SJE/Session58
SESSION 58 - BLACK NARCISSUS
3 Resplendent Air
The whirlwind dissipates into nothing as the circle leaps elegantly to the ground in the courtyard, automatically dropping into cool poses as they activate their customary defensive Charms and martial arts techniques and line up, Power Ranger-style. The Whiteshirts fan out behind them, facing off against the Imperial guards. A moment of embarrassing silence follows, as it becomes apparent that the one thing the circle forgot to bring was any kind of a plan. The Captain breaks it, addressing the Princess Magnificent with breezy cheerfulness. "So, can you direct us to someone in authority around here?"
"Fool! I am the authority! You are too late to save Solaria, you can only bury it."
An argument! Shouting! Captain Ibrahim is back on familiar ground... "Then Solaria will be your tomb!"
"Yes, a tomb that I shall rule until the end of time!"
"What's that, Mr Smashfist? Time's up?"
Shizu, as is her wont, attempts to be the voice of reason. "You are allowed to just surrender, you know..."
"Surrender?" The Princess Magnificent's nostrils flare as she rakes the Exalts with her gaze. All around the courtyard, Whiteshirts and Imperial legionnaires fall back and cower. "I've destroyed more Solars than I can count!"
With that, and a muttered "How high can you count, then?" from Burning Brand, battle is joined. Roaring, Captain Ibrahim rushes in close to pummel the Princess as Shizu, using his charge as cover, leaps high overhead to hurl a handful of daggers straight down at the Princess. With a dainty twirl of her apparently-frail black silk parasol, the bells and trinkets around its edge jingling and tinkling, the Deathlord turns the attacks aside.
Brand follows up, crying "Foul demon! I'll send you back to Hell!" He tries a couple of low swings with his daiklave, trying to get in beneath the parasol where the Princess had raised it high to deflect Shizu's daggers. The Princess, however, is too fast for him. "How rude!" She steps back, taking the full force of his blow on her flimsy silk sun-shade. Brand, ever the artifact-geek, is impressed. "I must get the name of your tailor..."
Orchid hangs back, bossing her colleagues around. "Captain, stay in close! Shizu, get around behind her! Brand, hit her while she's striking the Captain down. I'll... I’ll… think of something else to do."
The Princess, having foiled every attack upon her, folds her parasol and, faster than the eye can follow, flicks its sharpened point out, striking at each of her opponents. Perfect defences a-go-go, they dodge away from or parry her attacks as they prefer.
The four Solars form a loose circle around the Princess Magnificent as they pause for a moment to size her up, then rush in according to Orchid's plan. The Captain throws a series of haymakers which, though the Princess opens her parasol and blocks them, drive her backwards towards Brand and Shizu. Shizu leaps onto the edge of the parasol and kicks it aside, back-flipping away from it as she activates her Shadow Strike combo. She seems to split into a handful of shining copies of herself, each whirling a sling, hurling a barrage of glowing golden bullets at the Princess. Again, the Deathlord ducks below her parasol, just getting beneath it in time for the sling stones to spatter off it like a deadly rain.
At the same time, Brand runs in, using his daiklave to pole-vault high above the Princess so that he can plunge straight down upon her with a killing blow. She merely giggles and kneels beneath her parasol. Brand hits so hard that the tiled floor of the courtyard cracks and splits into crazy paving for yards around the Princess, but she is still unharmed beneath that circle of black silk.
As the Princess peeks from beneath her shade, she finds that Orchid has stepped in close. Much to the Princess' surprise, Orchid kisses her passionately and deeply, breaking off and flicking her war fans out in another futile attack as she dances away an instant before the Princess Magnificent tries to suck her soul out through the kiss. "Hmmm..." Orchid taunts. "The Maiden Of The Mirthless Smile is a much better kisser than you are." As she backs away from the furious Princess, her sashes trail in the dust of the courtyard, sketching out a choreography for the next concerted attack upon the Deathlord.
The Princess Magnificent narrows her eyes, going even paler in her fury than she was before. Shrieking curses in dead languages best forgotten, she calls upon the power of her Soul Ripper combo. The courtyard goes dark as she builds her power, as though the light of the just-risen sun itself is afraid to approach. She spins like a top, closing on each of the Solars as she lashes out with the sharpened edges of her parasol. They barely elude her, perfect defences once more a-go-go, as the blazing light of their Charms pushes back the darkness.
As the rhyming and chiming bells of the Princess Magnificent's parasol sweep past his face, Captain Ibrahim reaches out and runs his hand around them, silencing each of them just for a few seconds. In the absence of the tolling of the bells, the shivering affright which had seized the Whiteshirts and Imperial legionnaires at the melancholy menace of their tone is dispelled, and they engage in a desperate melee around the edges of the courtyard.
While her parasol is tangled up with the Captain, Brand dives for the Princess, holding his daiklave out before him, but she ducks low and he flies past her as she continues her whirling attack. Shizu, sizing the scene up, takes the opportunity to duck back into the shadows and darts away into the corridors of the Palace, looking for... something... anything... that will help break this stalemate.
Orchid lets herself fall backwards away from the Princess. Flicking out a war fan in each hand, she quips "Let's see if we can cut those fat ankles of yours down to size." The Princess neatly dodges away, but her already incandescent fury blazes white-hot. She gestures with her free hand, raising the handful of casualties from the fight between the legionnaires and Whiteshirts as zombies to keep the others off her back while she deals with this upstart!
