Description: The Knights Templar are an ancient organization steeped in religious mythos and hallowed duty. While many might find their tradition to be an outmoded thing, the Templars swear by it, even if it is outwardly ineffective. This elaborate farce serves them well; nobody realizes how much the Order knows behind its conspiralicious face. Knight Templar Amy Johnson has received a tip about a rapidly-forming global cult, one whose members exhibit strange and wonderful abilities. Through her Templar connections, she has arranged a meeting between herself and one of the Cult's more prominent members, but is her training enough to prove her the Templar's newest weapon to defend humanity? What information will Amy discern through her meeting with the Cult? Are their motives so sinister as it first appears, or will the unknown show a brighter face when the darkness is parted?
King of Fighters.
Receiving an invitation to the prestigious tournament is an honour, to be sure; but for certain individuals there is far greater need for trepidation. It is, by now, common knowledge that these events never progress according to the best laid plans of the fighters who take part. There is always some foul and sinister interruption to proceedings; people are targeted and hurt, tempers run to the extreme, and dreams are shattered every bit as easily as they are made. For somebody like Amy Johnson, who is not of the high calibre necessary to survive such things...
It should be terrifying. She's smart enough to know that. Perhaps, on some level she was afraid from the moment that she received her invitation, the method of receipt a jarring reminder that the ancient and the modern are ever mixed within her life. Which is further confirmation that her role runs far deeper than one threatened by mere doubt in her abilities. She is a child of prophecy, subject to the ravings of men who may be mad - or may have seen the very future of this Earth.
Already she has been awakened to powers that confirm so much of what she has been taught. Farah Tenjou was her introduction to one such anomaly; the curious, cowing, soul-destroying power that she brought to bear was something the Templar could only rise to defeat lest it consume her. And the self-same thing has tracked her path to this point, now that she finds herself stalking through the dim halls of the Louvre.
She is clad with simple elegance today, looking the part of a lonely, cultured Frenchwoman as she moves through the museum after closing. If it were not for the latter fact she would not attract attention at all. The hems of black silk trousers brush against a pair of flat-heeled boots, though less rugged and beaten than her usual fare. And the customary slashed jacket has been replaced with a graceful fur-lined jacket, worn over not a leotard but a light, somewhat lacy vest top. Aside from the lack of colour, the only thing common to her regular attire is the velvet cap - the beret - perched atop her head. Though today it does more than flatter her eyes and hold down her waves of raven hair... it covers a grievous injury.
Because darkness has already found the Templar, and torn at her body. Worse; it has dug icy fingers into her heart. The jagged wound atop her head throbs still, reminding her of grim and terrible failure. Reminding her that she is weak and helpless in the face of the world's living nightmares. Even the soothing, albeit fleeting presence of a newly treasured companion has been unable to alleviate her pain - though it has given her cause to strive. So when she received a tip from her knightly brethren, from the kindly Professor whose advisements have guided the greater portion of her adult life, she was only too willing to have something to focus upon. A chance to redeem herself, and perhaps find out what has been tormenting her...
"Ritual sacrifice, bloodletting, abduction of the innocent."
The words of the frightened, frantic Capuchin monk she was assigned to meet in a Parisian cafe earlier this evening come echoing back to her as she moves quietly and calmly down a spiralling staircase, the fingers of one hand brushing the rail at her side.
"They wield black light, dark as the heart of the Devil himself."
Controlling her breathing, keeping it shallow and steady, the young woman steps from the bottom stair and away from the bright walls that surround her - into a portion of the museum that is positively ancient by comparison to the lavishly minimalist decor upstairs. She pauses in the doorway.
"And yet we have heard rumours of resurrection. The dead to walk again."
There must be a link. She can feel it. The palpable sensation that something is drawing near, that the life's work she has been assigned may be coming to some kind of fruition. Her master has long spoken of Messianic matters, even implied that she herself may be the solution to problems that have haunted and consumed man since the written word came to pass. Her trials and tribulations of late, they could be a part of this...
"I've arranged to make contact under a veil of friendship, but I could not defend myself from their machinations. God does not protect me as he does you, my lady. The Grandmaster has told me, you will be the one to go."
How could she refuse? Swallowing tightly, driving down her nerves with determination, she thrusts herself through the door as though taking a leap of true faith, finding herself amongst the remains of the moat that once surrounded the Louvre in its time as a fortress. It skirts the full perimeter of the museum proper, crumbling stonework holding firm despite the ages that have past. The floor is laid with raised boarding to provide a walkway for visitors to proceed without damaging the old bricks.
Normally, these halls are brightly lit, but with the passing of visiting hours lights have been allowed to dim. Shadows wreathe the cramped confines, clinging to protruding crenellations as the suppport structure of the moat curves outward. In places there is perhaps four feet between the heavy walls, and the more recent concrete of the ceiling is barely ten feet above. Silence reigns but for the echoing steps of the Templar as she proceeds into the dark, distantly conscious of the words of the monk, and of the cross about her neck...
Will He truly protect her? He did not do so before.
In the fighting world, it is easy to think that Asia has the lock on secret societies, shadow cultures, and hidden secrets. Ninja clans, ancient chi-empowered monks, secret beings in the shadows. But for anyone who'd bother to check, Europe has more than its fair share of people on the fringes of society, those in the know who tread the line fighters describe, where the distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' becomes murky, and perhaps more interestingly, the line between 'human' and 'inhuman' is just as indistinct.
The Knights Templar have their roots in religion, it's true; they also have their roots in witchcraft, or so the stories go. Carefully treading, as does Amy, between the light and the dark.
Immune to temptation, or perfectly suited for it?
