put you through a full gun safety course so you can soften up a Butcher (or any other threat) from afar before it can get too close to you, as well as teaching you to swear like a sailor and get yourself hyped up. Don’t get scared, get angry!

-She’s started trying out some different hairstyles to find something which matched your hair to your new Numen eyes, so you wouldn’t have to be afraid of looking different.

Jacob:

-Jacob played the role of the dashing hero out of nowhere, ducking and weaving through the attacks of the Butcher, while sometimes taking hits and managing to turn it around against the Butcher. Once he dispatched it (by turning a feint into a suplex that broke the Butcher’s back) he dropped his normally comedic attitude, and promised you that he’d get you help as he slid his arms under your own and started to pull you towards the mansion. 

-Jacob has always got a kind word or smart comment ready to help lift your spirits up, which proves very useful during training when he teaches you how to fold your body and handle getting hit, and turning it around against an enemy.

-The two of you tend to hang out a lot and just talk about things, a Jacob really impart his devil may care attitude about being a Numen to you. Its just the same as being a regular human but with extra steps.

-When you admitted fear and shame over other people seeing your mutated eyes, Jacob took the moment to gently remove his own sunglasses and show how he has one discolored eye, effectively blind in one eye even after becoming a Numen. He knows a lot about how you feel.

Ryan:

-When Ryan initially found you he was full on using a fake firefighter voice to sound heroic as he fought off the Butcher and eventually stomped the monster’s head in. He then put you into a fireman’s carry and ran with you all the way back to the mansion. Ryan didn’t know much first aid, but he had the strength and stamina to get you back to the mansion for treatment, where he chose to be by your side the entire time.

-It took you a while to learn Ryan’s secret, as he kept up an act of being a real First Responder to keep you calm and feeling safe. It wouldn’t be until after you made a full recovery that he told you the truth.

-Ryan’s training with you has been focused on helping you think on your feet and come up with responses and plans quickly when under attack. He isn’t much of a planner, but when the going gets tough he still manages to keep his head.

-When you both grew to trust one another more, Ryan admitted that he is always afraid. The mask of bravery he wears is an act for everyone else. So he can sympathize with you when you admit you are afraid of Butchers, but he also helps you to learn to mask that fear and keep it behind a mask, until the mask becomes real and the both of you are genuinely brave enough to fight whatever horrors Hell-A throws at you.

General Headcanons:

-The Eschaton Group tries to recruit you into their faction and pull you away from the Slayers. They know you have powers that the rest of your friends don’t, and they want that on their side. They tell you that the age of baseline humans is over. Numen are inherently superior and should rule the world to come. But you recall the fear and pain you endured while you were still a ‘baseline’ human. It pushes you to save others, and use your powers for the better. Great Power comes with Great Responsibility, and those with the means to protect others have a duty to do so.

-You’ve taken to wearing sunglasses to cover up your Numen eyes, so you don’t scare anyone with how different you are. Its even become a bit of a game for everyone to bring you some new sunglasses and see which one works best for you. Sometimes this leads to some very good finds, and other times it leads to hilarity as you are running around Hell-A slaying zombies in the most ridiculous sunglasses your friends could find.

-Your own Numen powers are beginning to develop the more you test them. While the others get things like super strength and rabid fury, you are developing the same kind of regeneration as them mixed with an incredible movement speed. When you trigger it you move faster and smoother than everyone else, its like they are all walking through water or mud while you stroll past them. It’s fast enough you could even dodge the strikes of a Butcher if one were to attack you again. It only lasts about ten seconds, but that is still just enough to finish off a zombie or to pull someone out of danger. 

-The sight of the Butcher infected still sometimes inspires fear in you. But you know you can handle it. You’re a Numen now, you have the power to beat the shit out of these monsters, to save people, and you have friends and a lover with you who have that same power. It will take some time to conquer this fear, but you know you can do it. 

-Since you have other Numen allies to help you master your new powers and status, you’re discovering that it is easier to control your abilities with those who support you and you’re learning it faster than the other Slayers who had to learn it from trial and error. It almost acts as a direct challenge to the ‘Sink or Swim’, method that the Eschaton Group uses.

-Your vision is slowly changing, you can see things, almost as if you can see through walls to pick up on when infected and uninfected are around, its let you get the jump on some of the more dangerous autophage variants out there. 

Bonus: Bruno’s Playlist for you.

-Disturbed “The Curse”.

-Transistor ”She Shines”.  (The one by Supergiant Games)

-Skillet “Feel Invincible”.

-Disturbed “The Light”.

-Karl Sanders “The Elder God Shrine”.

-Matthew Good “Weapon”.

-Matthew Good “Fated”.

#Dead Island #dead island 2 #Dead Island Slayers x Reader #Dead Island Slayers x Numen #Numen #Di2 #dead island headcanons #Character x Reader

[elysianholly]

Six Sentence Sunday

So I've never done this, but I thought it might help with some of the stalled WIPs on my list. Hell, I'm not even including two of them. All Spuffy. No content warnings, except language.

Cavalry -- One-shot sequel to Drive (which I finished posting today, yay!), being written for EF's Monster Mash Event

Masquerade -- Buffy undercover in AtS S5. Being written for EF's April Challenge Event

Reclaimed -- Season 6 WIP that has just a couple of chapters to go

Fracture -- Post-series WIP that I need to get back to

******************************************************

Title: Cavalry

“We need help.”

Buffy drew in a breath, glancing at Spike to see if he’d heard. He had and was already sitting up on the bed, having switched the television onto mute. “What’s up?” she asked, all nonchalance. Just because this was exactly what she’d been waiting for didn’t mean she was prepared.

******************************************************

Title: Masquerade

“You haven’t given any more thought to reaching out to Buffy Summers, have you?” Spike hadn’t known how to respond that day. Fuck, he still didn’t know how to respond, even now that he had a couple of weeks behind him. Every time she asked, the conclusions he’d thought he’d reached would unravel and he’d find himself at the start again. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there that first time she’d caught him unawares, going through it all again without saying a word, but Randi hadn’t pushed, hadn’t urged, had just looked at him with her pretty brown eyes and waited for the answer, and for reasons he couldn’t even pretend to understand, seemed to wilt a little when she had it. Those were the moments he wondered if it was all in his head, and she wasn’t nursing a tender spot for the poor vampire spook after all. ******************************************************

Title: Reclaimed

Hopefully, by tomorrow, she could come up with enough interest in seeing her ex to make the drive—or the bus ride, more likely, considering she was living-dead girl and her hard-won license had definitely expired while she’d been expired—even a little worth it.

But Buffy wasn’t going to hold her breath. And not only because it made her think about those minutes she’d been trapped underground, choking on thinning air and trying to punch her way through the coffin and to freedom that had ended up being just another form of prison.

She didn’t want to see Angel. There was no getting around that. She didn’t want to see him and yet, she was going to anyway.

******************************************************

Title: Fracture

The gold chain, the prongs securing the large jewel to the center, the jewel itself, crystally and gorgeous and deceptive because no one looking at that would think, guess, that it had the power to decimate an entire town, stealing the life of the man who wore it in the process. For months now, she’d seen this thing in her dreams. In her memories. She’d rewritten history a thousand different ways, tried to imagine what her life might look like if she’d just stopped at triggering the other slayers. If Sunnydale would still be standing, if the First would be quiet—the balance tipped back far enough that it lost its momentum and faded again into a specter who could do little but taunt from the sidelines. If she and Spike would have had the conversation they’d danced around there at the end, built on unspoken maybes that she knew now he’d never really believed in.

#spuffy #spuffy fanfic #spuffy fic #fanfic #six sentence sunday #spuffy wips #spuffy is endgame #spike x buffy #buffy #buffy the vampire slayer #buffy spike #buffy fandom #buffy x spike #spike buffy #spike btvs #creative writing #works in progress

[catcas22]

Idril Stormsbane (edited for proofreading, a few things I forgot to add, and pictures)

Figured I’d go ahead and introduce my tarnished.

Idril Stormsbane is a classic sword-and-board strength build who keeps getting mixed up in mage business. A solid and dependable sort with an amazing poker face. She gives off the vibe of a thug with a boxing glove where her brain should be, but that’s not true -- she is of perfectly average intelligence. Sometimes she can use this to her advantage (Seluvis learned this the hard way).

Generally a bit grim, or at least politely distant. But she does have a soft spot for people genuinely in need of help. She’ll go to rather impressive lengths to help the unfortune souls she meets along the road, all while grumbling about how she doesn’t have time for this.

Began her journey as a vagabond knight. She returned to the Lands Between more or less for lack of any better prospects, then took Melina’s accord. It was the only decent thing to do, really, she did owe Melina for fishing her body out of the ravine under the Chapel of Anticipation.

Came to the decision to defy the Golden Order almost accidentally. After hearing Roderika’s story and finding out he full extent of what was going on in Stormveil, she set out to kill Godrick.

She succeeded, gaining both a Great Rune and the attention of Margit and his Night’s Cavalry. So now it’s do or die.

Lost her right eye to Ranni’s projection of Rennala. To Ranni’s eternal credit, she waited a whole twenty-four hours before she started making “twins” jokes.

Backstory: A second-generation Tarnished who served under Radagon as a dragon slayer in the Second Liurnian War. She has vague memories of one of her parents being a Drake Knight, and is pretty sure they hail from the Badlands, but everything prior to her first death is pretty fuzzy.

Her first death involved a Carian dragon knight and a lot of glintstone fire. Her teens and the bulk of her twenties were spent in the meatgrinder that was the Second Liurnian War, during which she took the dragon communion. Like many of her comrades, she was incensed when Radagon ended the war by marrying the Witch Queen that they had all been assured was wicked to the core and an existential threat to the Golden Order.

Being banished a few years later, by her former commander no less, was simply salt in the wound. By the time of Godfrey’s banishment, she was already thoroughly disillusioned with the Golden Order. As she left the Lands Between alongside her fellow Tarnished, she swore to never again be a pawn of the demigods.

Relationships: Hit it off well with Blaidd, then almost rage-quit when she fought her way to Caria Manor and found out who her friend actually worked for. In her defense, she spent her formative years immersed in anti-Carian propaganda. Eventually swallowed her pride and agreed to work for Ranni, because it was that or back the Volcano Manor. She’s since warmed up to Ranni, but she doesn’t quite trust her. She’s not catching feelings, definitely not.

Millicent is without exception the best person she has ever met. She will fight you on this. Gowry’s dog is the bane of her existence.

Spends a lot of time in the Bestial Sanctum with Gurranq. Neither of them are particularly talkative, but he seems to appreciate the company. Idril has repented of her past as a dragon slayer, and often stays in the barrow to watch the dragonlings from a respectful distance.

Would’ve adopted Roderika if Hewg hadn’t beat her to it. Basically did adopt Rya and Boc.

