Character Profiles 3: The Heroic Spirits of the Master of Legions
Written by Spiritblade
Disclaimer: I do not own Magister Negi Magi or the fabulous story that Traingham is fighting to finish. Nor do I own Queen's Blade, Fate Stay Night, Ragnarok Online or Shin Megami Tensei (and a whole lot of other things) that I had lifted to make these characters possible. I now present you the second set of four Heroic Spirits that serve the Master of Legions. And yes, I do these character profiles when I get stuck on my other projects and need time to recharge.
Now, on with the profiling!
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Justice, Servant Lancer – Justitia, in Latin
Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Lancer
Affiliation: Master of Legions
Race: Human
Sobriquet/ Real Name: The Seventh Heavenly Dragon / Eliza Ashborn
Age: Unknown – in her late twenties
Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Midnightblue/Red/172 cm
Favoured weapon: Israel Spear relic weapon
Favoured Spell-Type: Fire, Earth, Holy
Description: Eliza – or Justitia – wears crimson and gold scroll-worked armour forged out of meteoric iron over a white bodysuit. Her breastplate bears the sigil of a High Judge of the Deliberative as well as the crest of the Dragon-Blooded House she was part of and which endures to this very day. Though outwardly calm and composed, Eliza's soul blazes with an intensity that would put a volcano to shame. The red-eyed Heroic Spirit keeps her ankle-length midnight blue hair bound in buns and flowing ponytails. Eliza detests Widow and Lilith, as she sees them as the agents of the powerful rebel angel empress who keeps her Master a slave to her whims. Eliza serves as her Master's liaison to the Mage Council's Ministry of Justice and the Bounty Hunters' Guild.
History: Eliza Ashborn is the revered ancestor of the Megalomesembrian noble House which bears her name. During the days of the High First Age, before the sundering of Creation by the rebellion of the Princess Morningstar and her peers, Eliza Firstborn – the Seventh Heavenly Dragon – had served proudly under the banner of the Golden Sun Lord known as the Prince of the Thousand Blades as one of his chief lieutenants. The fact that Eliza was but one of a few Dragon-Blooded Exalts to serve within his Council of War bespoke of the woman's prowess both on and off the battlefield.
The Prince of the Thousand Blades had been the circle mate of the Eye of Justice, one of the Deliberative's Chief Justicars, and had often sent his subordinates to serve under the latter whenever he needed help. It was during the bloodless suppression of a rebellion that the Eye of Justice and Eliza's master bestowed upon the Dragon-Blooded maiden the crown of the city she saved – an act which won the two Golden Sun Lords the support of its people that had held fast even during the chaotic years of the Usurpation and saw to their eastern territories secured from the incursions of their peers (i.e.: their fellow Solars). The ancient Megalomesembric city of Aurelian is but one of two dozen Hierarchical Cities to survive the ages, and its magnificence is a reminder of a time of glory that could be seen, heard and felt through the stories that parents and teachers tell their charges. And among those stories was the tragedy of Eliza's death. The Seventh Heavenly Dragon was slain not in battle, but by an assassin's blade. It was an act that would bring a swift end to the siege of Aurelian City even as it brought its new rulers – servants of House Amoniel – no small amount of animosity. The elders of House Ashford, upon hearing the manner in which Eliza had been slain, had immediately ordered their legions to return to the provinces held by the family – an act that their fellow Dragon-Blooded decried as treason and cowardice.
When called upon to answer for the actions of his House, the Ashford clan Patriarch's words were ones that would resound throughout the ages to come: 'If the most honourable of foes and the most just of individuals are made into the worst of criminals and executed likewise, then those who have ordered their deaths have proven themselves to be devoid of the ideals they champion. Not for you and this new Empire be the glory of the one you seek to supplant; no, you have sown the seeds of your own ruin by emulating the very traits that have led to our raising arms against our former masters.'
- FVA: BYE -
Faith, Servant Lancer – Fides, in Latin; Shinji, in Japanese
Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Sabre / Caster
Affiliation: Master of Legions
Race: Human
Sobriquet/ Real Name: Priestess of the Thousand Stars / Mochizuki Tomoe (yes, the same Tomoe from Queen's Blade)
Age: Unknown – in her late twenties
Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Black/Steel grey/165 cm
Favoured weapon: Arashi Reaper Daiklave – dai-katana type
Favoured Spell-Type: Wind, Holy, Water and Light
Description: The sixth Heroic Soul to make a Contract with Sheik, Faith – or Mochizuki Tomoe – was originally the Servant of Sonia Westmarch. The latter was one of the few friends the Master of Legions had within the Mage Council, and who had died trying to imprison the Dark Lord Akrasiel Bloodraven. Calm, wise, mischievous and intelligent are words her fellow Heroic Spirits use to describe Tomoe. Daring is another – not even the mightiest of Sheik's Heroic Spirit retinue dares to antagonize the deadly and beautiful Widow. Whatever is it the dark-haired miko tells the seductive demoness clearly hurts the latter beyond endurance and anger. Tomoe is clad in the traditional garments worn by the female members of Japan's ancient and still much-respected clergy, and is armed with a dai-katana reaper Daiklave which has been the bane of evil spirits and demons through the centuries she had been summoned.