"To be honest," says a British-accented voice, one of the upper crust, "I didn't think you'd really come." It's coming from behind a model of what the Louvre looked like as a fortress almost 1000 years ago, the only display object in what is effectively a coldly-lit stone corridor reminiscent of some cold, sterile, white-tiled dungeon. When the individual in question steps out, it's very much like a fairy tale. He is tall, and handsome, with short-cut, close-cropped hair of a brown so light it almost seems to shade to dark blond in a certain light. He wears a white jacket and matching white slacks, the jacket having an almost... antiquated look to it, with long sleeves and multiple layers like a priest's surplice cut short into jacket form. Gold embroidery trims everything, and a cross hangs around his neck just as heavily as a thin duelist's sword hangs from his belt in a royal blue scabbard.
His smile is charming, and his demeanor pleasant, but behind his hazel eyes burns a fire that Amy knows all too well. "We're relics in this day and age, you and I," he says with a smile, a disarmingly pleasant sound that takes the sting out of his proclamation. "When someone told me a Templar might be interested in us, I thought it must be a myth..."
It would not do for a lady knight to be caught off her guard in such a place as this; though it is some small comfort that the nature of her training has brought her an ability to operate under such enclosure, a situation in which her fellows of the distant past would have struggled. This does little to prevent the jerk of her shoulders as she hears a man's voice, unexpectedly resounding with the crisply accented tone of home. Such familiarity only reminds her of the distance she has travelled; how long it has been...
"Whyever not?"
The question is posed as she spins upon her heels toward the bulk of the facsimile castle, shrouded in shadow. It is spoken before she can gather her thoughts, and consequently there is a faint quiver to her words. In that moment she curses herself for a fool; for sounding young and vulnerable when she should be presenting her most formidable front. Perhaps, under different circumstance, she would possess the strength to lead and direct this meeting. As it is, he has the advantage, and for the moment she can only busy herself drinking in the unusual sight. He reminds her of another. Right down to the sword. Were she a more simpering girl...
She clears her throat softly, spreading her stance with a faint creak of leather boots, subconsciously maintaining a sense of closure in her posture. Twisting at the waist, sinking into her left foot, it leaves the right arm to hang across her flank. Stormy blue eyes watch the gracious, friendly stranger from alongside a wave of dark hair, unreadable in the dim light.
His reply does cause her to relax. Relics, indeed. A gently amused half-smile brushes her lips, a dimple indenting her cheek in a manner that was once unaccustomed. Her gaze flashes momentarily downward, before she draws herself up with the proud toss of her head, gaining confidence now as she speaks, focused upon this exchange. It is a distraction from her turmoil.
"You thought correctly. But there are numerous men who study the sacred narratives, and find truth. What is our Bible but a collection of myths, waiting to be re-established in this modern age? Yet religion is dwindling, as are the ranks of we who seek meaning. I must admit, it's your reaction to my existence that I find unusual. You are the first to be surprised."
The quest to discern legend from history is a long one, as ceaseless as the rolling oceans. It is a preoccupation possessed by many of the remaining Knights Templar - those who might be dubbed dusty relics themselves, slaving away under archaic candlelight to transcribe esoteric phrasing from slowly disintegrating scrolls. There is a reason they have faded into obscurity.
"You are the first to care." Her smile broadens, just a touch. She pauses to draw a slow breath, chest rising and falling beneath the soft fur of her jacket. "But as secretive as we remain, you can read about the Templar in any number of texts. The rumours about us are acknowledged as the paranoid mutterings of fallen intellectuals and conspiracy theorists. I have heard far more disturbing things about you..." She trails off a moment, head canting to one side as she gestures with one hand, as though bidding and encouraging the man before her. The smile has faded, her expression is solemn - though not hardened. "But please, this is not an interrogation. My brethren only wish an open exchange, that we might understand each other. We think, perhaps, you may know of what we seek..."
"Now that hardly seems fair," the young man standing opposite Amy in the brick-lined hallway says with the ghost of a rueful smile. The pair are a mismatched set, indeed; Amy with her garb in dark colors, haunting, like a raven; her opposite number stands regally tall, 'clothed all in white' as the saying goes. Yet for all that imposing bearing he seems to be doing his best to put himself on equal footing with Amy, or at least not to appear as if he was dominant, waiting in the shadows to overpower her.
He takes a step to the side, but keeps his eyes on Amy. "Templars accused of black magic, killed en masse. Rumors of more terrible things. Yet I would assume you, a scion of their line, would argue those are convenient social fictions created by those who don't understand you, correct?" He's trying logic, perhaps strange for a man of the cloth as he presents himself to be, but there is still the fervor of faith in his words. "I think we people of faith perhaps appreciate more the need to take the evidence of our eyes over ephemerality. Because we give ourselves heart and soul to something we cannot prove except to point at our own insistence that it exists..."
Does he mean God? Or the Grail? Or any of a number of things? An excellent question indeed.
Turning toward her, the man decides to take a few steps closer, to shorten the distance between the two. "I will not deceive you. I am no closer to the Cup of Christ than you are, Lady Johnson, and I do not think associating with me will bring you to it. That isn't why I agreed to meet you."
The distance between them aids the man in his goal, and though he is wreathed in darkness, there appears to be no overt need for Amy to present a defensive mien. After her initial jolt she is maintaining a fine balance between the relaxed and the wary, certainly not showing the intimidation that she feels - linking it still to her recent ordeal. As he speaks of things past, of folklore, the young woman even utters a laugh.
"Magic and myth make perfect bedfellows. They are each an explanation of truths that have either been forgotten, or long laid buried by those who understood them from the outset. Fiction perhaps, but fiction rooted in phenomena that can be explained, in history that can be unravelled. I was called a witch by my peers long before I came to my station - because it's easier for men to brand than comprehend."