Gideon is up to something. She’s not sure what, but she’ll puzzle it out eventually.

She likes Rogier okay, but she’s trying very hard not to learn anything about what he, Fia, and D used to get up to. It’s creepy, and she wants no part in it.

During her training with Sellen, she meant to say “yes ma’am” but somehow it came out “yes mum.” This has happened more than once. Sellen has never let her forget it.

She would get along great with Morgott if they ever stopped trying to kill each other. They’re both curmudgeons with an iron sense of duty.

Vyke was something of a personal idol to her, although she never had a chance to meet him prior to her banishment.

Had Melina’s number from day one. She knows a stone cold badass when she sees one, the mild-mannered maiden act isn’t fooling anyone.

Equipment: Wears a modified Mausoleum Knight’s set and a Redmane soldier’s helm. Mains a cold-infused (courtesy of Ranni) zweihander. Also carries a Carian Knight’s sword (from Moongrum, carried in memory of a worthy opponent), a kite shield (just in case), a demi-human queen’s staff (because she might need Carian Phalanx someday), and the Clawmark Seal (so she can use glintstone breath). Really though, the zweihander is where it’s at.

#Elden ring #oc #i put way too much thought into this

[xenodile]

Once again, I cannot overstate just how stupid and ridiculous Zenos’s plot armor is, so I’m again treating this as him and Bylgrael fighting to a draw.

I’m getting tired so it’s hard to articulate at the moment, but my thoughts at this juncture are that Bylgrael was getting deja vu of Ala Mhigo talking to the people of Namai.  It took a decisive win against the Empire, facilitated by defeating Susano, to to rally the Confederacy and save Isari, so when Bylgrael hears that Zenos is touching down in Doma, she’s of the mind that the same trick will work.

She knows she can beat him if she has the chance to fight him one on one, so she’s on board when Yugiri raises the notion of just killing him.  Hell, maybe they’re get Yotsuyu too, that’ll settle things nice and tidy.

It’s going reasonably well, Yugiri dispatching Zenos’s entourage while Bylgrael keeps his attention.  Unexpectedly however, he’s gotten better since they last fought.  Combine that with the shiny new sword he got from Yotsuyu, Bylgrael is even harder pressed to keep up.  Although he’s alone, his magic and the sheer force of his swings means Yugiri is in danger even when he’s ignoring her, and Bylgrael is struggling to split her healing and protection between the both of them.

Bylgrael is keeping up, barely, but is definitely on the back foot by the time Alisaie arrives with the cavalry.  Zenos is satisfied, invigorated by this taste of a proper duel, and withdraws, not wanting to bother with distractions.

Though the group regards the encounter as an overall victory, having bolstered the Domans’ morale without casualties, Bylgrael isn’t pleased.  Bolstered morale and recruitment drives did piss all for the Resistance when the Empire came knocking to Rhalgr’s Reach, and without a conclusive solution to the Imperial presence, Byl sees this as more civilians putting themselves in the line of fire.  She needs to kill the son of a bitch, and is now absolutely certain that she has to do it alone.  As she suspected, numbers did not avail her and another person needing protection only made fighting Zenos more difficult.

Though any attempts to do so are on hold, as Alphinaud and Alisaie gave her quite the scolding for running off like that.  They trust her implicitly but even she has limits, and this was uncharacteristically reckless of her.  Alphinaud’s callous comment about needing a new primal slayer if she’d died definitely hurts, given their intimacy but Alphinaud was very upset with her actually putting herself in danger compared to all the times he’s trusted her to take care of herself, so he’s allowed to be a bit passive aggressive.  Byl’s dreading the idea of going off to find Hien without them, she’s barely getting along with Lyse as it is.

#David plays FFXIV #The MSQ Replay #Bylgrael

[pyroanime2k16]

Black Rock Shooter Fantasy World prompt

Okay, so firstly, characters….

Protagonists

Main Yajuko (Beast Child)/Rock/The Black Rock Shooter (gains her mother's sword and has her pistol enhanced by her older sister, BRS Beast's weapons) Ron (A talking horse/pegasus) Elder Caster (BRS's older sister)

Major Allies Strength Black Matagi (BRS's childhood rival)

Minor Allies Yomi (Dead Master's younger sister) Yuu (Strength's twin sister) Mato (BRS's younger sister) Dragon Slayer (BRS's mother)

Antagonists

Grunts Farside Bunny Loveness Tightmare Elly Chariot (BGS's cavalry commander, later becomes an ally)

Elites Dead Master (BRS's main rival, BGS's most paid assassin) Saya Irino/Black Devil Girl (BGS's first lieutenant and sole child) Infinite Range Maid (BGS's second lieutenant and personal maid)

Main Black Gold Saw (corrupt monarch, sister of DS, aunt of BRS, Caster, and Mato) Mato as White Rock Shooter (sort of)

Plot

Part 1

1: Story begins with Rock waking up from a nightmare, reminded of her village's decimation and Mato's capture a couple months ago, as well as her mother's disappearance. She then goes to train with Elder Caster, before successfully preventing a raid on their recovering village.

2: Rock and Caster eventually travel to try and find Mato and their mother. Soon, they encounter Black Matagi, who's in a battle with Dead Master. After forcing DM to retreat, they arrive at the neighboring village, greeted and sheltered by Yomi. DM follows to attack, before retreating upon spotting Yomi.

3: BM explains that she will stay in the town until she's properly recovered, before bidding farewell. Eventually, Caster and Rock make it to the next village, getting into a brief skirmish with the guard Strength. Eventually, Yuu arrives and drags them all into her home, apologizing for Strength's behavior and explaining that she's overprotective of her home.

4: In compensation for the injuries Strength gave, she lends Rock and Caster a steed named Ron. Rock and Caster accept the gesture, assuming that Ron is a normal horse. During their travel to the next village, they are ambushed by DM and are immediately saved by Ron, who flies towards the next village, revealing that he is a pegasus.

5: After spending time in the village to recover, Chariot arrives with her cavalry to invade the surrounding villages, as they are the last bit of territory left for Empress Black Gold Saw to conquer. Strength and BM arrive and help Rock and Caster liberate the villages, before DM injures Chariot, explaining that she herself will be the one to kill Rock.

6: After successfully liberating the villages, BM agrees to keep watch on her and Rock's respective home villages. Strength returns home, while Chariot is left to heal and be humbled, and realize her mistakes in serving BGS.

Part 2

1: Rock and Caster eventually travel to the southern towns, steadily liberating them one by one, before encountering the general Tightmare Elly. The two easily take her down, before being interrupted by a dragon spotted overhead. Instead of attacking, the dragon merely takes TE as its meal and leaves in a hurry, leaving Rock, Caster, and Ron stunned.

2: The sister duo then reach the western towns, finally finding the first real clue to Mato's potential location. After liberating the towns, they encounter Loveness, who claims that she knows where Mato is and will only give information for a price. Unlike Caster, Rock falls for the general's trap, before going into a rage and brutally killing her. She is forcefully sedated by Caster, who's realizing how powerful Rock's becoming.

3: After Rock wakes up, she and Caster are already in the eastern towns. Ron explains what's happened, saying that BM and Strength are helping her sister, and questions Rock if she remembers anything during her rage. Rock confirms that she doesn't remember, before receiving a visit from Yuu and Yomi. Rock explains what she's been going through and begins to doubt herself.

4: Caster returns with some shocking news. Much to everyone's shock, a confused and scared Mato is behind her, to which she explains that while it might be Mato, someone has magically tampered with her. Yomi and Yuu suggest that Mato should stay with one of them for her own safety, before the group is interrupted by Farside Bunny's invasion to the north.

5: Rock, Caster, BM, and Strength encounter FB in the northern towns, who demands Mato in exchange for the towns' safety. They deny her demands and an all-out battle ensues. Chariot eventually arrives and help give the four the edge they need to defeat FB. Once again, DM appears out of nowhere to help for her own interests. Before Rock and Caster can question the general why BGS needs Mato, FB poisons herself to retain information.

6: Rock and Caster are eventually convinced to bring Mato along. The rest of the group joins them and so far, everything goes well, before the dragon appears again, this time out of control and desperate. The group attempt to flee, with Caster and Rock providing distraction, only for Rock to be taken out and captured by the dragon. Caster tells the group to head to the cities and stay low while she searches for Rock.

Part 3

1: Rock wakes up in a small camp, before noticing the last person she expects. Her own mother, Dragon Slayer. DS explains what happened to her, causing her daughter to notice serious injuries on her abdomen. DS reassures her that she'll heal fully soon, after how she helped her.

2: Rock and DS chat and train, helping Rock get into touch with her new strength and to control her more wild instincts. DS then reveals a shock; she is the very dragon that's been following her daughters, but now, she's losing control. Despite her mother's wishes, Rock insists on helping.

3: DS, for the time being, remains in control and explains that they are running out of time. Soon, Caster (along with Ron) finds them, also suffering from an aliment (a type of cancer that targets only pure mages). The family members don't know what to do, so DS lends Rock her sword, telling her how proud she is of her daughters before leaving and transforming into the dragon in private.

4: Rock and Caster feel more lost than ever, now that their mother is truly gone. Caster attempts to enhance Rock's gun and their mother's sword for Rock's personal use. Eventually, Rock finds herself more attuned to her powers than ever, but still lacks control. Eventually, DS in dragon form arrives and attacks them.

5: The two try to keep the fight away from the city with little success. Eventually, Rock finds herself losing control, as she's essentially in a position where she has to put down her own mother…and she can't do it. Caster lends Rock her supplies and urges Ron to take Rock to the group, which he reluctantly does…all while Rock is forced to watch the dragon devour Caster whole.

6: Now inside the dragon, Caster makes her way to the organ where her mother is trapped. DS apologizes to her for her daughters' fates, letting her eldest daughter hug her as the entire dragon is destroyed from the inside out. Rock is at her lowest point, angry at herself for being too weak. The first vestiges of Beast come out. Ron then urges her to continue on, as while she lost Caster and her mother, Mato is still safe and waiting for her.

Rock and Ron then go into brief solitude, so Rock may train, refine, and master her power.

Part 4

1: One long year after starting her journey…and only a few months after going into solitude, Rock and Ron head to the city. They manage to get to an inn where Yomi and Yuu are working and explain where they've been. Yomi and Yuu, heartbroken by the loss of Caster, explain that the group has gone into hiding to avoid capture.

2: Rock and Ron take on small jobs to help Yomi and Yuu out, before encountering a disguised BM and Strength, who are rightful pissed by Rock's sudden disappearance. They get into a fight, which only ends after Rock confirms Caster's fate. Strength leaves in fury, while BM can only cry in Rock's arm over the loss of a person they both cared for.

