Breaking In Louise (ZnT Discussion) Pt 3

Volume11 Chapter Three: Karin the Heavy Wind

*coughs guiltily*

Yes, it's that Princess Magnificent is trying to play her one, precious, single Exaltation given to her by her masters gently at first, because she doesn't have any to waste. Not that I tried several ones, and they all ended up like "Princess over Zero" and things like that, which just sounded stupid.

And I certainly wouldn't retcon it if someone gave me one that actually sounded decent. Not at all. [/AvoidingTheTruthTechnique]

Hmm. Well that scene doesn't really fit what I had in mind, so I'll just spell it out the usual way:

Louise summons Amaha Masane from the last 30 seconds or so of the Witchblade anime. The Gandalfr runes provide a conduit into Louise's energy reserves that the blade feeds on in lieu of destroying Masane's body, plus the runes grant mastery over the blade so that Masane can mentally bitchslap it into obeying her.

After recovering from her near-death, Masane takes to being Louise's familiar with gusto, but only after negotiating terms like the lovable mercenary she is. Since Masane already made the decision to leave Rihoko in Takayama's care at the end of the series, the runes don't make her forget about Rihoko so much as just reinforce her faith that that course of action was for the best. In the meantime, Masane "adopts" Louise as a surrogate daughter. And we know how Masane gets about her kids.

The scene I was thinking about was the inevitable confrontation between Masane and Karin:

One of them is a legendary wind mage; cold, disciplined, values the law above all else, and is physically abusive towards her youngest daughter. The other is a part-time drunk, part-time human buzzsaw; rowdy, irresponsible, has tits that are making Louise's inferiority complex worse than ever, and is (A) ten times the mother that Karin is in spite of it and (B) isn't afraid to say so to Karin's face.

Place your bets, folks!

1) Golems are automatons, incapable of learning. To give golems a semblance of 'life' and/or 'intelligence', you need Earthstones and a Square Class mage.

2) It might be possible... though I'd say only the Mind of God can make something like that.

3)Entirely out of elemental stones, eg Windstones or Earthstones? Windstones and its like are basically crystallized magic energy, and more often than not the Firstborn/Spirit/Nature elemental kind. Won't a golem made out of that be extremely prone to blow up spectacularly?

Gargoyles are more advanced in what you can program into them without using help from Earthstones compared to golems, and can be imbued with more than just Earth magic (Sheffield turned her Gargoyles into Water/Earth hybrids, so physical damage cannot defeat them).

1) It's plausible.

2) Wardes worked with Reconquista because they planned on eventually invading the Holy Land. His mother went mad after finding out about the Windstones will inevitably destroy Helkeginia eventually, and the crux of all this is (according to her) at the Holy Land. After Wardes accidentally killed his own mother in one of her fits when he was just 12-13 years old, and eventually find out bits and pieces about the Windstones from his mother's diary he decided to get to the bottom of whatever drove his mother mad. To do that it means somehow get to the Holy Land, which Reconquista is planning.
Wardes didn't really care what Reconquista did, as long as he get what he wants. He'd probably find some other faction if Reconquista's failing rather than sitcking to someone who cannot get him what he wants.

The anime skipped that, it was after Tabitha was rescued from Bidashal and they just got back onto Tristain territory.

It's in Volume 11 Chapter 3.

EDIT: ninja'd

This is a sucker's bet Darth. A freaking army can't even slow Masane down. Plus she's considerably less squishy than Karin.

Also doesn't Masane already have full control over the witchblade by the end of the anime? Aside from the killing her thing that goes completely against witchblade cannon of course.

... Karin is squishy?

... Are we talking about the same Karin here? Of the Heavy Wind?

Karin's still only human... assuming a sword reaches her she'll get impaled as easily as any other human.

A human who's also the strongest Wind mage in Tristain's history, uses 20% of any Wind incantations to get the same effects as a full incantation, and possibly the only non-modified human to cast wandless elemental spell/s (her trademark Heavy Wind) when sufficiently pissed off... but yes, still only squishy, meatbag human.
She relies on speed to prevent herself getting hit, when she's not sending cyclones from outside enemy attack range anyway.

Curse you Riot-Games, curse you for having fun characters.

__________________________________________________

It hadn't been a fight, it hadn't even been a battle. The Albion army was unprepared for the Familiar of Zero in the same way that a snail is unprepared for a precision nuclear strike. The dragon-corps were the only ones to even slow the juggernaut which came among them. That was only because they were out of range of his spear. The general in charge smiled, the barbarian was bound to the land, the wind-mages could safely slay him from a distance. Until he revealed a hitherto unseen ability. Mists swirled around him, rising into the air until he jumped, rising into the air...

and rising... Spearing a dragon through the heart, instantly killing the mage on its back. Leaping from dragon to dragon the slaughter continued, with only the altitude to discern it from the abattoir below.