Spoken without bitterness, though the appearance of a flame deep within her storm-brewed eyes at least decries a lack of investment. She is passionate, and afflicted in that moment with at least the nostalgia of an old fury. A conflicted soul, she has nonetheless managed to forgive this part of her past, and keeps herself upon the present, barely reacting when the mysterious supposed-cultist begins to close the distance between them. Though a tension does rise in her breast; it would not do to show such a thing. His use of her title is acknowledged with an inclination from the hip, the sketch of a bow if not the fullness. At the same time, his honesty draws a tight, admonishing smirk from the Templar.
"With respect, by the same token, I'm beginning to wonder if the object of my quest even exists. I have turned my attention to other matters, only to find my faith challenged in ways I cannot consolidate without returning to my master's teachings." She draws her chin up, flexing a hand at her side, turning her palm up before closing a fist. It's not a threatening gesture, and her fingers unfurl a moment later, curling against the still air within the ancient moat. "You're right, though. I stretch my understanding of the world by accepting what I already do. I'll not commit blindly to everything that might challenge that belief."
She breathes a sigh, soft but heartfelt, and nods her head as she allows the tension to leave her lifted arm, returning the limb once more to her side. There appears to be no regret in her presence here - the formality of her speech would be a hint to those in the know, nerves showing through. It may serve her well here - that sharpening of focus, the bared blade of her intellect protecting and guiding her.
"But you--" The Templar hesitates, mouth hanging in mid-phrase before she closes it with an abrupt, apologetic frown. "I'm sorry, I know not your name. Regardless, by your garb and your words I judge us to share at least an aspect of our faith. Yet I hear of things I should consider heathen, sacriligeous, where I less the errant and more the crusader. What has driven you to your path? What have you seen?"
She releases another breath, nods again. "Tell me why you would meet with me."
What has he seen?
A better question might be: what is he seeing *now*? The question causes the man to tilt his head up, chin up, eyes looking toward the heavens. It's an odd gesture, standing as he is in a low-ceilinged room with overtones of a fortress dungeon, the remains of a waterway that by its very design was intended to separate the fortress from the outside world. The last line of defense. If he were standing here 900 years ago, he might be waist-deep or worse in brackish water, staring up into the face of a bowman about to end his life. Yet then or now, those eyes stare up into a heaven that he can see regardless of where his feet are on Earth.
They are the eyes of a true believer, but it is hard to say if they are also the eyes of a dedicated fanatic.
His head tilts down, and he fixes his gaze on Amy, smiling pleasantly enough despite the content of what he is about to say. "I have seen the faiths of the world dwindle to nothingness," the man says plainly. "I have seen their ranks fill with men more interested in using the trappings of faith to snare the money and minds of the people that believe in them. I see a world that cries out for deliverance but has no recourse. People powerless. And why should they not feel so?" he demands, throwing out a hand, challenging Amy to defy him, now, inner fires stoked. "They look to religion to help them believe, and receive just the opposite in return!"
His arm comes down, his eyes close, and that extended hand clenches into a fist as he continues to talk. "I had waited my whole life to that point to serve the Lord, only to find that His earthly servants had forgotten Him in their desire for temporal power. I had never felt so dark and so lost as that moment. And it was in that hour that I know His divine hand was felt on my life course."
Now, the eyes open. The face smiles. One hand sweeps outward with a rustle of cloth... held outwards, towards Amy. "My name is Nicholas Marivel, and I was reborn to bring God's love to all through my heart and hand alone, without the strictures of an earthly hierarchy that misinterprets His divine will," he pronounces proudly, a capstone to the story he began, a declaration of the self. "I have come to ask if you, who have been gifted with the touch of the Divine, would walk with me on that course."
Nine hundred years. A place whose timely span descends into the very birth of her Order. It is a significant and humbling place in which to arrange a meeting - and the subject of their discussion lends itself well to reminding the young woman of this. Yet in that moment she is less rapt upon their surroundings, and more upon the face of Nicholas. She has seen it before, that look in his eyes. She has felt it within the heavy hand of Fate upon her shoulder, in trembling lips placed to her flesh, and she has ultimately knelt before it and sworn fealty.
Unlike most, she does not need to search the past to know a great deal about this man and his ilk. There is no denying that his words - as those she has heard before - stir a power within her heart, cause the breath to catch in her throat and even speak to the keenness of her mind. Whatever value at which she is willing to accept her religion, accept it she does; and what he says rings true to the core of her being. There is ample reason she remains free from the church as a whole. Why she does not advertise beyond the simple cross about her neck.
"Before I found my faith," she begins, though at the back of her mind a tiny voice corrects the sentence - 'before it found you'. It is silenced at but a faint hesitation. "I had no path, no guidance, and I would give myself none. I knew it was my responsibility to do so, yet I would not. I never expected," laughter creeps into her tone, frank and genuine, and she seems to almost stare through the man before her, "That anybody else would, or should, provide that for me. I walked alone." It comes out hard, cold. "In the darkness, I suppose."
She looks askance, reaching up to brush a hand across her brow, the foremost knuckle grazing the fine hairs of her brow and slipping past her temple, setting aquiver a sweep of midnight strands. Her palm drops to the smooth curve of her neck before it descends further, straying across her middle to link with the hanging other arm. A poor sign of her willingness to commit. When next she speaks, her voice resonates as though from afar, the tenderness of thought rumbling in her breast.
"It's in the nature of my post that I move free from attachments. Despatched from the hall of my masters, I wander this earth to search out an artifact lost in specific purpose or meaning. Power? Eternal life? One of those things has been found by so many, the other... I hear so much, yet know so little. I spent two years free from my purpose because I came to believe it thankless; foolish. But I was awoken from stagnation by a man whose own path I still cannot comprehend. A man who doesn't expect me to follow him..."
She smiles, unhooking her grasping fingers and almost dreamily reaching out toward the extended hand of this enigmatic stranger. For in spite of his words, of his familiarity, he remains the unknown. It is a wonder she has lowered her guard enough to perform this action, the childlike drift of her digits halting before she can come anywhere near contact. They remain outflung, as though she were entranced.