3: BM brings Rock to Mato, who's become more and more void of emotion. Rock explains what happened with a heavy heart, while Mato explains that ever since she came to the city, she's felt more empty than ever. Rock counters this that, despite that, Mato is more honest than ever. Rock then makes it her mission to stop BGS's reign and to restore Mato.

4: Rock is then threatened by DM to meet her in the city's cemetery. Before going, Yomi tells her the truth about her and DM. Rock can't promise that DM will be saved from herself, but at least she can free her of this life. And so, Rock and DM have their fated duel, which lasts until the next sunrise and ends with DM's death.

Not at Rock's hands, but by Saya Irino.

5: Rock is then convinced by BM to train with Chariot, who has been gathering a rebellion to help stop BGS. Chariot and Rock train, once again revealing vestiges of Beast as Rock's determination grows. Chariot then notices that Ron has also gotten stronger, noting that he will need it for the battle.

6: Eventually, the group is ready the storm the castle, having evacuated most of the civilians. So, the rebellion charges into the city, with Rock and Mato immediately heading towards the castle for answers.

Part 5

1: Chariot and Strength deal with the cavalry, lead by Saya Irino. Not much to go here, since it is just a fight.

2: Upon entering the castle, BM deals with Infinite Range Maid alone so Mato and Rock can get to BGS uninterrupted.

3: Mato and Ron are split from Rock by BGS, forcing Rock to fight the queen alone. It is a long and grueling duel, which ultimately has BGS drop the bombshell that Rock, Mato, and Caster are her nieces. In response, Rock merely laughs and says that it is destiny for her to overthrow their aunt, before finally transforming in BRS Beast. She defeats BGS, who then merges with her castle to give her an edge.

4: Rock and BM are launched from the castle, now transformed into a golem in BGS's likeness, before noticing Ron breaking free with Mato and rushing to Rock's aid. Another long fight ensues, before the golem is left defenseless. Rock has Ron escape with BM, before she and Mato venture into the golem's body in search of BGS's true body to kill it.

5: Upon entering the organ where BGS's body lies, White Rock Shooter steps forth and fights Rock, claiming to be the true Mato. Mato is in heavy pain, believing this to be true, but can also tell that WRS is also not whole either. Rock eventually restrains them at Mato's wish, before using Caster's supplies to figure out the problem.

Eventually, Rock determines that WRS is a product of BGS's forces experimenting on Mato.

6: Rock and WRS fight, before WRS is killed via her own arrogance, plunging into the magma surrounding them. As Mato begins to feel whole again, Rock prepares a bomb to take out BGS, before the two sisters attempt to leave…only for BGS to seal the golem up, saying that if she's going to die, she'll take her traitor of a sister's children with her. Ron then breaks in, before escaping with Mato and Rock.

Not sure what the epilogue might be. While BGS is dead, I don't think Rock or Mato would willingly become the next monarchs, despite both fulfilling the requirements as proper heirs. Admittedly, I think Rock would take up the mantle of queen, just so the kingdom doesn't fall into chaos or get conquered.

#black rock shooter beast #black rock shooter arcana #black gold saw #black rock shooter #brs #dead master #strength brs #huke #chariot brs #dragon slayer #elder caster #mato kuroi #white rock shooter

[sacred-stanning]

Chapter 9 Part 2: Stupid Status Staves

Ephraim's army begins storming the fort. Lute moves in first and the smell of melted armor fills the air.

I move everyone else down...and the turn doesn't end. Huh?

Oh right, Tana is one of my units, so I have to manually make her wait or end turn.

Some fool axe guy attacks Seth.

Lute gets attacked by the archer and comes out on top.

She gets more magic and speed, which is on brand for her.

I check the range of the archer, mostly to avoid putting Vanessa somewhere stupid. I'm not concerned about the remaining axe guy, and the cavalry are still kind of far away.

I make a wall of horses with swords.

For some reason, that guy also decided to attack Seth.

And then I'm reminded that there is a monk with a sleep staff on this map. He targets Kyle, but misses.

I don't have any way to undo sleep, and the guy is on the other side of a thick wall, so I can't get to him. So all I can do is just hope for the best for the next 3 turns. And if someone does get put to sleep, then I'll just need to pick them up and carry them.

Fortunately, the staves do lose a use every time they miss, so I know exactly how many turns I have to deal with this.

Since the horses moved up, I send Neimi down to chip at one.

And Artur finishes the job.

Lute prepares roast horse to supplement our rations

I send Kyle running down to start on this archer.

And the sleep staff user targets (and misses) Kyle again during the next enemy phase.

I couldn't remember how staff hit rates worked, so I looked it up:

It's way more complicated than I remembered.

According to the site above (Triangle Attack, a good site) it's 30 + 5 * (Magic of caster - Res of target) + Skill of caster - (2 * number of tiles separating them).

So probably Kyle is getting targeted because he only has like 2 res. Though as I write that I remember hearing that the enemies target with staves based on deploy order, or something? I think that was this game. So Kyle may be getting targeted for reasons other than his bad res.

Artur bullies an archer

Magic and res. It's an Artur level.

The next group is down here. There's a one-tile choke point I can use if I want.

And among that group of enemies, one cavalier has a "piercing lance" (I think it was "heavy lance" in English) which he'll drop when defeated. It's effective against armor, so it can be pretty useful. The armor knight also has a special weapon, a horse slayer. He doesn't drop it though. :(

I send Franz up ahead because he's got crazy defense, and he gets a level, which gives him even more defense!

And this time the staff guy targets Neimi, but still misses.

The staff is spent! Now the guy is a walking experience piñata.

Ephraim takes out the guy with the heavy lance.

I give Neimi a chance to shoot at the other cavalier, but she misses. I wanted to set up the kill for Vanessa, so I get Kyle to do it because he's slow, so he's good at not finishing enemies off.

And it turns out the soldier with the door key in front of the door doesn't move, so we get a breather before we move on.

Next time: Turning foes into friends

#fire emblem #sacred stones #fire emblem the sacred stones #fe8 #ファイアエンブレム #聖魔の光石

[ajentmm]

Aug '23 Refine Review

Oh boy, this is nice. Link to my theorycraft

Seliph is crazy. He now gets TD = Atk 15%, Null C-Disrupt and heals 8 HP per hit, meaning 16, 24, or 32 Hp healed in combat, assuming his At War's End II triggers, and the foe doesn't die to the first hit. He got the Miracle I predicted, but only on enemy phase, when he's in 3 tiles of an ally, and is above 50% HP. With the new healing, he needs to hit the foe three times to loop miracle, but it doesn't matter, cuz he is restricted to doing so once per turn. Thankful, you don't need to trigger it more than once, since he has 80% DR vs Mages/Staff, and 40% vs the rest (Excluding AoE specials). This DR is conditional on if he initiates or there is a foe in 3 tiles. If he get him to 4 or more HP, and then he just needs to tap twice to get above 50% HP, or if he's on 12 or more, the one counterattack is fine.

Freyja definitely got an update, but will it be enough, now that we have 3 new goats running a muck? As I mentioned in my theorycraft, Freyja has both DC for enemy phase, the old beast transformation in player phase, and [Dodge] and a Foe Buff stealer effect in both phase. This mix phase form of spd tanking would be good on an infantry, but not a gen 4 calvary, and obviously, all the conditions were solo condition. She's now getting the Special CD-1 and NFU like I predicted, and the new Cavalry Beast Transformation effect like everyone predicted. She's also getting [Canto (Rem. +1)] since her B slot is taken by her perf skill. She can now reach 58% damage reduction with her weapon, and 74% when including Spd Smoke's effect. So, is all of this enough to make her top tier? Probably not. For the role she is playing as a jack-of-all-trades combat light mythic hero, she does well, but that role doesn't get you put on the team. I didn't even mention her lack of supportive abilities that mythic live and die on. All Freyja as is a counter to Buffed up foes, something any cavalry beast can do thanks to Arcane Nihility. I really think, due to DC in her weapon, she can't be a killer queen, nor an unkillable tank. Oh well, she's going to be fine.

Spring Est is something else. She has the supportive ability to apply Def/Res-6 and [Exposure] on nearest foes and foes within 2 spaces of those foes, which gives her and her allies 16 more damage delt. She also gets [Canto (1)], which is great for warping, guaranteed follow-up (which was better than my NFU as her speed wasn't up to snuff) and if the foe has [Penalty], the foe cannot counterattack. This is great.

Mareeta's Sword got a refine that does make her different from her two other alts. Null Guard, NFU, Lull Spd/Def, is all there, but the TD = 10% of her Spd, and the applying "Deadeye" to any Special is what makes her unique. We didn't get the brave sword I expected, but this makes her a God Sword Slayer like As!Fir.

Ced's WInds of Silesse is not the support tome I imagined. It's very much like Forsetii, but it uses [Bonuses] to get that effect. Atk/Spd+6, [Desperation], and [Sp Charge +1] is all there to make him a nuke, but the cherry on top is the penalty on foe's Spd Res equal to 20% of his Spd. Out of the box, that's -8, but at max investment, it's -10. Epic.

Echidna? What happen? You got +8 all stats, 30% DR on first hit, that transfers to TD on your next hit, then heal 7 HP after combat. You then have Unity and Sp Charge +1. Like, that's amazing, what did you do to bribe I.S.? I think Ross is jealous.

Travant got flyer effectiveness negation? I didn't think wyvern generals got that in Thracia but okay. He also get to lower foe's attack by 15% of his Def stat, so -6 to -8 Atk penalties. After that, he's just has +8 all stats with Special fighter and guaranteed follow-up. Overall, very nice.

I also want to add, we got new versions of Desperation in new banner, Desperation 4, which adds "Spd-4 on foe" and the condition of moving 2 or more spaces to initiate, and Flow Desperation, that takes Desperation 4 and add "Def-4 on foe" and Half-NFU like the other flow skills. I might as well change up my Frenzy 4 theorycraft to match the change.

Frenzy 4: Inflicts Spd/Def-4 on foe during combat. If a skill compares unit's Spd to foe or ally's Spd, treats unit's Spd as if granted +7. If unit's Spd > foe's Spd, reduces damage from attacks during combat and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by percentage = difference between stats × 5 (max 50%). At start of combat, if unit's HP ≤ 75% and unit initiates combat, or number of spaces from unit's start position to end position ≥ 2 and unit initiates combat, unit can make a follow-up attack before foe can counterattack.

Lysithia also got a new perf A-slot, which makes theorycrafting her original version's refine a lot easier. I will get to that banner . . . eventually.