On the field of battle scattered with the corpses of seventy thousand men, the cloaked figure lowered his shield, looking around him and slyly quipped.

"They should have brought more men..."

When I realized who it was, I now kinda want a scene of him baking.

Yes. Baking.

.... Did Pantheon just SKy Fall'd the dragon riders?

Good stuff again, Sliver. You reminded me now of TotalBiscuit's Anti Annie game, got me wondering if the Bear Annie would be able to full somebody in Helkagia. like "Look, it's that girl Familiar! Oh, no wait, it's just a bear." Or the otherway around... either way theywould be screwed.

DARTH! You gotta write a snippet of that. I wonder if Karin will pick on the fact that Louise is asking her familiar to NOT kill her mother rather than the other way around.

SLIVER! Just remembered about something I found over the Booru. How about Louise summons another Champion from League of Legends.

THIS ONE!

Well, the fans demand it, so it shall be done.
____________________________________

Siesta smirked behind her hand. The hulking man before her was normally a fearful sight with his massive shield and almost impossible spear. But it's hard to be afraid of someone with a spoon in his hand and a chef's hat on. It was perched jauntily on his helmet. The only sound in the servants kitchen was the *clink-clink* of the spoon in his hand hitting the side of the bowl. The head chef, dwarfed by the familiar moved up to him. "Why are you here? You, a warrior, why?" There was a rumble from the man before him.

"You know, I've always wanted to be a baker." The stunned faces before him seemed to ask for more. "Yes, a baker..." There was a massed palming of faces.

...

The cake was absolutely delicious. The kitchen staff had to agree on that.
______________________________________________________

@Dan: I've done a snippet with Cho'Gath already. I'll probably repost it in this thread if necessary. Though it was not as Cho'-chan.
I also did one with Annie, though I don't remember whether it was in this thread or over in Breaking Of. Poor poor Wardes... He didn't want to Play.

Yeah, even 'Princess of Absolute Zero' is better than that and it still sounds dumb. Well, it is pretty hard to make 'zero' fit a title without getting into the overly long ones like "Annihilating Duchess Reducing Everything to Zero" which is still really awkward, though it does abbreviate to Annihilating Duchess or Zero, depending on how attached the speaker is to their organs.

Hm... They don't have to be human titles, after all you have oddities like First and Forsaken Lion or Eye and Seven Despairs. I remember I had a Day caste called "Shadows Creep Across the Sun".

Perhaps something simple like "All-consuming Zero" or "Eternally Dividing Zero" ? There's "Destiny Unwoven, Zero Hope" if you want to make a reference to the fact she was supposed to be one of humanity's saviors.

That's not the best one but I do rather find myself fond of that format "Blank, Zero Hope". If you can think of something better to occupy the first half that would work well. "Shattered Savior, Zero Hope"? Hm... Still not quite there. "Princess Unliving, Zero Hope", if you're really attached to using "Princess" works.

Well, that was just brainstorming, if you like any of those or, more likely, you see something that helps inspire you to something better, retcon away. If not, don't.

The reason I don't really see much of a fight is simple. Masane's base form could take point blank tank shells and not even get winded. She could tear through basically anything that got in her way that wasn't CloneBlade. When one enemy got her in an attack that was supposed to be basically a microwave oven scaled for use on humans she wasn't even phased. This is her basic form. The only thing that ever completely overpowered it was the UltimateBlade. Which lasted about five seconds after Masane busted out her second form. And all of this? This doesn't even touch the stuff the WitchBlade in the comics has done.

Karin is badass no doubt about. But she can't take a WitchBlade wielder head on any more than Dante can take a fully awakened Accelerator.

She masters the thing enough to fight as herself and not be overcome by the blade's bloodlust, but if that's the same Witchblade as the one from the comics then she hasn't even scratched the surface of what it can do.

Of course, it's far more likely that the anime Witchblade is actually a splinter blade like Excalibur given that it is said to be demonic in origin in the Takeru manga and was apparently hidden in that shrine for hundreds of years, which is totally incompatible with all the shenanigans that Sara should be causing in New York in the tail end of that time period. Even that blade was able to make energy swords and big-ass explosions in addition to sprouting blades from itself, which was the only superpower Masane ever used besides her enhanced physical stats.

Of course, this raises the question of where the real Witchblade is now...

Agreed, though I would expect a wind mage of her caliber to be able to make wind shields to severely cushion any physical impacts against herself, so she may be a lot tougher than she looks in hand-to-hand.

Suddenly the anime makes far more sense. It also explains why the Darkness and the Angelus didn't show up too. A splinter.....Maybe to keep things interesting you could have other splinters show up too. Not of the witchblade but from that series there are supposed to be thirteen artifacts/powers like it. I know that the WitchBlade is one, and the Darkness and The Angelus are two others. I'm pretty sure the Lance of Destiny is one, and I remember something about a two more called the Ember Stone and the Glacier stone. Don't know what those two were supposed to do but they should be in the same weight class as the Witchblade.