"Do you know what it means to be free?" She allows that to hang, for several long seconds. But she seems not to crave an answer. "Our wings are clipped at every turn. Weight upon crushing weight is piled upon us, upon /me/." Her mouth pulls into a grimace as she acknowledges that which consumes her, and with a toss of her head she glances aside. Pulling her arm with her, closing it taut about her midriff. Clutching herself. All that sustained composure, that unflagging pride, is cast aside in a tremendous falter as Amy stares gasping at the strong, undying walls. They have persisted better than she.
"And now you would offer me the same-- burden." Her voice drops to a whisper at that, pained and small before she suddenly whips her head back around, eyes blazing with the beaten vestige of a spirit that should burn so strong and true. "Do you ask me to strive alongside; do you wish me to trail behind; or do you want me to forge ahead in your name?"
And then it comes, the most telling declaration from within the Templar's stricken heart. The nature of her conflict and doubt is laid bare, the flimsy foundation upon which is mounted the framework of a being who could otherwise become so powerful, whose gift is so great as to inspire men who seem - upon a glance - much her superior.
"I will serve no other master, Nicholas Marivel. Let alone one who speaks in the same riddles."
Despite her harsh words, his smile is gentle. Despite the fury and the substance behind Amy's words, his countenance is placid. His fire burns within but, like the sun, it is a fire that need not rage to make its presence known; like the sun, it is omnipresent, and lifegiving, and consuming, and while it may occasionally flare prominences, it does so only because it cannot be contained forever.
Despite her resistance, Nicholas is happy.
"That you would think I am here to yoke you," he says, chuckling lightly, "says much about you, Knight."
His mind races back to a dimly-lit church in the most sparsely populated part of Russia. It was a church beyond the idea of a modern city church, and not a Catholic church besides, but it was somewhere that Nicholas felt *at peace*. Its windows were dirty clear glass, not beautiful stained glass frescoes. Its only decoration in exulting the Lord was a simple cross, not frescoes and paintings of His glory. A Bible lay open at the pulpit, peppered with bookmarks. And the place was empty, for the priest who tended it had long since gone to help his parishioners in the fields to harvest their own supper.
It had been then that the voice had spoken to him. Then that he had seen the smile, and then that he had felt, for the first time, the Lord's power running through his veins. People say religion is fueled by faith, but in his heart that day, Nicholas knew that proof was what was required. That unbelievers, and those who claim to follow the Lord but who are, to a man, apostates by their greed and disregard, would only accept a truth when proof was provided was evidence enough that there was no other way with them.
"If you were to serve anyone but the Lord God I would be sorely disappointed. I am offering you a path to awaken further the gift you have been given. A power I didn't know I possessed until my eyes were opened."
His hand goes to the hilt of the slim rapier at his side. It is a defiant gesture, but perhaps he is following his own philosophy now. "I *want* you to have it, and only for your own sake, because I feel a kinship with you. But I know now that 'faith' means less that we accept the unacceptable, but that we understand the inexplicable. I don't want to hurt you. But if you require proof, then I will show it to you."
The attitude presented by Nicholas - rather, the complete and total lack thereof - is what has seen him succeed in so readily divesting the raven-haired Templar of her harboured defenses. Though she challenges him, denies her most immediate and forthright impression of his words, that she has revealed her weakness at all shows that his empassioned speech has drawn aside the curtain from her soul. She is one of those who seeks if not a proof, then a means to believe. A reason to sustain a faith whose very root has been torn from the soil by the friction of life's trials.
His laughter does nothing to cool her head. To the contrary, she bridles further, fingers clawing into the skin of her own arm as her eyes flash and nostrils flare. But then her eyelids slide downward, and a faint pink flush creeps across her cheeks as she holds and releases a breath. "Forgive me."
They are words so easily uttered, but not now. Whilst not strained, they are shot through with her inward pain. When those striking blue eyes unlid, her regret is for once etched plainly upon them. She makes no attempt to hide. Because there are times when leaps of faith are indeed required; where an effort in any other direction can only lessen the soul of the questor. Though she doubts, even fears in her heart of hearts, she seems to reach a decision as her gaze finds the clasped hilt of that rapier.
"I cease to wonder now that this meeting was not arranged as I had thought. The monk who sent me insisted that I would be coming in his stead; but it is plain that this request came from you. Am I to believe that he lied? Or was he attempting to spare me from trepidation? I cannot know, and if you admitted that you did, your words until this point would be scattered like dust. I-" she hesitates, biting the single syllable short, "I would be remiss if I did not voice my concerns, but disregard them." Her lips tweak upward, cheeks pinching, and her next statement may sound naive compared to one so otherwise verbose, "I don't feel that you're lying to me."
"This power," she rejoins with a raised voice, her hand pulling away from her side to draw clawlike fingertips through the air. A drift of mist apparates subtly, looping tendrils appearing for an instant before dissipating into fine, fading motes. "I have begun to question it's nature. We've spoken of myth, and my acceptance that some serpent binds the earth, it is a fool's perogative. Still. I do believe it is unique from the power wielded by others. We share a relationship, this energy and I."
A frown dents her brow, "This proof you offer me, will it explain? Will I understand with whom my efforts are bound? The idea... frightens me. As though there are things I shouldn't know." 'He will protect you.' It is a paraphrasing that echoes within Amy's mind, a moment before she utters a breathless laugh, shaking her head, lowering her hand. "Show me. If I must venture out across a periled divide, then so be it."
"He was... an opportunity," Nicholas says plainly, in response to Amy's claims of subterfuge. There's no denial of it, nothing to suggest that the handsome man in front of her did anything but bend the truth somewhat to get Amy here. That much IS clear; there's no reason he'd have gone out of his way for anyone else but her. Amy Johnson, a woman with whom he's had a great fascination. Watching her participate in what few public battles she'd deigned to take part in. Observing her actions and statements. Finding her history, her contacts, her movements. Subtly placing himself at the center of so many rumors and coincidences that their meeting was, in truth, inevitable. All for this one chance.