#fire emblem heroes #fire emblem #game design #theorycrafting #monthly refines

[few3hd]

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Achievement Guide, Grinding Calvary and Fliers

For the Achievements Effective Cavalry Slayer and Effective Flying Slayer

Golden Wildfire, Paralogue: Under the Protection of the Golden Deer is filled with cavalry (Bow Knights) and Wyvern Riders

Lysithea is a mandatory character. She learns the skill "Dark Spikes T" (highly effective against cavalry) when mastering the Warlock class. As this is her intended class, she gains more exp in it, and she innately comes with the skill "Mastermind," which increases class exp. So it's very easy to get her to that level, especially by the time the paralogue unlocks. Equipping her with a battalion that gives her more efficacy against cavalry (located in the tome battalions) will also help.

For the other character, any archer will do. Remember that wind skills are also highly effective against fliers

#few3h #fire emblem #fire emblem warriors three hopes #guide

[wisteriashouse]

new dawn.

pairing: rengoku kyoujurou x nakamura natsuko (oc)

word count: 6.2k

synopsis: when a demon sends natsuko years into the future, where rengoku kyoujurou is still alive, she must make the choice whether to return or stay there forever

a/n: thank you to @buzylizbee​ for commissioning me!!

The night is far too quiet.

Natsuko’s fingers flex on the handle of her nichirin blade as she inches forward slowly, careful not to make a sound. Not that it matters anyway — both she and the demon she’s been pursuing for days now already know that it’s simply a waiting game that they’re playing with one another. It’s only a matter of time before it reveals itself to her in this sprawling maze of alleyways, and all she has to do is be patient. The ensuing confrontation will decide who walks out of here alive.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to speed things up just a little, and that is exactly what she does. “Too afraid to show your face, demon?” Natsuko mocks, but her eyes never stop flitting across the shadows, prepared for any imminent attack. “What, was Upper Moon Three so afraid of a lowly little demon slayer that he had to call for the cavalry? And as for cavalry…” she licks her lips, letting a grin show on her face in the most infuriating way she knows how. “More like cannon fodder, don’t you think?”

A low growl from her right, but Natsuko doesn’t engage the demon just yet. Only after she finds out where Upper Moon Three — Akaza, as the Kamado boy had called him — is headed for, will she do him the mercy of severing his head from his body and send him to the burning fires of hell with her own blade.

“Tell me where he’s going, and I will speed your passing,” she calls, taunting the demon even further. “A location is all I need. Kibutsuji can’t save you now, demon. And even if he could, he wouldn’t bother. You and I both know this.”

“You dare speak his name?” The demon’s hiss is ugly and scornful, but Natsuko catches the fear tainting his words. Her words are rooted in truth. Except for the upper ranks, whose positions have gone unchanged for decades and even centuries, the rest of the demons are simply expendable to their blood sire — truly nothing but cannon fodder. It’s almost pitiful, Natsuko thinks, if she could hold even a single shred of pity in her heart towards these monsters.

Whatever sympathy she had once felt for them had been completely crushed. Now, nothing but rage — bitter and festering and roiling in the pit of her stomach — remains.

She raises her chin in clear challenge. “Why wouldn’t I dare? You haven’t even developed a blood demon art: I wouldn’t be surprised if Muzan doesn’t remember your pathetic existence at all—”

As predicted, the demon lunges from the shadows with claws outstretched, each as long as a carving knife and twice as sharp. Inexperienced, no doubt, but the creature in front of her has good instincts and it wouldn’t do to underestimate it. Calmly, Natsuko stands her ground and takes hold of her sword.

She hasn’t felt fear in a long, long while.

Just as the demon is about to run her through like soft butter, Natsuko twists her body to the side, letting its momentum carry it past her and into the wall behind it. There’s an awful cracking sound of those claws puncturing brick and stone, but Natsuko doesn’t have the time to wince when it turns around to attack her again. Drawing her sword with one smooth movement, she spins on one foot and thrusts forward with a strike far too fast for the eye to catch.

The demon shrieks as it’s thrown against the wall, nichirin steel scorching its flesh like white hot fire embedded in its shoulder. It tries its best to struggle, but is apparently smart enough to realise that the sharp edge of her nichirin blade is positioned right next to the bone of its neck. One wrong move and Natsuko won’t even need to do anything.

“Change your mind yet, demon?” Natsuko asks casually, strolling over to where it’s pinned under her sword. “If you need more convincing, well…” Reaching into the pocket woven into her uniform, she pulls out a nichirin tanto, its edge catching the dim glow of the gas-lit street lamps. “I would be happy to lend a helping hand.”

A high pitched wail rings out and the demon begins to struggle like a drowning insect, clearly too terrified to feel her nichirin blade cutting deeper and deeper into its neck. Clicking her tongue in irritation, Natsuko steps forward to readjust the position of her sword. If it goes and kills itself here, she’ll have to start all over picking up Upper Moon Three’s trail again.

She swore that she wouldn’t let up on this single goal. Until she has taken that demon’s head or died trying, Natsuko cannot bring herself to stand before Kyoujurou’s grave — not when the wound in her heart is still just as fresh and painful as it was three months ago.

Reaching forward, Natsuko yanks the blade from the demon’s shoulder and it instantly whirls on her in a frenzy of outstretched claws and snarling fangs. She parries it neatly before slicing off one of the arms intent on mauling her shoulder. The resulting scream almost makes her ears ring.

Natsuko turns around to pin it in place once more, but strangely enough, the demon does not seem to be focused on attacking her any longer. Instead, it’s trembling from blood loss, all four eyes wild with hunger — with the wounds it’s taken, its stomach must be clawing it apart inside out demanding for human flesh. And under the surface of its grey skin, distortion and shifting of bones. Natsuko has only seen this sight once.

Driven into a corner, the demon can evolve — a rare case, but a possible one nonetheless — to develop a blood demon art, or gain new abilities in its desperation to survive. Her fingers tighten around the handle, changing her grip in preparation for a more lethal move. As much as she has her own plans for this demon, she cannot allow it to escape this alleyway and hurt the civilians in the area.

Natsuko takes a deep breath. The frigid night air fills her lungs, liquid ice creeping through her veins from her heart down to the very tips of her fingers as she grasps her blade. The next time the demon rushes at her, claws outstretched, Natsuko doesn’t hesitate to let its edge cut into its neck.

The second she does, however, the world seems to turn itself on its axis. Distantly, she hears is a piercing yowl, more animal than human, and the looming, ominous ticking of what seems to be a clock that echoes down to the very hollow of her bones. There’s a tug, almost gravitational, that sends her stumbling forward, pulling her into a storm she has no way of escaping.

That’s the last thing she registers before the world warps around her.

When Natsuko finally regains her bearings, head still spinning and ears ringing, she takes one look around her and promptly loses it all over again.

She’s still in the alleyway, it seems, but everything here, from the acrid tinge to the air to the too bright, too white glow of the street lamps, is… different from what she’s familiar with. When Natsuko looks up at the night sky briefly, the brightness of the stars themselves seem to have been blotted out, only a faint twinkle showing itself here and there. Natsuko has to push down the brief surge of panic.

Not to mention that the demon is nowhere to be seen, either.

When she’s ascertained that the demon is nowhere in her vicinity, Natsuko bites back a curse and returns her sword to its sheathe. She took too long to deal with the demon and that resulted in its evolution. Still, even with its newfound abilities, it is a young demon nonetheless — dealing with it shouldn’t be too difficult as a kinoe. All she needs to do is figure out exactly what blood demon art it has developed and where it’s fled to.

As she retraces her steps out of the winding maze of alleyways, Natsuko starts to suspect that the demon’s new art might be that of illusions. While it might have done well in replicating the environment, several aspects of her surroundings are bizarre and completely different — from the strange glowing blocks some passers-by are holding in their hands, their strange and colourful clothes, to the towering buildings that she can spot in the distance that seem to glow with an almost artificial light. The demon must not yet be familiar enough with its illusory power, which would explain all these oddities.

Natsuko steps out of the maze, only to find that instead of the empty field she’d passed through earlier, a large building sits on the area in front of her now. Curious if this too is part of the demon’s illusion, she approaches the brightly lit signage next to its gates, running a finger down the characters engraved into brass.

Kimetsu… Academy.

Strangely, the engraving under her fingertips feels real enough. Perhaps the demon’s art isn’t as straightforward as she might have thought it to be.

She’s still contemplating why the demon would erect the image of a school with the characters for ‘defeat’ and ‘demon’ in its name when she hears the sound of soles crunching against gravel growing closer. Frowning, Natsuko slips around a corner to carefully observe whatever strange apparition the demon has conjured up this time.

“And I know he’s a teacher and all, but man, that guy has seriously gotta take his shit somewhere else!” From the sound of their footfalls, Natsuko surmises that there are two people walking across the courtyard, both of them men. Not a trace of demonic scent on them. “Just because he was chasing that Hashibira kid across the entire school, doesn’t mean he needs to knock over half the supplies in my art room! I spent the whole of lunch break cleaning up after that guy’s mess!”

A low, warm chuckle comes from the man accompanying him, and something about the sound just sets Natsuko on the edge in a way that has her fingers wrapping tight around her blade. The name Hashibira sounds familiar, but she can’t quite recall where she’d encountered this name before. “Well, Shinazugawa-san can get a little passionate at times. I do not think that is a bad thing!”

She can’t place her finger on what it is. The man’s voice is warm and effusive, nothing that should send goosebumps racing across her skin the way it is now. Clenching her jaw, Natsuko forces herself to take steady breaths and calm herself. Breathe, Natsuko, breathe.

“That’s because you didn’t spend two fucking hours scraping drying paint off the walls,” the first man mutters, clearly annoyed, before he lets out a huff. “Well, I’m heading home now to get some much needed shut eye. See you tomorrow.”

“Mm, see you too! Have a good night’s rest!”

Natsuko waits for a few moments for the other man to leave before she glances around the corner once more. And when she does, she instantly knows why that voice had put her on the edge so easily. How could it not?

Because it is Rengoku Kyoujurou standing in front of this Kimetsu Academy, adjusting his tie with one hand and checking his wristwatch with the other. There’s a grave in the Ubuyashiki graveyard bearing the name of the Flame Pillar of the demon slayer corps, with his final words ‘set your heart ablaze’ memorialised in stone for centuries to come. Natsuko knows this even though she’s only visited the place he’d been laid down to rest once, because that one time had already engraved itself irrevocably into her mind and left her heart bleeding for months after that.

Because that voice belongs to a man who is long dead. She knows that, she knows that, and yet…

“Kyoujurou-san!” She’s calling out, and before Natsuko is even aware of what she’s doing, she finds herself already standing before the phantom of the deceased Flame Pillar. It’s probably just an illusion, she chants repeatedly to herself, but Rengoku Kyoujurou is living, breathing, amber eyes widening when she gets a little too close, alive—

Because this might be an illusion, but she doesn’t care if she gets to see him one last time, to tell him all those things that she had wanted to tell him once he returned from the Infinity Train missions…

Because she had wanted to tell him this—

“Excuse me, miss.” Two large, warm hands rest firmly on her shoulders and hold her at arms’ length. There’s a familiar downward quirk to the corner of his mouth, a slight furrow of the brow that lets her know he’s confused, and oh.