Shizu, moves almost impossibly quickly and hugging the shadows, dashing through the corridors of the Governor's Palace before any guards can even notice her, let alone react. Knowing the way, she heads directly for the audience chamber - perhaps now she can convince some of those Dragon-Blooded officers that the Princess is evil. She finds the Governor engaged in hand-to-hand combat with two of his commanding officers, Ledaal Takei and Ledaal Hoshi. The Dragon-Bloodeds’ animas have already flared up, the stony skin of the Governor protecting him against the howling maelstrom summoned by the two air-caste soldiers. Shizu circles the room, seeking the best spot from which to ambush the Governor. Near the throne, she hears a throbbing, clanking noise, as if great machinery were at work in the room next door.
Captain Ibrahim is, frankly, fed up with being bossed around by Orchid. It's not even as if it's working! "Huh! he mutters. "This is what you get when you take orders from some girl! Charging in at the Princess, he yells "Just hit her! All at once!" as he tries to grab her in a bear hug. He almost manages it, only the silken slipperiness of her robe lets her slide out of his grasp. "Lumbering fool! You can't touch me!"
Brand fends of the zombies and, crying "We hacked our way through the armies of Malfeas to take down Octavian. Do you really think a couple of zombies will stop us?" rushes in from her left, swinging his daiklave overhand. With a flick of her wrist, she interposes the handle of her parasol.
Shoving Brand back towards the zombies, the Princess turns her full fury upon Orchid. "I shall present your head to the Maiden Of The Mirthless Smile to kiss for all eternity!" The bells on her parasol clang and clash and roar as she swings it half a dozen times at Orchid's face. Orchid parries and dodges desperately, her anima flaring into its full glory as a golden polar bear, which growls and swats the Princess' blows away with its mighty paws. Orchid, trying her best to hide her fear, smiles mockingly. "She quite likes kissing the rest of me, you know..."
Ducking through a doorway concealed behind a tapestry, Shizu is dumbstruck to find an infernal machine. A conveyor felt feeds a massive furnace, made of soulsteel and iron and glowing with dark, necromantic power. Littering the conveyor are the corpses of Solarians. As Shizu watches in horror, mechanical arms, equipped with grasping claws snatch up the bodies, stuffing them into the belly of this dreadful machine. With each fresh corpse, the darkness that hangs over Solaria seems to grow a little deeper. Shizu briefly considers sabotage, but the construction is so massive, complicated and solid that she hardly knows where to begin. Still, it should help convince those Dragon-Blooded...
Captain Ibrahim swings his smashfist in a classic right hook to drive the Princess away from Orchid. He follows up with a series of close-in blows which blaze with golden essence as he wields his full Solar might. With what is becoming all-too-familiar ease, she turns his attacks aside with her parasol. Brand pushes off from one of the zombies, leaping in for a two-handed cut at the Princess' head - and he'd have got away with it, too, if it hadn't been for that pesky parasol! He reverses the direction of his thrust to impale one of the zombies that is shambling after him ("Brains!"), but is horrified to find himself empty-handed when he steps away from the blow. His daiklave is stuck fast in the chest of the zombie!
Back in the audience chamber, the fight between the Governor and Team Ledaal goes on. Shizu rolls her eyes. "Haven't you got better things to do?" Stalking around to the perfect vantage point, she unleashes a Cascade of cutting Terror directly into the Governor's back, driving him forward onto the swords of the Ledaals.
As Brand chases the zombie down, eventually having to kick it's grasping hands ("Brains!") away while he gets a double-handed grip to pull his daiklave free, and the Captain recovers his breath, the Princess Magnificent's attention is still on Orchid. She presses her attack just hard enough to keep Orchid off balance and always going backwards. As she fights, just holding back from overwhelming the Solar, she talks, cajoling.
"Join me, Orchid!"
"I couldn't possibly join anyone with your dress sense. Where did you get that awful head-dress?"
The Princess chooses to ignore this insult for now. "Would you like the Maiden Of The Mirthless Smile as a concubine..."
"Been there, done that... Why offer me what I already have?" Orchid is defiant, but breathless and tiring fast.
The Princess Magnificent expends a part of her Essence, letting the rhythm of the duel carry her into Sin-Sensing Meditation. Soothing, tempting tones fill her voice. The sobbing of her bells keeping time, she appeals to Orchid's hidden desires.
"The Inconstant Hierophant never told you what happened to your First Age incarnation..."
"He told me enough. He told me I died in Nexus."
Orchid parries desperately, stumbling and falling as she is backed up to the very edge of the courtyard. The Princess looms over her. "No. I was your First Age incarnation."
"No... No! That's not true! That's impossible! You've got fat ankles!"
"Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
" Noooo! Noooooooo!"
The Princess, shading both of them with her parasol, reaches out her free hand. "Orchid, we can overthrow the Realm and restore the Deliberative. My master has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me and together we can rule Creation."
Orchid huddles, but finds one small spark of defiant will inside her. "Overthrow the Realm? You're being fought to a standstill by half a circle of Solars! You're being fought to a standstill by me, and I'm terrible at fighting!"
"Like you, I prefer to fight in other ways. Join me, and I promise you these things."
"These are just promises, come back when you can deliver upon them. Until then, I'll never join you!"
"Then you will feel the power of Oblivion!"
The anger of her bells swells as the Princess Magnificent poises herself to finish Orchid and the young Solar tumbles headlong over a yawning emotional precipice of despair, revelation and shattered assumptions.
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