swordprincess | 005 [Voice/Action]

[Karla is...confused, to say the least. She didn't know who she was...but she hasn't thought about it either. She only thought of herself as just a girl, looking for her big brother. Others saw her as the Princess of Swords, a devastating warrior whose skill and beauty was talked about all over Elibe. She didn't care too much for that reputation, because she didn't care about fighting. The only thing on her mind was finding her brother.]

[But Zompano's recent takeover allowed her to become something else entirely. A wife and a mother with a family. She had to admit that she liked it while it lasted.]

[Her voice is filled with sadness and disappointment as she casually speaks into her journal.]

To be a wife and a mother, even for a short time, was...quite an illuminating experience. That's a kind of life I would have liked to live.

[At some point during the day, the Sword Princess can be found at the Battle Dome in yet another "bandits raiding the village" scenario. There are three bandits facing her now. They move in to attack, mercilessly swinging their axes at her. Karla dodges their attacks easily, as if they were moving in slow motion. And then three strokes from her sword led to three fallen bandits. The setting fades back into the usual empty room. Karla sighs as she sheaths her sword. Asch had shown her how to use the Battle Dome, but now she needs to learn how to make the scenarios more challenging.]

[Later on, she takes a break, sitting on the edge of the fountain in the plaza. She cradles her sword in her lap, stroking the smooth blade with her fingers. It's strange, having to get used to the sword all over again after temporarily forgetting her skill. As usual, she remains oblivious to the world around her. Approach her anyway?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Karla finds herself speechless, but she takes heed of his warning. She studies the Specters, noticing how some of them were fully armored while others had exposed parts of their bodies. She'd slash at the exposed bodies, and then strike down the full armored ones with her full strength.]

[However, she decides to let Ikki lead the battle, curious to see what kind of "surprises" they held.]

[He doesn't bother to really wait for an answer on her part, if she heeds his warning him leading the attack to allow her to see the opponents in action is the best idea. If she doesn't... Him leading the attack would help to show her why she should. Either way it would be stupid to let someone who doesn't know the enemy go first unless both of them were equally ignorant of their opponents' abilities.

Ikki launches himself forward, practically flying over the ground as his Cosmo flares and the flames surround him completely, almost hiding his body and taking the form of a bird. He releases his attack as soon as he reaches the front line, a whirlwind of flames around him captures some of the Specters before the phoenix flaps its wings and flies towards them. In a matter of seconds the flames explode, burning and devouring armor and flesh alike and three Specters fall to the ground, dead. Their absence creates the opening Ikki needs to position himself inside the front line, punching and kicking the enemies.

Some of them try their own Cosmo attacks on Ikki, but he dodges them easily, he has seem them all countless of times already, and no Saint would be such a failure as to be affected by the same Cosmo attack twice. Dodging when fighting several enemies isn't easy though and gives him a disadvantage as the time he spends dodging allows the closest enemies to try to attack him, normally he wouldn't even bother dodging just nullifying the damage with his own Cosmo. But he's not fighting alone and Karla needs to see him dodge the attacks so she can learn how to dodge them herself. Those Specters may be inept in the use of Cosmo, but even they can be dangerous to someone not used to fighting them.]

[Karla watches his movements carefully, taken aback by his display of power for a moment. Never has she seen any power like that in Elibe. Once she watches Ikki dodge some of the enemies' Cosmo, she has an idea of how to proceed.]

[Some of the Specters begin to advance on her from different directions. Karla decides to go on the attack first, starting to take down one after another with a smooth, powerful stroke. She made sure to target the exposed areas, and for the ones who were fully armored, she threw in as much power as she could muster.]

[For someone of Karla's expertise, the programmed enemies are only slightly better than the bandits and barbarians she's used to. The biggest problems and challenges come from those who don't hesitate to use Cosmos attacks and those fully armored as even with all her power their armors won't give away more than a crack after one strike.

It's something Ikki expects, actually, for the armored ones to be the most troublesome for her, after all their armors are made with special materials and capable of repelling and resisting attacks from conventional weapons. That doesn't make them invincible though, just extra harder to beat down. On the contrary, Ikki's fists, used to break through stone, metal and armors, meet little resistance against his enemies, even if he doesn't use his special techniques and they manage to get him a bit through the virtue of ganging up against him at the same time.]

005 [Voice/Action]

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