He doesn’t recognise her.

Not at all.

“Apologies, do we know each other?” This Rengoku Kyoujurou continues to speak, his voice distant and muffled as though she’s underwater. Natsuko bites hard down on her tongue to hold back the sudden tears that sting her eyes, tasting iron in her mouth. “You look pretty familiar… and is this a cosplay outfit of some sort? I know this sort of thing has been trendy with some of the students recently…”

Natsuko blinks slowly. “...students?”

This Kyoujurou simply laughs. “Well, I dressed up as Oda Nobunaga during one of my Sengoku era history lessons, but my students thought I was cosplaying. You are dressed up as one of the fabled Demon Slayers, am I right?” He looks down at her haori, the gakuran uniform, the sword she’s carrying at her waist. “That’s quite an interesting piece of history you’ve chosen to cosplay! Very accurate to what little we know of them, if I do say so myself!”

History… and fables. Is that what the Demon Slayers appear to be in this Rengoku Kyoujurou’s eyes?

Natsuko glances back at the plaque that bears the school’s name. In her haste to hide earlier, she hadn’t noticed the words engraved beneath the title. Founded by the Ubuyashiki Clan in 1937. That’s years from where she’d last left off, and from what she can see, the school has been in use for a while now. How much time has the demon put between their past and present?

That means that this Rengoku Kyoujurou is…

“Right…” Natsuko manages to get out. Her hands are trembling so much that she needs to fist them in the hem of her haori to keep her shaking from being noticeable. He looks… older, more mature than he did when the kakushi had retrieved his body from the site of the train crash. The sight makes Natsuko want to cry and laugh and sob all at the same time. “You’re really knowledgeable, Rengoku-s…sensei. I learnt a lot from you, truly.”

She’d been nothing but a baby fawn stumbling around on unsteady legs until the Master had instructed her to seek guidance from the Flame Pillar. And from there her skills had grown astronomically, so had their friendship, until it had almost bloomed into something… more. What that something more was… well, Natsuko had thought that it could have been love.

Now, she supposes, she’ll never find out.

Kyoujurou’s eyes brighten. “Oh, so you are a past student of mine? I’m terribly sorry I couldn’t recognise you, but it’s no wonder why you looked so familiar. To be honest, you threw me off just now.” He laughs with just the perfect mixture of embarrassment and confidence, the exact same way he used to one hundred years ago, and Natsuko’s heart stings with joy. “For a moment there, you looked fairly similar to my fiancee, you know?”

Fiancee. Oh, so he’s…

“Rengoku-sa…sensei,” Natsuko begins, unable to hide the way her voice trembles. Kyoujurou’s smile falters, presumably at the sudden change in her tone, but she continues anyway. “Are there any… demons in this world?”

The reincarnation of the Flame Pillar of the demon slayers only looks at her, bemused, before he shakes his head with a quick laugh, reaching up to pat her head. “Cosplaying is fun, but make sure not to take it to the extreme,” he chides her in such a sensei-like manner that she has to hold back a watery laugh, “there are no demons in the world. That’s why the demon slayer corps is just a myth. There’s nothing you need to be afraid of, really.”

Natsuko remembers the words that the Master had told her when she’d first entered the demon slayer corps. “We, the demon slayer corps, exist to create a world where demons are nothing more than a bad dream,” Oyakata-sama had said. And it seems that in the future, or at least this variation of it, the hopes and dreams of all their comrades who’d walked the path before them had culminated to make this true.

“Then…” Natsuko trembles. “Then in this world, Kyoujurou-san, are you… happy?”

In her heart, perhaps, she already knows the answer.

This is a Rengoku Kyoujurou who probably has never wielded a sword in his life, who is engaged to a fiancee that makes his eyes shine at the mere thought of her and is probably happily awaiting a wedding… and Natsuko’s heart simultaneously feels so full and so empty that she aches.

But this is a Rengoku Kyoujurou who does not know her, and does not belong to her. So Natsuko takes a step back, forces herself to hold back her tears and smiles up at the man before her. Clearly concerned, he offers her a handkerchief and she takes it, gripping it so tightly she’s surprised it doesn’t tear under her fingers. Must be the marvel of future textile weaving… or something.

“Hey, hey, there’s no need to cry…” Natsuko almost laughs aloud at the unsure note in Kyoujurou’s voice. She must seem completely insane, with her strange attitude and outfit and how she seems prone to randomly burst into tears. “I am happy! Truly!” Natsuko tries her best to wipe away her tears, but more seem to just take their place. “I enjoy my job as a teacher! And my family is doing well! And I’m about to get married, which I am really nervous about, but it also makes me very excited! I am very happy… so there’s no need to cry.”

There are too many words that have gone unsaid between them. So much words that Natsuko had wanted to tell Kyoujurou, still wants to tell him, but when she looks up at the man in front of her, it’s all too clear that the Rengoku who should have heard them now lies in eternal peace in the Ubuyashiki graveyard.

And so, Natsuko reins in her words and takes a deep breath to calm herself. “That is… a relief to hear,” she says, and is glad to find that she means it with all her heart. “Then I pray that you live this life well, and stay safe from all danger, Kyoujurou-san. I will be… leaving now.”

With that, she bows deeply, sincerely, trying to convey all the emotions in her heart with this single action, before she turns around and leaves, trying to ignore the tears blurring her vision. Behind her, Kyoujurou watches as her silhouette vanishes into the shadows of an alleyway, unable to move yet aching with an inexplicable emptiness in his chest.

“Kyoujurou?” A delicate hand waves in front of his face. “Kyoujurou. Kyoujurou?”

It’s the glint on one finger that catches his eye, and Kyoujurou startles to see his fiancee standing in front of him, eyes soft and mouth pulled in a concerned frown. “You seem distressed. Did something happen at work today?”

“Natsuko.” Her voice is soothing and familiar, but Kyoujurou can’t help but feel as though something about it — the cadence or the tone or pronunciation — overlaps with that of the girl who had approached him earlier. Feeling mildly unsettled, he turns to her and takes her hand gently, letting the warmth of her palm calm the uneasiness he feels. “No, no, nothing happened at school today, love,” he reassures her. “It’s nothing to worry about — I think I just haven’t been sleeping too well for a while now.”

His fiancee, bless her perceptiveness, simply looks at him patiently. When Kyoujurou realises that she isn’t about to give in, he relents with a quiet sigh. “Well, it’s going to sound strange, but I had an encounter with an ex-student just before you arrived. She was dressed like one of the ‘demon slayers’ from the Taisho era, asking me if I was living a good life and if there were any demons in the world.” He shakes his head with a quick laugh, as if he could shrug off the unease that has settled on his shoulders. “Funny thing is, she looks just like you when I first met you…”

Kyoujurou trails off when he notices Natsuko’s eyes widen a fraction at his words.

“Do you perhaps know her?”

Natsuko’s expression still looks a little unsettled, but she shakes her head and puts on a smile, squeezing Kyoujurou’s hand lightly. “No, I don’t know her. Perhaps she’s a long lost sibling of mine? I’ll have to have some serious words with my parents the next time I visit,” she jokes. Her attempt is successful at making Kyoujurou hold back a laugh.

“Don’t be silly,” he nudges her shoulder with his, finally easing up as he turns the two of them towards her apartment. “Perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve seen you, so everyone is starting to look like you from how much I miss you.”

Natsuko laughs merrily into her hand.

“Stop it! That’s so cheesy!”

“But it’s the truth!”

As the sound of their laughter fades into the night, however, a pair of wide blue eyes watches them go from behind.

Natsuko does not follow them.

Instead, she turns the opposite direction and follows the claw marks left in the ground, the rotten stench — traces of demon — and refuses to let her mind dwell on what ifs. What could have beens. That smiling Kyoujurou and Natsuko, both with shining eyes and soft, uncalloused hands… they could have had it all.

That happiness could have been theirs.

Only the habits ingrained into her from serving so long in the demon slayer corps holds her back from running straight back to the pair. It’s ridiculous, she knows, how the desire to see them again is so strong it almost borders on obsession. Gritting her teeth, Natsuko slaps herself lightly. The slight sting on her cheek forces her to focus on her original mission here. There’s still a demon running around on the loose, and there is no other demon slayer that exists at present apart from her. Failure to slay it now is not an option.

Although the environment might be foreign to her, Natsuko is still adept at picking up the evidence that clues her to the path that the demon has taken. Fortunately, there is no blood to be seen — it seems as though the demon has not yet attacked anyone. Natsuko picks up her pace, rounding a corner before coming across what seems to be a small store, its four walls made completely out of glass. It almost hurts Natsuko’s eyes with how brightly it’s lit, and she has to squint to read the store’s name. “Seven… Eleven?”

Nothing seems particularly peculiar about this store, but both Natsuko’s nose and instincts are going into heightened alert. The demon must be somewhere close by, if not here, right under her nose. Carefully, Natsuko rests her hand on the hilt of her blade as she begins to make a wide sweep of the area.

As hard as she tries to focus, however, part of her mind is constantly distracted by the Kyoujurou and Natsuko she’d seen earlier. They’d seemed so familiar with each other, so sweet — Natsuko couldn’t even imagine the thought of holding Kyoujurou-san’s hand so familiarly like that. Did that Kyoujurou buy his Natsuko flowers, just as Kyoujurou-san had once said that he would do for his future wife? Did he snore at night too when he slept? Did he still shout umai with each bite of food, and did he feed that Natsuko bites of food like Kyoujurou-san used to do for Senjurou?

Natsuko bites back a not quite smile as she edges nearer towards the bushes. She can’t imagine Kyoujurou-san doing that for anyone else aside from family, not even with Kanroji-san. Or…

It stings, when Natsuko realises that maybe she could have, and would have known if only the two of them had decided to be honest with each other from the start, instead of waiting around like a pair of optimistic fools…

Regret aches, like a slow, throbbing bruise.

“Help!”

The sudden cry cuts through Natsuko’s thoughts like ice cold water, and she’s running full speed towards the commotion in an instant, flying over the vegetation and park benches in her way. The demon’s scent only gets stronger with every step she takes, but there’s another strange feeling rising up in her that she can’t quite place her finger on. Pushing it aside, she leaps through the final line of trees and draws her sword. “Ice Breathing, First Form!”

The demon is just fast enough to dodge her slash, the tip of her sword leaving a shallow cut along its shoulder as it spins out of the way. Switching her grip, Natsuko doesn’t give it a second to recover, pressing it back with attacks until it’s forced to leap a short distance, teeth bared in a frustrated snarl. She can hear the beginning of a growl at the back of its throat.

