Character Profiles 4: 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! This one shall be the last character profile chapter of my story which I made on behalf of Traingham, the man who made the epic Magister Negi Magi story: Fang Vice Addiction and By Your Enrapture.

X X X

Sword, Servant Assassin – Gladius, in Latin

Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Assassin / Sabre

Affiliation: Master of Legions

Race: Human

Sobriquet/ Real Name: The Black Crane of Ice / Chiharu Tohno (similar in face and feature to Rangiku Matsumoto from the Bleach anime)

Age: Unknown – Early twenties

Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Blonde/ Light green/ 166 cm

Favoured weapon(s): Katana and swords

Favoured Spell-Type: Iaido-Suzaku no Ken (similar to skills used by the Samurai Class in Final Fantasy Tactics game); Black Sword Arts (similar to those used by the Dark Knight class in Final Fantasy Tactics)

Description: Chiharu Tohno wears a black gi and hakama, the colours of which denote her as an Exorcist of the Mage Council's Eastern Branch. Of all the Heroic Spirits in the service of the Master of Legions, Chiharu – known better as Gladius – is both the youngest (in that she had died and was elevated some seventy years ago) and whose panoply is not as ostentatious as her peers. Nonetheless, Chiharu's arsenal – used in combination with her clan's Iaido skills and her Black Sword Arts – is capable of healing even the direst wounds of her Master and her compatriots even as it can inflict no small amount of harm. Chiharu has green eyes and waist length blonde hair. Voluptuous, broad-minded and mischievous, she delights in playing light-hearted pranks on her Master's colleagues and her fellow Heroic Spirits. Loves books and alcohol.

History: Chiharu Tohno was born in the decades after the Meiji Restoration to Johann von Alstreim, a German businessman, and Sayumi Tohno, the daughter of a Japanese politician. The families of both parties had links to the Mage Council, the latter of which sent one of their retired Justicars to tutor the three children of their union in hopes of further strengthening their power base in the Mundus Veteres (or the Old World, as is known amongst the inhabitants of the Magical World). The eldest son, Mikagami Tohno would eventually marry Mikako Konoemon, the mother of the current Headmaster of Mahora High. The second-born son, Lucian Tohno, and the youngest, Chiharu Tohno, would join the organization's Exorcist teams. Both would eventually lead Exorcist teams of their own, and bring honour and grief in equal measure to their families.

The two would come face to face in their final days against an Anathema, a demigod of staggering power whom many in the present described as one of the few who could equal the Master of Legions in sheer power. In a bygone age of legend, the Anathema had been one of the Solar Deliberative's Hundred Generals and who had, in the days of the Usurpation by their Dragon-Blooded soldiers, been one of the few whose armies and stratagems had bled the rebellious children of the Elemental Dragons white before being forced to retreat with what was left of his army to follow his Empress into hiding. Lucian Tohno would turn and become part of the Anathema's honour guard. His younger sister did not, and would die on the end of the Anathema's Daiklave. The last thing she saw was the Anathema's grieving face and his promise that when she strode the world once more, she would have the strength to change the world – something her brother had given up when he swore fealty to the vengeful demigods that sought to return Creation to its rightful rulers.

Chiharu would be summoned when the Master of Legions and the Night Elf Sentinel Army fought against the maddened Night Elf demigod – a Keeper of the Grove by the name of Del'Aras – and his army of twisted forest spirits on the sacred grounds of the Moon Spire. The event that had led to the summoning had been the death of a Night Elf High Warden; the latter had perished trying to give the Master of Legions time to finish his casting of the Incarnadine Heavenly Thunder Charm that would allow him to subdue Del'Aras. Her blood had corrupted the magical circle used to cast the Charm and sent a fierce, shrill cry to the Throne of Heroes to send aid – one with the strength to challenge the terrible army the corrupted Keeper of the Grove had brought with him. The entity who sat on the Throne, seeing that the one who would be the newly-summoned Servant's Master was dead, inscribed another set of Command Seals on one already known to it – and laughed uproariously as said individual (and half of the Heroic Spirits in his service) swore virulently as reality itself shook as the Master of Legion's newly-summoned Servant manifested in the mortal world.