He will not waste it.
With a flash of silver in the light of the hallway, and a metallic *shing!* that echoes against the bone-white stone of the Old Moat, the man slips into garde. He's a fencer, this much is clear; the blade is thin and light, more like the suggestion of a sword than an actual blade, but he holds it with poise and confidence. "A way to get information to you. If he was harmed, then that is a burden I will bear. But I have no regrets. It is the Lord's will that we have this meeting. However..."
A light begins to grow, around him. As subtle and mysterious and dark as Amy's mists are, the suffuse glow around Nicholas is nothing like. It radiates from him, momentary sparks of a white-gold like the sun through clouds, swirling around him. "My 'proof' will explain nothing. That would be counterproductive. You must come to your own conclusions. You must explain it for yourself. That is the ultimate test of faith, my lady!" he says, a passionate fervor slipping into his tone toward the end. "When faced with something that has no explanation, how do you react? What will you do?"
And then he is lunging at her, sweeping the blade through the air in a glistening arc, an attempt to score a shallow cut across Amy's midsection... but that energy suffuses the strike, empowers it... makes it burn. At times, it seems to spill from the corners of his eyes as if he were some sort of physical shell wrapped around a core of golden heat.
A holy flame. A zealot's burning light.
COMBATSYS: Nicholas has started a fight here.
COMBATSYS: Amy has joined the fight here.
COMBATSYS: Amy endures Nicholas' Greve de Croises.
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Amy 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Nicholas
If Amy knew the extent to which this man's obsession has run, it would serve as personal vindication. Those first few, likeminded souls that she met were repelled by paranoia and mistrust - met by interrogation when they should have been greeted with a free and confident exchange of ideas. Perhaps, also, in the knowledge of Marivel's pursuit she would have better understood the importance of her quest. The words of one gripped by a special madness have predominantly guided her step; and their fading echo had halted it for so long. Knowing that there were others, that she was not so lonely...
But such would assume that she is solely driven by others. That spark of independence, proud and steel-forged at the pit of her soul, might be better excuse; as it is now that she faces these new words, a challenge to live up to her faith. Where part of her wishes to strive to match the zealot's fervour, another bids her to turn upon her heel, present neither cheek. Because she has always had that option; she has always been able to walk away.
Why then does she continue forward?
That flashing blade draws her eye, and lights a fire within her breast to match the soaring shine of Nicholas' outward display. A shift of the Templar's hips pulls her into a loose, relaxed combat stance, the gentle lift of arms and the preparatory roll of her shoulders all a part of the same graceful, perfect motion. She is a novice, upon the girthsome boards of the world stage, yet at the core of her developing talents there is a practiced, balanced ease. In the fullness of time, she will become a master yet.
"When staring upon the unknown, when facing my destiny in shadow..."
She pushes on because she desires more; broader insight, greater wisdom, and the vast increase of power. Perhaps in her way she is the equal of her Grandmaster, and yet more besides. Perhaps this enigmatic, charismatic man before her is not to be anything but her servant. It's an impulsive, blasphemous thought -- she's not even positive where it comes from. But it inspires from without a prickling of latent energies, and the dormant mists awake at her order. Even as the blade lashes for her toned stomach...
"I will clothe my being in the warmth of faith, and I will /endure/."
So she does. Steel cuts deep; and the light of the Lord deeper still. Amy's lips purse, gaze hardening in determination as she watches her un-foe past a swathe of power, the rising bleed of golden hue gradually blending with the blossoming tendrils of grayish mist so subtly and suddenly seeping through the tight corridor of the moat. She makes just the barest movement as her blood sprays outward to join the maelstrom, twisting from the centre to gather torque, tightening her body as she tightens the screws upon her nerves.
"Through the darkness, I will depend upon my own judgement."
Her words are calm for all their passion, at odds then with the brisk and furious manouevre that follows her defensive action. The entirety of her poised, athletic frame lends a deceptive power to the reversal of motion, her right arm lashing forward, fingertips clawing the air to fall far short of Nicholas - indeed, her riposte will strike as though from the unknown itself. A lashing tendril of the Dragon's Breath acts in tandem with the Templar, seeking to secure a stinging, whiplike grasp about the man's body and continue ceaselessly onward, half dragging and half hurling him to the side.
"I will strike from the heart and the soul!"
She sinks into her heels with a soft exhalation, the tension dispelled.
"And within me, His meaning will be revealed."
COMBATSYS: Amy successfully hits Nicholas with Quagmire.
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Amy 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Nicholas
Even as he tries to shift away, and instead finds his footwork short and the claws of awakened mist closing around his flesh, Nicholas smiles.
'Within me, His meaning will be revealed!'
In his mind's eye, he is in a cold and featureless building, some remnant of Soviet public housing in some tiny city he can't remember. The church where they had first met is gone, and now they stood in rooms with walls bare of anything but stains, and pervasive Siberian chill, and in Nicholas' case, deep and intense pangs of doubt. Pangs justified when the master made a gesture, and men entered, rough-looking men who advanced slowly on Nicholas. Men who had prompted the disaffected novice to demand, tearfully, 'What am I supposed to do?!'
The calm response had been, 'Like all men, you will understand the truth... or you will die in ignorance.' And the men had approached, but there came a revelation, and within Nicholas was kindled a great light by a divine hand.
The blow sends him spiralling to the side, but with a fencer's grace he's back on his feet in garde moments later, looking at Amy intently. His continues to be a placid smile, a serene smile... but it is a smile that has nothing to do with the fire behind his eyes, a fire he hopes deeply to kindle in this woman so that she too could understand as he has. "That was how it was with me," he says, that light still burning around him like a corona. "How unable I was to find His righteousness when I thought it began with other people. But you and I know differently. His divine spirit... it begins and ends with us!"