Planting herself firmly between the demon and its would-be victim, Natsuko holds up her sword in a defensive stance. “Are you alright…” she begins to ask, but trails off when she realises that it’s her own face that’s looking back at her. “Natsu…” Calling her own name aloud feels weirder than she’d thought it’d be, and she aborts that attempt immediately. “... Nakamura-san?”

“I’m alright!” Even their voices sound so alike. It sends a shiver down Natsuko’s spine. Trying not to think about it, Natsuko turns her attention back to the demon in front of her. “Just stay there and don’t move. I’ll deal with the demon in a moment.”

“Wait!” The demon interrupts. From how the cut on its shoulder isn’t healing, the demon must be severely depleted already from their chase. It seems that both Natsuko and the demon know that this isn’t a fight that it can win. “I have a proposition!”

Natsuko raises her sword. “Not interested.”

“You can stay in this world! If you don’t kill me, you can continue to stay in this world for the rest of your life!” The demon blurts out as Natsuko steps towards it, killing intent burning in her blue eyes. “You can continue to stay here, with that man!”

At that, Natsu’s blade stills. Seeing her reaction, the demon hastens to explain. “If you kill me now, my blood demon art will dissipate the second the sun rises and you’ll be sent back to your original time. But if you let me live… I could keep this up indefinitely. You could remain here forever!”

When Natsuko doesn’t respond, the demon continues, increasingly desperate. “The one that you met is the reincarnation of the Flame Pillar, right? He’s dead in your time, but if you remain here, you could live in a time where he’s still alive! You could—”

“Will you continue to eat humans?” The demon’s spiel is interrupted by Natsuko, and it stares at her for a moment.

“Well, to keep up the blood demon art, of course I would have to replenish my strength. I—”

It never gets to finish its sentence, because in the next second Natsuko’s blade has severed its head cleanly from its neck. Stunned, the demon blinks a few times when its head rolls next to its feet on the ground, before it lets out a piercing scream and dissolves into ashes.

“And that,” Natsuko mutters under her breath, “is enough answer for me.”

Turning away from the crumbling body on the ground, Natsuko sheathes her blade… and is instantly bombarded by a hundred questions by her own self.

“That was really amazing! You’re crazy fast, woah!” The other Natsuko… well, Nakamura-san gushes with stars in her eyes. “How did you move so quickly? You must be even faster than Usain Bolt! And that sword! Is it really made out of steel? You cut its head off so easily!”

“U-Usah… In… Bolto?” Natsuko repeats, confused by the foreign word. At that, Nakamura-san merely laughs. Now that they’re able to stand face to face like this, Natsuko can see the more mature curve of her jaw, and how her cheeks have lost most of their youthful plumpness. She wonders if that’s how she would look in a few years as well.

The way she acts, however, reminds her of the person she used to be just a few months ago. Back when things were easier, when even the simple act of lighting a fire or eating sweet potatoes didn’t bring an ache to her heart.

“I don’t know how I can possibly thank you…” Nakamura-san continues, and as if listening in on their conversation, Natsuko’s stomach suddenly grumbles. A faint pink embeds itself on Natsuko’s cheeks.

At that, Nakamura-san laughs, and takes her hand. “Right, I think I know just how to repay you now!”

That’s how the two of them end up sitting at a high table in Seven Eleven less than ten minutes later, a few packets of steaming ‘instant food’ between them. Nakamura-san had attempted to explain to her the intricacies of the modern microwave, but the second she had started talking about… something that had sounded like ‘electromagnetic waves’, Natsuko had promptly lost her. Still, the food is warm and smells delicious, so Natsuko tucks in rapidly after a quick ‘itadakimasu’.

Surprisingly, for food that had been freezing cold just minutes ago, it’s probably one of the most delicious things that Natsuko has eaten. Stunned, she looks up at Nakamura-san, who just laughs indulgently.

“Tastes good, doesn’t it? I bought my favourites — considering that you’re me, I thought that we’d have the same taste,” she pushes a wrapped onigiri over to her. “Oh, just wait till you try mochi ice cream.”

Natsuko’s eyes almost glow. “Mochi ice cream?”

“Yes! The greatest invention to mankind,” Nakamura-san nods seriously. “It’s cold, creamy, chewy… once you’ve had a bite, you’d never want to leave.”

At her words, Natsuko’s chopsticks go still in midair, before she sets them down slowly. “Well… it’d take less than that for me to want to stay.”

Nakamura-san looks at her with gentle eyes, and Natsuko finds that she can’t quite meet her gaze. “It was a hard choice, wasn’t it?” It’s… strange, seeing sympathy for herself on her own face. Natsuko looks out of the glass, where the clear surface is fogging slightly due to the cool air inside this ‘Seven Eleven’. With the white marring the glass, Natsuko can almost convince herself that this is her own time, where she belongs.

“Yeah,” she says, and her throat feels tight. “It was. You heard what the demon said, didn’t you? That Kyoujurou-san is dead in my time?”

Nakamura-san’s hand rests on her shoulder, giving her a comforting squeeze. “I did.”

“I thought that we had time, you know?” Natsuko whispers, fingers burying themselves in the hem of her haori. “That somehow, the demons would be defeated, and I could tell Kyoujurou-san how much I cared for him? The hardest part is that… we knew, both of us knew how we felt about each other, but we always thought that there would be another day, and another day after that… and then one day there just…” her voice breaks off as she shudders, “there just wasn’t, anymore.”

“You must have been in a lot of pain,” Nakamura-san says gently, and Natsuko almost wants to cry. Silly as it might sound, it’s almost like having an inner voice that understands all her pain. “You’ve been keeping this in for a very long time, haven’t you?”

Natsuko laughs bitterly. “Oyakata-sama — the master of our organisation — said that I would learn to handle the pain my own way as time passes. But it still…” her voice trembles, “every day seems so hopeless. There are nights where I just… realise that I don’t know what I would do, after we eliminate the demons from this world. Besides my hatred, there’s nothing keeping me going anymore. That’s why I… this time… I wanted to…” Natsuko is unable to say anymore, but Nakamura-san seems to get it.

That gentle, uncalloused hand rubs soothing circles into her back. “And yet you didn’t hesitate to kill that demon earlier,” Nakamura-san’s voice is soft. “Why?” Natsuko laughs, but it’s quiet, resigned.

“Because it’s what I have to do,” she replies immediately, and then pauses. “Because that’s not my Kyoujurou-san.”

No matter how much I want him to be.

The two of them sit in silence for a while, Nakamura-san’s hand still gently rubbing her back while Natsuko attempts to collect herself. With a deep breath, she reaches out for the sukiyaki donburi and continues to dig into it. She feels as though she’s reopened an old wound tonight, and her chest is raw and aching once more.

“Do you believe in reincarnation, Natsuko-chan?”

For the second time that night, Natsuko just stares at her older counterpart before putting down her chopsticks once again. “Well, I mean…” she gestures at Nakamura-san, who laughs. “There’s this.”

After a moment, Nakamura-san speaks, but what comes out of her mouth is completely unexpected.

“Kyoujurou snores in his sleep,” she tells Natsuko with a conspiratorial wink, as though she’s revealing a big secret. “And his cooking sometimes isn’t so good, but don’t tell him I said that. He eats far too much than should be humanly possible, and he’s surprisingly good at sumo wrestling. And he’s terribly off key when it comes to singing, and he’s such a history geek, and…” Natsuko almost has to look away, because Nakamura-san is practically radiant when she speaks about him. “And I… I just love him so much, you know?”

Natsuko knows, of course. She loves Kyoujurou, her Kyoujurou who laughs loudly at every bad thing and always breaks sweet potatoes in half to share with her, that much too.

“And to tell you the truth,” Nakamura-san smiles at her, just a little sadly. “I’ve been having dreams about this for a while already. About you. About a me in a strange haori who wields a sword and a world where demons exist. About a world where Kyoujurou is, well, dead.” Natsuko’s breath hitches, but Nakamura-san continues.

“I’d wake up crying every night. It seemed nonsensical at the time, but I couldn’t help calling Kyoujurou every time it happened, no matter how late it was. It felt so real, the fear. The feeling of losing him.” Nakamura-san’s eyes are soft now. “So the one time he came all the way to my apartment at three in the morning, driving all the way from the other side of town, mind you, I just… proposed to him on the spot.”

Natsuko stares.

“No ring, no fancy words, no kneeling,” Nakamura-san laughs, “And that big oaf started laughing and crying so hard he couldn’t answer me at all. And so, here we are.” She holds up her right hand, and Natsuko’s breath catches at the princess cut ruby sitting at the ring finger. “But anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is… I won’t make the same mistake, I promise.”

Natsuko is quiet for a moment, and Nakamura-san starts to ramble, a habit she herself has when she gets nervous. “I’ll take care of Kyoujurou well, and I’ll buy all the sweet potatoes he can eat. I’ll make sure to tie his tie for him every morning before he heads to school, and… I’ll make sure to tell him I love him every chance I have. So…”

Nakamura-san takes her hands, soft, unblemished skin against her swordsman’s hands. “In the future, you still have something to hope for. The future that you and that Kyoujurou-san of the past created for us, without demons… look forward to it, and live every day with hope, alright?”

Natsuko doesn’t reply, staring down at the hands holding her own. Then, after a long while, she smiles genuinely for the first time in a long while, and looks up at Nakamura-san.

“Say, do they have any strawberry flavoured mochi ice cream here?”

When she returns to her own time just a few hours later, Natsuko is just slightly disoriented to find herself in that dark alleyway once more, her eyes adjusting to the dim lights of this era. She’s still alone, and Kyoujurou-san still lies silent in his grave, but…

She can still taste the sweetness of the mochi ice cream in her mouth, can still remember the smile of Kyoujurou-sensei and the feeling of his hand on her head. Turning around, she moves to leave the alleyway behind her, a small smile lingering on her face.

And behind her, the same sun rises with a new dawn.

#rengoku kyoujurou #kimetsu no yaiba fanfic #kimetsu kyojuro #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #demon slayer #demon slayer fanfic #rengoku #kny kyojuro #rengoku kyōjurō #kyojurou x reader #— works 💐. #— commissions 📌.