History: Mochizuki Tomoe was born during the chaotic period of Japan's Sengoku period, when men like Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shinken and Uesugi Kenshin bestrode that land like titans and left legends that were etched deep into the soul and psyche of a people who loved their land and the near-mythical centuries that it had seen. The Mochizuki Clan had been loyalists of the Takeda clan, and had been instrumental in advising their lords and seeing to the rites that the samurai of that era had regarded as important to their way of life. When an army loyal to the Takeda clan marched into battle, it would do so with the priests and priestesses of the Mochizuki family in tow. In battle, the family was the equal of any samurai clan. It was a truism amongst those who faced a scion of the Mochizuki family in battle that the latter had already performed funerary rites for themselves as well as those who faced them – and that the blade that they draw from their scabbards knows the names of those whom the Fates have decreed are to cross the River Styx.
Mochizuki Tomoe would serve under her parents and her relatives in the Takeda clan's armies, learning from them her family's trade even as she learnt how brutal the era she was born in could be. But amidst such death and ruin, the dark-haired priestess shone beautifully. And when she felled six of Oda Nobunaga's Crimson Flowers, his dreaded shinobi honour guard, that radiance made even the most hardened warrior of the battlefield dare to dream of war's end – and what lay beyond it. Many were the samurai and feudal lords who paid court to Tomoe for her grace, wisdom and beauty. All hoped to one day be her husband, but all were to be disappointed when another miko – this one from the Asagami clan – told them that the one to win her hand and her heart stood not amongst them and would not be born for many centuries yet. Most chilling of all was the pronouncement that Tomoe would not live to see her 25th birthday – a fate that was written in the stars and whispered in the wind.
The reason why soon became clear. One of Oda Nobunaga's warlocks had made pacts with a black angel who had bestrode Creation during its First Age and who had raised his sword against the Unconquered Sun in the war that saw to the end of that golden age. In exchange for power, the warlock – a fallen onmyo priest by the name of Azusa Yagami – would open gateways to the desolate realm where the corrupted champion of light was imprisoned by his peers in a bygone age of myth. At first, the warlord that the warlock answered to was pleased with the latter's efforts, but it would soon fade in the months that followed as the former learnt that the monster he thought bound to his service sought to supplant him – and that it had the power to do so. Sending emissaries to the courts of his rivals, Nobunaga Oda sought to banish the monster he had mistakenly made first amongst his many champions. The terrible battle that took place a hundred leagues from Edo would enter into the monogatari-stories of Japan as the Winter of Ashen Snow. Though now dismissed as a mere legend, the Lycan lore-keepers and the vampires who had taken part in that battle remembered it as a titanic clash fought under the light of a crimson moon and amidst the flames of an inferno and a rain of ash. The climax of the battle was when Tomoe and the other priests and mystics managed to execute the Gate of Judgment Charm, which allowed the deity the fallen Solar had once knelt before to drag His treacherous servant into His presence to be judged for the crimes he had committed in the long centuries since the Usurpation.
But the price for victory had been high: Tomoe died from her wounds and had, in her final moments, appealed to the powers that be for the strength to make an end of the fallen Solar. The Throne of Heroes answered her call and had, in exchange for making her an instrument of its will, given her the power she needed to complete her task. For over three hundred years, Tomoe had fought in no less than four Grail Wars and had, in the process, acquired vast amounts of fighting experience and refined her Charms till they were the equal of a Caster's. Now, she is ready to win the war that her grandmother had told her she would be part of
- FVA: BYE -
Shadow, Servant Assassin – Umbra, in Latin
Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Assassin / Caster
Affiliation: Master of Legions
Race: Dark Elf
Sobriquet/ Real Name: The Serpentine Herald/ Echidna Ashwing (yes, the same Echidna from Queen's Blade)
Age: Unknown – in her late twenties; in truth, three hundred years old (during the time of the Usurpation)
Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Ash blonde/Amber-gold/174 cm
Favoured weapon: Wavecleaver Daiklave – Fangs of the Hydra; Short Daiklave (Sai-type martial art weapon; spell-breaker) – Bringer of Twilight
Favoured Spell-Type: Wind, Ice and Nature
Description: Echidna Ashwing is the seventh Heroic Spirit to make a pact with the Master of Legions. Voluptuous, sensuous and deadly, the Dark Elf Heroic Spirit is the Master of Legion's chief assassin. She has long ash-blonde hair bound up in a ponytail, and wears garments that reveal and compliment her considerable feminine assets. The Serpentine Herald's weapons are always on hand and the sultry gaze she gifts any who approach her or her master is a warning that any act she (or her master) deems hostile will be met with deadly force.