The arrival of Chiharu turned the tide of the battle firmly in the favour of the Night Elf Sentinel Army, but the maddened demigod would not be denied his vengeance on those he believed to be responsible for the death of his consort. The Charm Del'Aras with his final breath not only killed more than half the Night Elf army that had accompanied the Master of Legions, but also desecrated the very grounds they had given their lives to defend. The spirits of the Night Elf race's most revered heroes and heroines were cast into the Abyss despite the Master of Legion's best efforts and into the waiting arms of the Empress of Wrath, an act that had the Demon Queen's rivals green with envy and elevating the Master of Legions further up in the ranks of the Unholy Host. The outcome of the Battle of the Emerald Forest would earn the Battlemage no small amount of enmity from the Night Elves, especially from those whose ancestors were laid to rest within the Shrine that had been built there. Had the Mage Council and several of the High Wardens that had survived the battle not intervened, there was no doubt in anybody's mind that the Master of Legions would have been executed by those he had tried to protect.

"Be patient," he had told his accusers, "my punishment will come sooner than you think. Before the turn of the fiftieth year, I will know the bite of that which even immortals fear."

It was that terrible event which her Master spoke of that she and her fellow Heroic Spirits were trying to avert. The path upon which her Master trod was bound to end in one of three ways: death, damnation or daemonhood. The last was a most likely possibility, as the first two are placed far beyond his reach. And maybe, just maybe, should there be a miracle, they would win that which many of the damned sought but rarely find: salvation – and forgiveness.

- FVA: BYE -

Empress, Servant Rider – Imperatris, in Latin

Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Rider / Lancer

Affiliation: Master of Legions

Race: Human

Sobriquet/ Real Name: The White Reaper / Bennu D'Avenant

Age: Unknown – late thirties

Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: White / Red/ 177 cm

Favoured weapon(s): Pole-arms and swords.

Favoured Spell-Type: Elemental Charms

Description: Bennu is a regal and attractive dark-skinned Germanic woman with flowing, white hair and red eyes. Clad in ornate gleaming battle-plate adorned with the draconic crest still used by the Tepes Clan's honour guard, and is armed with a master-crafted broadsword, shield and lance. The White Reaper of Clan Tepes rides upon a daemonic war-horse once ridden by one of the Anathema.

History: Bennu D'Avenant was born in Megalomesembria in the years before the Seventh Eclipse Crusade, some two thousand years ago, to a Magister Magi and his Ministra Magi, both of whom had been retainers in the service of Clan Tepes. During that time period, Clan Tepes had yet to join the ranks of the vampire clans, but its warriors were easily the equal of the Mage-Knights of the era. Even so, the ferocious cavalry charges of the clan's knights were legendary, their fearless warriors the pride of the Dragon Banner that was the clan's emblem. It was in this harsh yet closely-knit environment that the White Reaper of Clan Tepes grew up in. Devotion, strength, loyalty and courage – virtues upheld by a clan whose descendants who would stand tall and proud amongst some of the powerful monsters in Creation centuries later. Clan records state that it was the White Reaper who won the first battle that turned the tide during of the Seventh Eclipse Crusade, and whose lance had accounted for five of the First and Forsaken Angel's Dragon-Blooded Forsaken elite before she met her end at the hands of the Dusk Caste Abyssal Exalt Thousand Obsidian Blades. The latter had been long-impressed by Bennu's prowess both on and off the battlefield and had extended an offer of marriage as well as the crown of any kingdom in the Mundus Magicus of her choosing should she swear fealty to his mistress. Even as she breathed her last, Bennu refused the bloody eternity that the Abyssal offered her.

In desperation, Thousand Obsidian Blades used every Charm in his considerable repertoire – including the ones forbidden to him – to return Bennu back to life. But neither the Fates nor the Ashen King would tolerate the foolish Abyssal trying to break laws that have been set by the King of Heaven during the Springtime of Creation. Nor did said King tolerate his treacherous champion calling upon Him. The flood of divine power reduced Bennu's body to ash and sent her soul to the Throne of Heroes, beyond the power of any deity in Creation to resurrect.