[lionofchaeronea]

A Hymn to Ares

Exchange your tunics, Muses, for the cuirass and close-fitted greaves, And sing to me of Ares - man-slaying Ares, who delights in the sword. Own child of Zeus and Hera, yet they fear him and turn away When he stalks the halls of Olympus, fresh from the battlefield, Skin sticky with sweat, dirt, and blood. Harmonia - the child He bore with gleaming Aphrodite - calls him to the bath And pours warm water over his limbs, washing the filth away; Then - for his spirit knows no check - he leaps up, seizes his helmet, And quick as a falcon darts to Earth to rejoin the line of battle. There are two gods, men say, who rule the clash of spears. When the line is first drawn up, and the commander shouts his orders - Like one of the immortals is he, radiant in the sunlight - Then is the time for Athena, sage goddess who sprang forth From the head of Father Zeus, born of Wisdom whom he swallowed. She grants cunning for disposition of troops, tells where ranks should be thickest, Where to place the light-armed slingers who send forth hails of stones, Where to place the proud cavalry with their prancing horses. But once the first spear is cast and the war-cry touches heaven, Then Athena withdraws from that place, wisdom is forgotten, And Ares roams at will. In a chariot he rides With scythes nailed to its axles. Untiring horses draw it, And he is not alone; at his left hand Fear is posted, Panic at his right. He gives and withdraws his favor According to his close-kept counsel, as is the way of gods: One man he loves, and breathes fury into his wide nostrils, So that he grips the shield more tightly through its strap, and stands With feet wide apart, bearing the shock, unable to be moved, As Athos juts out of the sea, and waves clash all around it. He thrusts his spear, and when it breaks, he draws his sword instead, Slashing this way and that, with not a thought for his own life - Piles of dead grow around him, his enemies believe That he is no man, but some dread monster spawned from Tartarus’ bowels. Such is he whom Ares loves. But when the god decides, He strikes another across the head, seizes him in the guts And twists them, chills him to the bone, until he thinks of nothing But saving his own hide. Away he flings his shield, Drops his spear to the dirt, and flees. When he crosses the threshold Of his own home, his wife and children refuse to meet his gaze, Such shame he’s brought to them. He has no place in the city, Men point and laugh as he walks the streets. But it was not his doing - It was the will of Ares, most capricious of all the immortals, Dispenser of fear and rage alike, the lord of battle-madness. Mercy, man-slayer - mercy on me and on all within your grasp. Grant courage in the time of trial, and grant a safe return, Unwounded in front, unwounded behind, from the swirling mass of soldiery. And in return I shall give you all the offerings in my power: Not only swine and mighty oxen, but this song as well.

Detail of the so-called "Ares Borghese," Roman-era copy after an original perhaps by Alcamenes. Now in the Louvre. Photo credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons.

#personal #poem #poetry #classics #tagamemnon #Ancient Greece #Greek religion #Ancient Greek religion #Hellenic polytheism #hymn #Ares

[explosionshark]

Title: body language (2/5)

Fandom: buffy the vampire slayer (buffy summers/faith lehane)

Note: post-chosen fic following the evolution of buffy and faith’s relationship through a series of romantic encounters. featured in this chapter: anguished pining! miscommunication! sensual scar touching! and much more!

-

“B, seriously, I don’t think we need to call in the cavalry for this one. It’s looking pretty amateur hour over here.”

“Look, Faith, I know things are different now, but you’re still living on a Hellmouth. We can’t afford to let a cult run amok just because they don’t seem that dangerous. Especially if they’re targeting slayers.”

“I know that,” Faith snaps. She hears the plastic of the phone creak in her grip and forces herself to relax. Deep breaths, count of ten, imagine a meadow — all that lame crap the prison counselors made her memorize. Buffy’s tendency to lecture had always been one of her most annoying traits, and despite all the progress they’ve made mending their relationship, Faith still hasn’t learned how to let it roll off her back. “Look, we may not be operating out of an actual castle but the Cleveland squad is legit—”

“Oh my god, stop being weird about the castle thing.”

“I’m not being weird about it.”

“You’re totally being weird about it. Okay, yeah, I know it seems like a little much but I already told you, Giles knew a guy and really for the amount of real estate—”

“I don’t care about the castle,” Faith cuts in, even though yeah, it is ridiculous. But, Jesus, she shouldn’t have brought it up, Buffy’s way too defensive about it

keep reading on ao3

#buffy the vampire slayer #faith lehane #buffy summers #fuffy #faith x buffy #btvs #explosionfic #posting again to see if i make the tag this time... #pls give me attention it has been a ROUGH morning and i worked hard on this

[gear-project]

GG Music Tribute Master List

As you may not know already, I’m a huge Metal Head, this list is just a sampling of songs I’ve come across over the years that GG has either referenced or just sounded like something GG’s music sounds like.

Obviously, you can find a link to a lot of these songs here.

But anyway, here’s the FULL LIST (at least for now):

Guilty Gear Music Tribute Master List

[Character Themes] Sol Badguy "Keep Yourself Alive" > Cochise [Audioslave] Ky Kiske "Holy Orders (Be Just or Be Dead)" > Lord of the Thunder [Rhapsody] Chipp Zanuff "Suck a Sage" > Speed [Angra] May "Blue Water, Blue Sky" > How Can I Refuse [Heart] Millia Rage "Write in Pain" > Nothing to Say [Angra] Zato/Eddie "Feel a Fear" > Kill the King [Megadeth] Slayer "Haven't you got Eyes in your Head?" > Raining Blood [Slayer] Venom "A Solitude that asks Nothing in Return" > Breed to Breathe [Napalm Death] Potemkin "Burly Heart" > A New Level [Pantera] Faust "The Original" > Peace Sells [Megadeth] Bridget "A Simple Life" > Keep Yourself Alive [Queen] Dizzy "Awe of She" > Change My Heart [Concerto Moon] A.B.A. "Keep in Hell's Gates" > Seventh Sign [Yngwie Malmsteen] Zappa "Good Manners and Customs" > Lay all your Love on me [Helloween ABBA Cover] Axl Low "Make Oneself" > You're Crazy [Guns'N'Roses] I-No "Kage Matsuri" > Fight From the Inside [Queen] Anji Mito "Fuuga" > Live Wire [Motley Crue] Baiken "Momentary Life" > Ray Bradbury Attack [God of Shamisen] Kliff Undersn "Pride and Glory" > Your Time has Come [Audioslave] Testament "Bloodstained Lineage" > Carry On [Angra] Johnny "Liquor, Bar, and Drunkard" > The Worm [Audioslave] Jam Kuradoberi "Babel Noise" > Hero [Tengger Cavalry] Dr. Paradigm "Intellect, Reason, and the Wild" > The Course of Nature [Angra] Izuna "Hiruandan" > Dragon String Attack (Finishing Blow) [God of Shamisen] Robo Ky Theme "Under Construction" > Aces High [Iron Maiden] Sin Kiske "Ride on Time" > BLAST! [Viper] Valentine "The Mask does Not Laugh" > Spellbound [Dimmu Borgir] Order Sol "Get Down to Business" > Great King Rat [Queen] Raven "Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds" > Death Trap [Taake] Asuka R. Kreutz "The Man" > Absinthe and Rue [Symphony X]

[Intro Themes/Options/Character Select Themes] GG1 Intro "Prickle Man" > Kickstart My Heart [Motley Crue] GGXX Intro "Feedback" > A Spider's Web [Rage] GGXrd Intro Theme /Alternate > Changes: Sign of Heaven [Rage] Character Select Theme "D.O.A." > Holy Wars:The Punishment Due [Megadeth] Character Select Theme "D.O.A."/Alternate > Kiss of Death [Dokken] Character Select Theme "Mince" > Rage in the Afternoon [Rage] Options Theme /Alternate > Cum on Feel the Noize! [Quiet Riot] DEAD ANGLE THEME > Dead Angle [Saver Tiger] TENSION THEME > Power [Helloween] DUST ATTACKS THEME > Angel Dust [Ария/Aria] THE MISSING LINK/EVOLUTION THEME > The Missing Link [Rage] TEAM NEOBLOOD THEME > Blood for Blood [Ария/Aria]

[Boss Themes] Boss Kliff Undersn Theme /Alternate > Sole Survivor [Helloween] Boss Order Sol Theme /Alternate > The Temple of Hate [Angra] Boss ZATO=ONE Theme /Alternate > Fear of the Dark [Iron Maiden] Boss EDDIE Theme /Alternate > Black in Mind [Rage] Boss Millia Theme /Alternate > Shoot the Fox [Chroming Rose] Boss Slayer Theme /Alternate > Too Much 21st Century [Bauhaus] Boss Johnny Theme /Alternate > Ride the Wild Wind [Queen] Boss Testament Theme /Alternate > Master of Puppets [Metallica] Boss Intro Theme "Death and Republic" > I want Out [Helloween] Boss Justice Theme "Meet Again" > Metal Icarus [Angra] Boss I-No Theme "The Midnight Carnival" > Kurenai [X-Japan] Boss I-No Theme /Alternate > The Gates of Babylon [Rainbow] Boss I-No Theme /Alternate > Megalomania [OUTRAGE] Boss Leopaldon Theme "Kill DOG as a Sacrifice to DOG" > Don't Fear the Winter [Rage] Boss Darkside Sin Kiske Theme /Alternate > Emergency Express [Saver Tiger] Boss Valentine Theme "Dignity" > The Sinister Awakening [Dimmu Borgir] Boss FINAL VALENTINE THEME “Diva” > Queen of the Dark Horizons [Rhapsody] Boss CONCLAVE THEME /Alternate > War Pigs [Black Sabbath] Boss Sol Badguy Theme /Alternate> Mr. Bad Guy [Freddie Mercury] Boss Ky Kiske Theme /Alternate > Emerald Sword [Rhapsody] Boss Ky Kiske Theme /Alternate > The Hellion: Electric Eye [Judas Priest]

[Rival Versus Themes] Sol versus Ky Theme "Conclusion" > Last Goodbye [Royal Hunt] Sol versus Ky Theme "No Mercy" > Don't Despair [Angra] Sol versus Ky Theme "Noontide" > Dream Chaser [Concerto Moon] Sol versus Ky Theme "The Re-Coming" > Time to Die [Concerto Moon] Order Sol versus Ky Theme "Keep the Flag Flying" > In the Name of God [Yngwie Malmsteen] Assassins' Theme "Existence" > Deadly Existence [Meliah Rage] Millia versus Zato Theme "Still in the Dark" > Wings of the Evil [Viper] Mirror Versus Theme "Fatal Duel" > Be Quick or Be Dead [Iron Maiden] Mirror Versus Theme "Nothing out of the Ordinary" > Alive [W.A.S.P.] Mirror Versus Theme "Misadventure" > Deja Vu [Yngwie Malmsteen]

[Ending Themes] Sol's Ending "Beyond the Dark Life" > Fade to Black [Metallica] Potemkin's Ending "D-A-M-E" > Make My Day [Rage] Millia's Ending "Love Letter From..." > Right Now [Van Halen] Staffroll A "Till next Time!" > I want it ALL! [Queen] Staffroll B "Boomtown Blues" > Voodoo Chile [Jimi Hendrix] Staffroll C "Missing" > Unfinished [X-Japan]

[Unaccounted For/Music Tribute To Be Added] Elphelt's Theme > ????? Ramlethal's Theme > ????? Bedman's Theme > ????? Ariels' Theme > ????? Leo's Theme > ????? Jack-O's Theme > ????? Kum Haehyun's Theme > ????? Answer's Theme > ????? Giovanna's Theme > ????? Goldlewis' Theme > ????? Nagoriyuki's Theme > ????? Happy Chaos' Theme > ????? Delilah's Theme > ?????