He twists, making a lunge forward with the blade, a serious strike indeed, looking to sink the point home just below Amy's chest. Thankfully, that blazing light doesn't suffuse the strike this time... but still it blazes, a candleflame consuming the wick of Nicholas' body.
COMBATSYS: Amy dodges Nicholas' Power Strike.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0 Nicholas
His recovery is skilled, and bold - a hint of his aforementioned interest in the Templar's peculiar talents, given how many have hesitated when introduced to the eerie mist. It almost draws a smile from the young woman, though the amendment of focus turns it to a frown, her brow beset by softly accented lines in pale flesh as she regards him with stormy eyes. There has always been a certain sensitivity in Amy's perception of others, and the reverberations of his memory speak to her through the subtleties of his veil. He has already spoken to her; is already stirring something within.
She has heard it before, however, such bright empassionment. A flicker, a snapshot image, of her mentor rushes like an elusive ghost past the searchlight of her mind. They are alike in many ways, these two men. Though one is more youthful, and... he seems more sincere, less gripped by madness. There is a certain greatness to the latter quality that cannot be denied in the annals of history, but it is an untrustworthy trait. Trust. That's it.
"I've found much beauty in others," the Templar's murmur comes from afar, as her attention remains at least partly upon the action. The demonstration, if that is what it may be called; it is what she invited him to perform. She has reasoned that such may be the intent behind that radiant energy, bright and ceaseless as the very sun. When none comes to the fore, she is moving already to evade the almost mundane strike, leading from the centre into a fluid lunge, turning as she moves to bob up at the rearmost aspect of Nicholas' flank. "But nothing to invest myself in completely. I have felt..."
She trails off, words dying as she acts upon the outward effects of her evasion; blue eyes darting momentarily to the grasping fingers of the mist as it sways toward her. Lost in reflection, she was scarce aware that it acted alongside her - but it always does. She does not need to think. Merely focus, and act. Her breath seethes as she drops low, intent upon the latter, rolling her frame's balanced power backwards, forcing it against her spine. It's such a small, insignificant movement to the eye, though the prompt hiss of the rolling mists precedes one far greater.
"Alone."
The single word seems to echo, distorted by the sibilant roar of her attack. It comes in the form of not one - but a hundred - lashing tendrils, an oncoming gray-white storm peppering the duellist from head to toe, seeking to simply overwhelm him with the onset of the Templar's manifest chi. Blow after blow, each foggy tip bouncing away after the stinging culmination, to bob and sway once more in the dim light below the Louvre.
COMBATSYS: Amy successfully hits Nicholas with Stormwitch.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Nicholas
The entire fight plays out like a metaphor, in Nicholas' eyes. Amy says that she is alone, that she can see great things in others but that their connection to her is perceived at a distance... nebulous, in the dark, 'alone.' Nothing she can bring within and make her own. In the fencer's eyes, it is as if she is viewing the world through a veil of mist that both protects her and obscures others... much as the very living mist, the Dragon's Breath, is doing in a more immediate way in this battle in the Louvre right now. Nicholas tries to move forward, to brush off the misty strike, but that isn't meant to be; the countless blows push him back like driving rain, until he almost as far back as where he started, taking deep breaths.
"'Alone' is where people are for most of their lives," Nicholas says in response, looking the Templar up and down. Unlike her attempt to minimize the gap between thought and action, Nicholas is making a clear and deliberate attempt to be very careful indeed. The fight is merely a means to an end; getting lost in the moment of the fight would be costly indeed. And it is clear that Nicholas is only a threat to a trained fighter out of a combination of fencing training and sheer determination; only a few steps above a regular, everyday person.
But that curious light... what *is* it?
"I know that those like us often to say 'I am never alone for the Lord is with me', but I ask you: is that not terrible arrogance? Should we assume that He is looking out only for us? He gave us limbs and hearts and minds to avoid just such a thing. He gave us these things so that we may fend for ourselves and find our own light."
With this, he gives a wave of his arm, and in the wake of that movement, part of thel gold fire of his aura flows forward in the shape of an amorphous bolt looking to slam into Amy and give her a dose of that power again... but now, without the medium of the sword. It is his belief made manifest, and it takes no prisoners.
COMBATSYS: Amy overcomes Priere Determinee from Nicholas with Raven's Wing.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/---====|=======\-------\0 Nicholas
Reliance on mere instinct can be a foolhardy act; to divorce from thought, and place faith only in the absolute, pure feeling of the body alone. But is faith not the bastion of Amy and Nicholas both? Solitude and distance smoulder at the very innermost core of the raven-haired Templar, her fierce individuality, her treacherous independence, seeing her forge ahead on a path that others may not walk. And yet, she is never alone. Not for the Lord, but in the same sense that she does not act only upon her instincts.
Because the Dragon's Breath persists, through fire and rain, joy and anger. The clinging, broodily dancing field of ethereal vapour is there beneath the surface even when it cannot be sighted. Her control over it is irectly analogous to the opening of the senses that it brings to her, extending the play of her thoughts, providing insight that she would otherwise not possess. They are one in the same way as myth speaks of the King and his realm; in the way that God is all men, and every living part of His creation.
"Arrogance it may be; it certainly betrays a narrow vision," Amy watches the charming zealot calmly - though perhaps stoically is a better word - lost in the ongoing battle, forgetful of the building rage and clamouring regret that afflicted her prior to this test. Her breathing is controlled, her form relaxing as soon as the prior assault was over. "But is it my place to judge others? I /do/, but I doubt my right. Is that not my own arrogance?"