History: The Serpentine Herald, Echidna Ashwing, is a cold-blooded killer whose exploits before and during the Usurpation were legendary. In the decades before the Usurpation, Echidna was the commander of the Night Caste Solar Star Dagger's Silver Cobra Legion – a secret police dedicated to ensuring that the enemies of the Deliberative met ignominious (and bloody) ends. And some of these enemies were some of the Solar Queen Merela's Golden Sun Lords. When Echidna and a dozen of her peers were appointed by the Deliberative's Imperialist faction to send one of the pillars of the Deliberative across the River Styx, the dark elf would never realize how her one action would change history. It showed the Dragon-Blooded that the demigods that they had followed across the centuries to glory and into ruin and decadence could die.
Acquiring the proper Charms that Echidna had used to send the immortal souls of the Solars to Oblivion and Final Death, the Dragon-Blooded launched their coup. Echidna and the Silver Cobra Legion, like many of the Deliberative's loyalist armies, defied their erstwhile peers. Dragon-Blooded slew Dragon-Blooded in a frenzy not seen since the Great War against the Titans, and Solars turned their Daiklaves and their Charms on those whom they had trusted for decades in a bitter rage that would be immortalized in the centuries after the Usurpation was a memory. It was at the height of the Battle of the Imperial Manse that Echidna was made a Heroic Spirit, her body torn to bloody ruin by the Charms and weapons of her enemies and her blades wet with the blood of no less than three dozen of the Elemental Dragons and their elite guard.
Echidna would fight in no less than a dozen Holy Wars, each of which honed her already formidable skills to a degree that few across the ages could match. Her skills were such that she had fought the feared Hassan I-Sabbah, the legendary Grandmaster of Assassins, to a standstill in the Fourth Holy Lance War that was held in the Middle East during the 1960s. The latter had praised Echidna before sending her back to the Throne of Heroes, and looked forward to crossing swords with her once more should the Fates – and the Almighty – wish it. Hassan I-Sabbah would get his wish; the powerful Servant Assassin, summoned once more some ten years after the Fifth Holy Grail War held in Misaki City, is now the Servant of one of Astameer's lieutenants (and lovers), Lord Rygard Perenolde. The latter wants his mistress's hated enemy, the Master of Legions, dead, an aim that coincides with his Servant's goal of proving himself superior to one who has seen an era that could only be glimpsed and felt through the stories and songs of tale-tellers and dreamers.
- FVA: BYE -
Truth, Servant Archer – Veritas, in Latin
Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Archer
Affiliation: Master of Legions
Race: Human
Sobriquet/ Real Name: The White Rose / Luna Himeki (from Vanguard Princess)
Age: Early twenties
Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Crimson/ Green/ 172 cm
Favoured weapon: 2x master-crafted light Essence Cannons (they look like ornate, French-made flintlock pistols); 2xShort Daiklave – Velvet Rose and Silken Whisper
Favoured Spell-Type: Elemental & Light
Description: Truth – or Veritas, as she is known in Latin – was the eighth Servant to make a pact with the Master of Legions when the latter acquired the Iron Crown which had been worn by her father during the First Age. Said relic is now part of the Master of Legion's battle-regalia, a potent reminder to his enemies (and allies) within the Mage Council of the power he has at his disposal. Luna's silky mane of red hair shimmers and sways with every step, and her curvaceous body is clad in a low-cut dress that would not look out of place on a high-class courtesan and which allows her considerable freedom of movement. The guns she wields, like her choker, are embossed with the sigil of the Peacekeepers of the First Age, an indication that she had been a member of that august order. Though outwardly cheerful and an incorrigible prankster, Luna is known to lapse into long periods of brooding silence in which she would be found in the company of her Master.