Bennu was among the first Heroic Spirits to participate in the First Holy Grail War (also known as the Reckoning) over a thousand years ago, a feat that has earned her even the esteem of the King of Heroes. The White Reaper had served under Eliza von Einzbern during that War – an event which shocked the Lords of Clan Tepes and which saw to them sending an emissary to the Mage Council to confirm that the patron Saint and founder of Clan Tepes's Knightly Order of the Dragonslayers had been raised to a rank more exalted than that of the Almighty's servants – that of a Heroic Spirit.

It wasn't long before word of Bennu's resurrection reached the ears of the badly-scarred Thousand Obsidian Blades, and the Abyssal has long sought the artefacts that would allow him to summon his beloved nemesis to his side and allow them to ride against Creation as he had always wanted. Time and again he failed. This time, in the modern era of the Mundus Veteres, the Abyssal has all that he needs to bind the White Reaper to his cause. The only problem – and a big one at that – is that Bennu's current master, a fearsome monster whom even the First and Forsaken Angel acknowledges is reluctant to cross, is unwilling to surrender her.

- FVA: BYE -

Messenger, Servant Archer – Nunticus in Latin

Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Archer / Rider

Affiliation: Master of Legions

Race: Human

Sobriquet/ Real Name: The Eye of Freya / Aldis of the Vale

Age: Unknown (in her late twenties)

Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Silver/ Golden/ 168 cm

Favoured weapon(s): Long Jade power-bow Heart-Striker; Grand Daiklave Executioner

Favoured Spell-Type: Wind and Ice

Description: Aldis of the Vale is a voluptuous, silver-haired beauty whose golden eyes are bright with life and mischief. She is clad in clothing and armour that allows her freedom of movement and to stir the passions of those who look upon her. Her weapons – the Jade Chakram and Grand Daiklave – were made in the image of the weapons she had wielded in life. Aldis also wears a circlet with a single horn, which allows her to summon her Dire Wolf mount into battle. The latter is a monstrous creature the size of a bus, and is armoured from snout to tail in ornate barding adorned with runes of warding.

History: Aldis of the Vale was the daughter of a Viking chieftain whose hosts had plied the seas and waterways of Europe in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. Beautiful, sensuous and proud, Aldis was courted by many and won by none. Equal to the men of her clan in the use of the bow, the sword and the spear, she had been a much-beloved exception to the laws of her people. In song and dance, she weaved tale and melody with a skill that would have no peer in the decades after her death. In war, she was a glorious Valkyrie who praised courage and scorned weakness. In peace, she made firm the treaties and laws that made her people strong. No father could be as proud of his child as Aldis's had. It had stunned the latter when his liege lord, upon receiving an emissary of said Empire, heard the bodyguard of the latter singing one of his daughter's songs.

But like Baldur, the much beloved Norse deity of the sun who was slain by the treachery of his brother, Aldis's end was foretold and her soul promised by Odin to the Throne of Heroes. Aldis and her bodyguard had been ambushed by the witch-hunters of the Holy Roman Empire who had declared her a witch and a servant of the Dark Powers, sent to turn the faithful from the Creator, when she had been en route to one of her father's holdings. The Church Inquisitors burnt Aldis at the stake, an act which saw to the treaty the latter had worked so hard to make possible rendered null and void and to more than a dozen Viking clans assembling to pay the craven followers of the Church suffer for their perfidy.

Aldis, like Bennu, is one of the first Heroic Spirits to participate in the Reckoning and who had fought against the Heroic Spirit who had been the Prophet Muhammad's Servant, Ali, during the Second Holy Grail War. It is whispered a heretical Muslim sect that Aldis was in fact the Archangel Gabriel herself, something which amuses the Heroic Spirit (even Ali himself) to no end. Nonetheless, Aldis is deeply annoyed that her former nemesis (i.e.: Bennu) is challenging her for the affections of her new Master. The former doesn't mind that there are other women – Heroic Spirit or otherwise – doing the same, but do the Fates (and the Throne of Heroes) really have to toss the White Reaper into the mix? On the other hand, however…the current state of affairs excites Aldis. Big families – like the one she had been part of during her mortal days and the one she intends to set up – are a mark of a prosperous home (and a very, VERY happy man….).