An image of a bare child, a girl wielding torturous psychic flame and bearing the utter abandon of cruelty flashes before the mind's eye of the Templar. It is a jarring counterpoint to the outward swing of Marivel's besleeved arm, the beautiful apparition of his own intent buoyed forth as though it were nothing less natural than a summer's breeze. But such can bely a savage heat, enough to scald the skin and bring delirium to the unwary, or unprepared. Amy is neither. She will cross this divide no matter the cost - but she will not accept the consequences without effort and dedication.
"I accept his gifts," she breathes the words, the clarity of her tone carrying despite their rushed nature as she leaps from the lacquered boardwalk and twists from the waist, entering a graceful spin only to whip forth a powerful leg at the apex, completing her rotation to meet Nicholas' golden prayer with an accompanying stream of gray-white gloom. The mists coil and uncurl from her limb, striking wide and broad as they leap into a feathered swathe, unleashing the scream of a wintery wind as the manifestation of her own striking aura explodes toward the man. "But I worry that I warp them, twist them..."
She lands in a deft half-crouch, stormy eyes glinting in the wake of the fog. Her fingertips brush the floor momentarily before she rises to her feet, slow and fluid. "I find myself asking, how far should I go? And the only answer I can find is: further. Deeper. Higher."
COMBATSYS: Nicholas overcomes Raven's Wing from Amy with Priere Exultant.
Glancing Hit
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Nicholas
Further. Higher. Deeper. Yes...
The light around Nicholas rages, becomes a bonfire, in the face of Amy's response. He promised to show her 'proof', which is to say, he promised to show her something for which there would be no explanation, something that she would have to be define in her own terms. Something for which there is no name, and thus shows the world the presence of the divine merely by its existence. Something that not just has no explanation, but is so assaulting to what is known that it defies explanation. The small shows of power he has made so far are not that, by far. They are commonplace, tricks that fighters across the world know. But there is... something else. A greater manifestation of what he was given, what he is capable of. Amy's response -- that understanding means hurling onesself at it entirely -- cements it. This woman is the one. The one he was given this power for. The one he was sent to find.
"If the Grail is real," he says, staring at her fixedly, apropos of nothing, "perhaps you are the one intended to find it."
The world seems to stop, for a brief moment. Light slows to a crawl and sound flees entirely. It is a fractional instant of terrible silence, the sound of calm on a beach before a tidal wave. Amy's assault, the essence of her faith turned into a manifestation of power, slams against it like the tide on saidsame shore, wearing down the golden aura that surrounds Nicholas like an angel's halo, dimming it... but not overcoming it. All at once, sound rushes back into the world, and time starts again, and that halo explodes outward as a shockwave of golden light. Somehow, it doesn't reduce their stone fighting ground to rubble. Somehow, it seems to pound only at Amy, even as the attack radiates off Nicholas like solar prominence. The Breath, for a brief moment, is stilled.
He doesn't have much time.
He's got to make this count, and thus he makes this exultant prayer.
COMBATSYS: Amy endures Nicholas' Priere Exultant.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/--=====|===----\-------\0 Nicholas
"/Then I must be stronger/."
It surfaces. That intense, overwhelming emotion from moments before this unusual battle begun - the conflict and uncertainty raging in Amy's soul. Except that the words and the conviction of this earthly angel, this blessed member of the faithful, have driven her into a deep, unerring focus. She has come to accept that battle is a part of her, that she must identify as a warrior first and foremost; and this is why. Because in the fires of adversity she boils within, lit by an inner flame that cannot - will not - be easily extinguished. The pain in her tone is tempered by a spirit that flags, but does not fade, even in the face of heartbreak and tragedy.
Even in the face of such irridescent beauty.
Nicholas' incredible display indeed catches the breath, not only of the Dragon but of it's waiting mistress. She is momentarily rapt, watching with widened eyes the instant of summoning, the heart fluttering in her breast as she begins to instinctively tighten her posture. She is the very picture of strength now - bold and proud, a knight in the flesh. To the bone. The undeniable warmth of the attack washes over her, burning her image into a silhouette against the blinding sear of the rising sun. Dark hair lashes at her shoulders as it billows in the blaze, the fierceness of it whipping the beret from her head.
"I must... stand taller..."
Gasping, shuddering, the Templar forces herself to remain upright. It takes a toll upon her body, leaving her shaking like a leaf in the dissipating wind as the golden sheen begins to fade. She feels as though her soul has been permeated by this man, this creature before her - at once the most and least savage of things, tearing away all that is impure. Or would purport to be. She feels scathed, somehow; violated and yet purified. It's astonishing. It's... awe-inspiring, yet she remains upright, tossing her head as she stares with stormy eyes. They are alight with a distinctness that was not there before. As though she sees more than she ever has.
But she surely does not understand why. Perhaps she does not need to. It is enough that her physical form is screaming, as though buckling outward against the stirring of energies at her centre. The Breath may be stilled - but only because it rages so inside the Templar. She speaks no further words, staring at Nicholas Marivel, at once trying to comprehend him and herself; in the light of what he has presented. Another riddle to be solved within...?
COMBATSYS: Amy strains her body to its limit.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Nicholas
The power, the reaction, the events... even the searing pain that courses through his veins. All of it is... ecstacy. The connotation of the word in the modern day is intensely sexual, but in literature and even in history, the line between religious bliss and carnal bliss has been drawn fine indeed. In both cases the best moments seem to be those times when the body becomes a vehicle that is soon left behind; when the harmony of the moment is so sublime that physical form is more tether and distraction than anything else. When the individual floats in some unattenuated space of joy outside the physical realm.
She is perfect, are his thoughts. This was worth it.
The Lord's messengers, after all, come bearing swords of flame and trumpeting the light of the divine.