History: Luna is perhaps the only Solar in the Master of Legion's retinue of Heroic Spirits and whose spats with Strike are well-known, for they had once stood on opposite sides of the law in a bygone era and who now curse the Fates for sticking them together in the same room and contesting for the affections of the same master. The red-haired siren was the daughter of a powerful Solar of the Dawn Caste who was the least promising of his children in terms of Exaltation, but the most promising when it came to potential. A word in the right ears and a favour called in, and Luna was made a cadet in the Peacekeeper Academy. She soared. By 16 years of age, Luna had not only been made a full-fledged member of the Peacekeeper force. By 18, she had earned on her own merit the Sword of Command. By 20, Luna was in command of three elite strike teams dedicated to ensuring that subversive elements within the Deliberative were brought to heel. Luna's father ruled the Helkeginia region, which was located south of Ariadne and west of Ostia, where the Imperial Manse was located – and which history and myth remembered as one of the most heavily fought for regions in the closing days of the Usurpation.
The citizens of Helkeginia have long been supporters of the Deliberative, a stance brought about by the manner in which the region's Solar Masters governed the region. When the Usurpation took place, Helkeginia was the first to send its elite strike teams to strike at the Dragon-Blooded rebels and their hosts. Luna had been placed in charge of the teams that were tasked with extricating as many Solars from Ostia as quickly as she could – a mission that would see to her bearing witness to the end of an era. It was during that mission that Luna would meet Echidna of the Silver Cobra Legion, which would ignite a rivalry that would extend through the ages of Creation when the two were made Heroic Spirits. Luna represented the noble principles by which the Solar Deliberative was built upon; Echidna represented the brutal necessity by which it was allowed to endure. Neither could stand the other, even though both had common goals. But respect each other they did, and Echidna bought Luna the time she needed to extricate as many (badly-injured) Solar and Lunar Exalts from Ostia, even though it cost the dark elf guild-mistress her life and half of her Legion. Luna would meet her end a year later during the Battle of the Tower of Silence, when the Dragon-Blooded sky-ship fleets and legions overwhelmed that Manse's formidable defences in a sixty-day long siege was one that would be immortalized in the pages of the Magic World's history books. Those books failed to capture the bitter hatred that powered every sword strike and Charm unleashed during that battle, or to justify the atrocities that would be committed in its aftermath in the name of justice. Seeing a chance to goad a hated enemy to rashness and to break the courage of those armies who still knelt before the Anathema, the Dragon-Blooded nobles had had Luna and the survivors of the battle tortured and crucified, before having the images beamed throughout the Deliberative, a warning to all who defied the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate. Kneel before the new masters of Creation, the Dragon Lords commanded, or be branded a heretic and die.
Before the Battle of the Tower of Silence, there were still Solars who wanted to negotiate with the Dragon-Blooded in hopes of averting a Creation-wide war. Before that battle, there had been many Dragon-Blooded Houses who viewed their cause – despite the atrocities committed – of overthrowing the Solars as righteous. In the days after, the Celestial Exalts and their loyalist soldiers would smite their enemies without mercy, pouring scorn and contempt upon those who believed themselves their betters. Dragon-Blooded Houses who had once supported their brethren in the crusade soon withdrew their support; they saw their peers becoming the very monsters they sought to defeat. The Battle of the Tower of Silence had served only to tarnish the honour and dignity of the Chosen of the Elemental Dragons; the Titans' Great Curse upon the Almighty's Solar and Lunar champions had finally sank its talons deep into the soldiers of His generals – and the outcome was nothing but tragic.
But by then, Luna was beyond caring. The White Rose had already been taken by the Throne of Heroes to fight in a war only a select few could be part of. The female Solar would fight in no less than three dozen Holy Wars, the first being in the years when Christ walked the Earth. The latter had been startled when the White Rose crossed his path, but had smiled in a pleased fashion that told the Heroic Spirit that he knew who and what she was, and that he was aware that the Holy Wars were a part of his Father's Great Work.
"Go with my Father's blessing," the Saviour had whispered, "One day, you and yours will be free. The sun that set during the War in Heaven will rise once more, cradled by the moon and led to its zenith by a young prince granted a black gift by his teacher and bequeathed to his lovers who will sire his children. And the young vampire king will not be alone. He will have by his side a Horseman, this one claimed by one of my Father's rebellious daughters, and whose strength will be lever upon which a new age would turn."
It would be over two thousand years before what the Saviour said made sense, and it excited the White Rose. The cycle was turning, and the stars were right: Ostia, capital of the Solar Deliberative, cast down during the Usurpation and reduced to ruins by the War in Heaven, would rise once more. Creation was on the verge of returning to the Glorious Age once more – and she and her daughters would live to see it.