#Game Modding #GG Music Tribute #To Do List

[church-history]

St. George, Christian, soldier, dragon slayer, martyr

Feast day(s): April 23rd (Catholic) April 23rd, November 26th, November 3rd (Russian Ortho) November 17th, May 1st (Coptic Ortho)

Patronage: soldiers, archers, cavalry and chivalry, farmers and field workers, riders and saddlers, those suffering from leprosy, plague and syphilis.

It is uncertain when Saint George was born and historians continue to debate to this day. However, his death date is estimated to be April 23 303 A.D.

The first piece of evidence of George's existance appeared within the works of the Bollandists Daniel Papebroch, Jean Bolland, and Godfrey Henschen's Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca. George was one of several names listed in the historical text, and Pope Gelasius claimed George was one of the saints "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God."

George was born to a Gerontios and Polychronia, a Roman officer and a Greek native of Lydda. Both were Christians from noble families of the Anici and George, Georgios in the original Greek, was raised to follow their faith.

When George was old enough, he was welcomed into Diocletian's army. by his late 20's, George became a Tribunus and served as an imperial guard for the Emperor at Nicomedia.

On February 24, 303 A.D., Diocletian, who hated Christians, announced that every Christian the army passed would be arrested and every other soldier should offer a sacrifice to the Roman gods.

George refused to abide by the order and told Diocletian, who was angry but greatly valued his friendship with George's father.

When George announced his beliefs before his peers, Diocletian was unable to keep the news to himself.

In an effort to save George, Diocletian attempted to convert him to believe in the Roman gods, offered him land, money and slaves in exchange for offering a sacrifice to the Roman gods, and made several other offers that George refused.

Finally, after exhausting all other options, Diocletian ordered George's execution. In preparation for his death, George gave his money to the poor and was sent for several torture sessions. He was lacerated on a wheel of swords and required resuscitation three times, but still George did not turn from God.

On April 23, 303 A.D., George was decapitated before Nicomedia's outer wall. His body was sent to Lydda for burial, and other Christians went to honor George as a martyr.

Saint George and the Dragon

There are several stories about George fighting dragons, but in the Western version, a dragon or crocodile made its nest at a spring that provided water to Silene, believed to be modern-day Lcyrene in Libya.

The people were unable to collect water and so attempted to remove the dragon from its nest on several ocassions. It would temporarily leave its nest when they offered it a sheep each day, until the sheep disappeared and the people were distraught.

This was when they decided that a maiden would be just as effective as sending a sheep. The townspeople chose the victim by drawing straws. This continued until one day the princess' straw was drawn.

The monarch begged for her to be spared but the people would not have it. She was offered to the dragon, but before she could be devoured, George appeared. He faced the dragon, protected himself with the sign of the Cross, and slayed the dragon.

After saving the town, the citizens abandoned their paganism and were all converted to Christianity.

Interesting Facts

Saint George stands out among other saints and legends because he is known and revered by both Muslims and Christians.

It is said Saint George killed the dragon near the sea in Beirut, thus Saint George bay was named in his honor.

Saint George's feast day is celebrated on April 23, but if it falls before Easter, it is celebrated Easter Monday.

The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates three St. George feast days each year -April 23 as is expected, November 3, to commemorate the consecration of a cathedral dedicated to him in Lydda, and on November 26, for when a church in Kiev was dedicated to him.

In older works, Saint George is depicted wearing armor and holding a lance or fighting a dragon, which represents Christ's enemies.

In Bulgaria, his feast day is celebrated May 6 with the slaughter and roasting of a lamb.

In Egypt, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria calls St. George the "Prince of Martyrs" and celebrates on May 1. There is a second celebration November 17, in honor of the first church dedicated to him.

Saint George is the patron saint of England and Catalonia and his cross can be found throughout England.

#catholic #russian orthodox #coptic orthodox #st george #st george and the dragon #christian #catholic history #history #saints

[aashi-heartfilia]

FT100YQ chapter 85 Review

Let's start...

It starts off directly from where we left in the last chapter and Gray vs Hakune continued. The fact that Hakune was already scared when Gray broke through her spell was just weird because she is one of Selene's Minion, the Great Moonlit Beauty Goddess and you must assume that she has to have something more powerful than a cheap trick but anyways.

So she is cornered to use her last resort and creates a Titan but then Gray was like "You think you can beat me in my own game?" And he freaking created an army of Giant Soldiers!!

Honestly, this was amazing to finally, finally see Gray using Dynamic Ice Magic just like Lyon. It never crossed my mind but it makes so much sense. Elentir is a land filled with magic and we have already seen Lucy summoning her spirits without keys so why not have a look at what Gray can do with this enormous power flowing in this land? And this scene was just so beautiful.

And it was enough to KO Hakune.

Battle Review

Unlike the battle with Yuoko or Mimi, there isn't much to say about this battle. It went something like Diamond Impact...Demon Slayer...Game of Maker Magic...Gray trapped in memory...Gruvia Development...Giant Titan... Giant Ice Cavalry...Hakune KOed.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

It felt kinda underwhelming?

Despite the fact that it took almost the same time as Lucy's fight(ch 84 full, ch 85 half). It could be because one entire chapter was dedicated to that Ice Fantasy and Gruvia Development, so the fight in itself felt short. And Hakune was down way too easily for a Beauty Goddess but I guess Gray was a bit too strong.

Another thing to notice here is that Carla re-established Gray as Natsu's rival and I was pleasantly surprised to see that. It was because we didn't see Gray doing many useful things when compared to Natsu in the Alveraze arc. And since then it was Natsu who defeated both Merciuphobia and Aldron in the final battle(even if he got help both times)

So yeah, it was good to see this rivalry return.

Face from Tartaros returns?

Another cool twist from this chapter was the reference to faces from Tartaros. The face was a weapon made by Council to absorb MP and it is basically the opposite of 'Hand' that is a result of overflowing power. And the chaos due to this power was so high that they can't even use Aqua Era to escape. This is why Selene has to be finished so that the people of Elentir can live in peace.

Erza and Natsu are back in action..that was quick!

Looks like Wendy is becoming an expert healer but it can also be contributed to Elentir's power where a process like healing takes place very fast. Remember how quickly Faris healed despite taking a direct shot from Selene?

Gotta love their friendship🗝️❄️

No matter how much of an exhibitionist Gray is, you can't deny that he cares a lot for his friends. Now that Lucy is down due to using so much power, he was giving her a shoulder and it is one of the best things in Fairytail, i.e. the bond they have. This scene right here is proof of how much their friendship has evolved over the years.

Looks like Suzaku is still not down...One Tough Cookie!

So yeah, these were my thoughts on the latest chapter. Comment and let me know what you guys think. Till then...

See ya!

#anime #fairy tail #100 years quest #lucy heartfilia #team natsu #fairytail lucy #ft nalu #ft lucy #ft manga #ft natsu #ft gray #gray fairy tail #gray fullbuster #anime / manga #ft gruvia #ft erza #ft wendy

[heliinx]

Heliinx

❂ Wizard

▲ SpellCaster

This unit can cast spells.

▲ Regeneration There are beings and creatures that can mend bone and knit flesh at an incredible rate. A mighty boon, but one stunted by fire.

▲ Scaley Skin Scaly skin or hide helps to dampen or deflect the damage caused by missile weapons, increasing this unit's missile resistance.

▲ Charge Defense Against Large Foes When standing and bracing against a charge of large enemies (such as cavalry or monsters) this unit will negate the enemy's charge bonus.

50

75

46

35

40

350 (Armor Piercing, Bonus vs. Large)

20

Weapons

Unique Weapon: 

1. Things-Caster A fusion between a things-catcher and a classic wizard staff, the things-caster performs the job of both it’s components well.

2. Serpent Slayer A weapon of skaven and lizardmen craft, the Slayer is comprised of rat magic and enslaved skink handiwork.

Armor

Armor: Warpscale Armor In Clan Reave, no part of the beast is wasted! Heliinx uses the toughest scales from the toughest saurus to forge her personal mail, which she dons under her robes when her clan goes to war.

Mounts

- Brood Horror For the gaudier Warlord, Clan Moulder offers their most bloated Pox Rats as mounts to flail crush and savage a way through the enemy's ranks.

- Unique Mount: Frostblood Purchased from the Skaven markets as a cub, Frostblood is a White Lion and the pride and joy of Heliinx. She extends her favor unselfishly to few things: Frostblood is one such thing, equally keen to nuzzle her as he is to savage her enemies.

-Unique Mount: Ringing Palanquin Heliinx’s battle Palanquin, fitted with an unholy bell and guarded by Albino Rats. An unholy battle altar dedicated to the Great Horned Rat, its ominous tolling strikes awe into evil Skaven hearts and fear into their opponents. -Unique Mount*: Skarskrit Skarskrit is a massively mutated Bloodletter, kidnapped and then experimented on by Heliinx via surgies and warpstone applications. The result was a hulking daemonic creature, which Heliinx bound to herself using magic.

Abilities

Typical: Encourage, Hide, Scurry Away, Stand or Die!, Arcane Conduit, Evasion, Too Horrible To Die, 

Magic: See Here

#Skaven #Skaven OC #Statcard #Legendary Lord #Warhammer Fantasy #//i'll add abilities later orz #Heliinx Mod

[normallyxstranger]

@collectionofvoices​ | title; I got kicked… in the head (Xander & Buffy) | from a starter call

     He held the ice pack against his temple. The pain wasn’t excruciating, but it did make him sort of dizzy. A throbbing started, just the beginning of a headache that promised to get worse before it got better. At least there hadn’t been any blood. And he hadn’t, ya know, died or anything.

     But Buffy didn’t seem to catch that. She seemed to have a one track mind as she searched through the library’s array of assorted weaponry, looking for the perfect instrument of death to take out the demons who’d attacked them. 

     “Hey, Buff—not to be a killer of joy or anything, but maybe you should wait for the cavalry. Strength in numbers and all that?” He was loath to mention that Angel could help the most with this situation, but even Willow and Oz and Giles’s help could tip the scale. “I mean, you and me going after them doesn’t sound so great. Because I got kicked… in the head. I’m not up to snuff.  And you—”

     Well, probably wasn’t a great idea to point out how the Slayer had gotten her ass kicked too. 

     “I’m just saying. This is me—being rational guy.”

#collectionofvoices #thread; fandom character #thread; Xander #title; i got kicked... in the head (Xander & Buffy)