"Now you see," Nicholas says to Amy, watching her carefully, entranced by the vibrant darkness of the woman... her association with storms and weather, which themselves are icons of God's judgment. What will she do if she finds the Grail? Will it usher in some great change in society, some paradigm shift he cannot comprehend? Will the future be glorious, or will it all end in fire?
"Have I given you... the proof you need?" he asks of her, at the ready to meet her assault.
COMBATSYS: Nicholas gains composure.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Amy 0/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0 Nicholas
What the Templar feels is not ecstacy, at least not yet. Her stomach seems to churn wildly, twisted in knots by an incorporeal flood of sensation, as though the light that has passed into her body has mutated into some sickly tainted simulacrum of the beauty she beheld before and about her. The familiar resonating thrum of the Dragon's Breath is disrupted, cast into shadow by something far brighter - perhaps even stronger, though it does not seem prepared to spring to her limbs or strike the air at the slightest bidding. Her senses are at once heightened and stunted by it; as though she has grown in height, but the ceiling has fallen to scant inches above her head.
Has he given her the proof she needs?
"I'm not sure what you've given me."
It comes frank and instantaneous to her lips, and as she speaks a worm of doubt creeps to the forefront of her mind. Halfway through the sentence she falters, nigh imperceptibly, at the sudden surfacing of a thought from the rear - it seeps around to either flank, envelops her consciousness before becoming another image. Huge and vast, shining in prophecy. It is more than simply overwhelming, what she sees; and her knees buckle almost immediately. A hand claps to the boards as the other grips at her centre. Stormy eyes remain upon Nicholas, but they now swim with confusion. And then the rapture hits.
"I see..." Her voice is small, drifting yet touched with a certainty of feeling. The deep blue of her eyes is momentarily flecked with gold, swimming through iris into the very pupils, where a vestige of the man's aura dances like fire. Amy's teeth grit as she tightly swallows, bracing herself outwardly as she gives herself over to an inward rush. Lids flicker and close; she cannot stop them, needs desperately to siphon out the only sense she can. "I understand." It's the barest whisper; but it is spoken true.
Perhaps the Grandmaster was always right. Perhaps her arrogance never was. With the beginnings of renewed power creeping in the pit of her being, with the promise that this ray of hope has bestowed upon her, she finally knows that she can be all that she purports to, that others would have her be. "The only thing I don't understand..."
She lifts her voice and her head, forcing her eyes open. A golden hue now burns at their outer edges, subtle but unsettling. A sidelong drift of Amy's head drives home the only remaining uncertainty that can live in such eyes, as she searches Marivel's face intently, wonderingly. "Is why I was told to expect a group, when it seems that you have sought me alone... are there others? Am I to be the guiding light for so many more?"
She makes no move to attack, or even preparation. As her spirit soars, the body lies dormant. Or in wait, maybe.
COMBATSYS: Amy takes no action.
"I..."
Why IS he alone?
To walk in the light of the Lord is all Nicholas ever wanted, but it seems as if now that he has awakened, and now that he has become a vessel for God's light in a way he never dreamed possible, his desires are without bound. He *wants* so much, is pulled in so many directions. In the darkest hours of the night, in the deepest shadows, doubt plagues him sometimes... wondering if his desires are really the desires of God, or if they are different things. Urges and needs that he did not feel until he had something approaching power. Strange whispers he chooses to ignore, or perhaps as a valiant martyr, endures in silence.
In this case, he gives voice to what drove him, regardless, as the rapier slips back into place. He steps forward, the corona of light around him dimming even as traces of it start to emerge around Amy, the first hints of a glorious transformation to come.
He stops, and he holds out his hand, palm up, for her to take. It is a universal gesture, a sign of things to come, and his rationale spoken aloud seems only to reinforce that:
"I wanted the honor to be mine alone."
'Within me, His meaning will be revealed.'
To take trust in such an assurance is to willingly leave aside such doubts about one's nature; the pursuit of power cannot be a factor for concern when the very act of taking it furthers the interests of the divine. The unearthly. As the radiant light that so fiercely consumes Nicholas must be accepted for what it is, taken as a gift, so too must the Templar accept her own burden. She can feel her innermost stirring still as she watches this unique, stirring more-than-man approach, and it drives a deeper kinship than any she has felt. Her chin lifts, keeping their eyes in contact, and within his own she can see the whole future unwind. She has been heralded as would-be messiah before...
But it has not felt /right/ until now.
The cross about her neck seems to sing, polished silver flashing in the glow of Nicholas' halo, as she lifts her hand and slowly, gently slides her calloused palm over his. Her grasp is powerful beneath the tenderness she exhibits toward this like-blessed soul, her awakened resolve communicated by the assured firmness of her grip. Amy tarries just a moment there, hand in hand, as though debating whether to rise to her feet before she turns the hesitation into a low-canting bow. Her forehead drops close to their interlocks digits, waves of dark hair sweeping to either side as she turns from the hubris of the images drifing still through her skull.
"It is not just yours, Nicholas. If I honour you, then you honour me in turn..."
She glances upward, meeting his gaze once more with the fire now burning in her own - a mirror of his, albeit a weaker breed, barely beginning to live. To blossom. She is breathing deeply now, her every intake and exhalation audible as her chest rises and falls, louder than the persistent dripping of blood from the cut upon her abdomen. Louder than the residual purr of energies from each of them. The passion awakened within could well rise to encompass her - for now, she controls it, along with the tension in her body.
Her wild visions may come to pass, but these are not her own doing.
She may yet be master, but it will be because of this man.
"At your hand, my life," A frown brushes the Templar's brow - a ghostlike expression, the phantom of regrets she should harbour. It is soon gone, and she finishes, her tone wrung with deep, unscalable emotion, "Is beginning again."
COMBATSYS: Nicholas has left the fight here.
COMBATSYS: Amy has ended the fight here.
Log created on 11:04:19 02/07/2011 by Amy, and last modified on 22:12:52 02/12/2011.