So maybe each of the Void familiars gets a splinter of something? A Darkness splinter for Pope Douchebag since the Darkness powers would synergis well with the Windalfr powers. Can't think of a good one for Myo-whatever the name is.

Darth, that sounds like good ideas. Again, I ask you to provide a snip to share the awesome that would be Masane in Helkagia.

At 0:44

[yt]cOiJb3dnLP0[/yt]
http://youtu.be/cOiJb3dnLP0

I'll try to write something with Cho'tan. Because the idea of that cute little girl talking in the same demonic voice than good ol' chap Cho'gath is fun in my mind.

.... a voice like this
[yt]34jQy5LIX1E[/yt]
http://youtu.be/34jQy5LIX1E

Of course, she would then cough and go back to a sweet voice... that still sounds as if it were coming from the depths of the Void.

That looks vaguely like the art style of one of the guys that draws Deathwing-tan.

The Pope gets Future!Rihoko + the original Witchblade. Obviously.

But more seriously (or perhaps not... :drevil I'm not familiar with the rest of Top Cow's works and I've only read the first arc or two of the original comic series, so I'd probably stick to just the anime since I know it best.

*cracks knuckles and begins typing*

No way. Whether a shard or the real deal, the Witchblade always has the same personality- male, and a perv. It would NEVER bond to something without big boobs. And DEFINITELY not Pope McDongcopter.

edit: Ohhhh, nevermind, ignore this.

Deathwing-tan is a Japanese mangaka, no? This series of girl Champions was drawn by Pikaboots over DeviantArt. There are plenty other Champions

Now presenting: Loneliness...


Louise was confused. Her summoning ritual had gone off without a hitch. There had been no explosion, only a column of blue light and a feeling of connection.

In the center of the circle, what looked like a bundle of rags convulsed every now and then, a soft sobbing could be heard. She approached, it was shorter than she was, probably even when unfolded. She could make out a head, sort of animalistic, covered in bandages like one of those ancient kings from Rub-al Khalid. Louise felt a sadness well up inside, some sniffles could be heard behind her. It looked up at her with eyes like saucers, tears falling to the grass, and spoke:

"Will you be my friend?"

[spoiler]Amumu the Sad Mummy...[/spoiler]

It was fortunate for many people that Masane had fought the Ex-Cons before coming to Halkeginia. She knew something about fighting people who weren't really people anymore, could justify it to herself that she was simply putting them out of their misery before they could hurt anyone. And they would hurt people, whether they wanted to or not. The army of 70,000 brainwashed soldiers bearing down on the last port in Albion had no choice in the matter.

But Louise was there.

And that was why all 70,000 men and women in that army would die before they ever got within sight of the city.

What exactly happened on that battlefield will never be known to Halkeginian historians, for not a one among the 70,000 soldiers escaped the Battle of Saxe-Gotha with their lives. There are no stories telling of the appearance of a woman in blood-red armor and hair whiter than new-fallen snow, nor how she barreled into the army's flank as they passed a wooded glade, cutting down everything in her path before the archers and mages could bring their weapons and artillery spells to bear.

No man remembers how she danced across the battlefield, swift and deadly as a winter wind and as unstoppable as a tornado, or how the blades adorning every inch of her body reflected the moonlight as they cleaved through three men in a single movement. None live to recall how even the strands of her hair cut through armor like the finest blades, nor that even her feminine endowments became capable of lethal hammer-blows with as simple a motion as a sudden twist of the upper body.

But there is one woman who remembers how the men died in agony, how in her desperation to save her surrogate daughter she could not deal only quick and easy deaths. She remembers a commander, his belly opened up and his intestines spilled out onto the ground to be trampled underfoot in the chaos of battle. She remembers hundreds like him, and in the end it is the mental wounds which do her in as much as the physical.

But in the end, the battlefield is silent; not even the screams of the dying remain to be heard, only labored breathing and the steady dripping of blood onto ground which will be dyed crimson for many years to come.

For the second time in her life, Amaha Masane dies for a daughter who is hers and not hers.

But the blade does not die with her. It lives on, soaked in blood and gore yet desiring more, always wanting more blood. Its old host is dead, but that matters little; it simply requires another.

Another, who approaches the battlefield silently, cautiously, bearing only the best intentions for the wounded and the fallen...

Dude, that's awesome.

Eh, it's sub-par. No dialogue, minimal action, it's missing links between descriptions in some places, and Saxe-Gotha was the only place I can think of where Masane would have an actual challenge that would be interesting and easy to write for a quick snippet. I'm feeling a lot more enthusiastic about writing the Strike Witches crossover now that I've seen how this one works in my head.

I wouldn't say so, you managed to capture the atmosphere of it pretty well without those things.