- FVA: BYE -

Fury, Servant Berserker – Furor in Latin

Servant Type (Class/ sub-class): Berserker / Sabre

Affiliation: Master of Legions

Race: Elf

Sobriquet/ Real Name: The Thunderous Blade / Lucia Tamerlyne

Age: Unknown (90 years old at time of death)

Hair colour/ Eye Colour/ Height: Dark pink / Green/ 167 cm

Favoured weapon(s): Grand Daiklave

Favoured Spell-Type: Elemental Charms

Description: Lucia Tamerlyne is a buxom half-elf whose strong body is protected by the jade and silver reinforced breastplate and bracers she had worn during her time as a Dynast of the Shogunate. Lucia is a Dragon-Blooded of the Wood Aspect, a child of one of the Five Elemental Dragons. Her anima banner is that of a great Wood Dragon whose eyes and wooden scales writhe with flame, an indication that her sire was of the Fire Aspect. Lucia is armed with a master-crafted Grand Daiklave granted to her by her elven Dragon-Blooded mother who had once served as a captain of the Hellas Empire. There is always an amused smirk on the half-elf Dragon-Blooded, and it becomes a predatory grin when her Master (and lover) sets her on his enemies.

History: Lucia is perhaps the youngest Heroic Spirit in the retinue of the Master of Legions. Born some two hundred years prior, Lucia was a young officer within the Enforcers of Hellas when tensions between the Empire of Hellas and the Republic of Megalomesembria had been at their lowest point since the Twelfth Border War some seventy years prior. Neither country was aware that they were being manipulated by the First and Forsaken Angel's agents, that their brief two-year conflict allowed for the fallen Solar Empress's lieutenants to establish numerous covens and strongholds within the Mundus Magicus. Many of these cults – for lack of a better word – masked their activities under a veneer of legitimacy. From the palatial mansions of respectable merchants to the fortresses where the banners of mercenary armies flew, the Covens of the Thousand Serpents – as they were later known – worked towards building their strength and influence for the time when their mistress bade them to strike. But the actions of one such coven would force the rest into hiding and turn the eyes of the authorities in both Megalomesembria and Hellas to the shadows where an ancient, vengeful enemy laid waiting. Unsure if the recent acts of sabotage and murders were the work of their enemies, a Field Marshall of Hellas arranged a secret meeting with one of the Inquisitor Lords of the Mage Council and shared all that he knew with the latter. What emerged from their discussion was a picture neither liked, and which could fan the embers of an already volatile political situation into an inferno of a new War.

No, the only way to deal with the Cult of a Thousand Serpents – as the First and Forsaken Angel's covens were known – was to dispatch an elite kill-team. It took both the Inquisitor Lord and the Hellas Field Marshall two full weeks to assemble a team. Lucia was chosen to be one of them, due in no small part to her ability to keep her mouth quiet regarding such clandestine operations as well as her ability to deal with any daemonic soldiers such cults were capable of summoning to defend them. The investigations Lucia and her comrades undertook led them into places where life was cheap and death easy to come by. Each fresh hell they saw led to them acquiring a clue as to the ultimate aim of the Cults – and it made both Lucia and her compatriots tremble.

The First and Forsaken Angel was readying her hosts for an Eclipse Crusade that would dwarf all that she had led into Creation since the Usurpation. Binding pacts were called into account, and armies were being amassed for the one singular goal of burning the Empire of Hellas and the Republic of Megalomesembria – both the creations of the Dragon-Blooded High Lords – to the ground. Realizing the magnitude of what they had uncovered, Lucia and her comrades – those left living – rushed to meet the men who had sent them on their mission. And there, the survivors were betrayed. Both the Field Marshall of Hellas and the Mage Council's Inquisitor Lord had turned, and had committed their forces to those of the First and Forsaken Angel's. Lucia and her compatriots fought as hard as they could to escape the Inquisitor Lord's citadel, but they were soon cut down by the Heroic Spirits and the bodyguards that accompanied the two.

It is a bitter joke on the part of the Fates that the Heroic Spirit who slew her all those years ago is the same one that now serves the seductive and deadly Astameer La'Felle. The latter is both amused and outraged by the fact that the Throne of Heroes had elevated a half-elven mongrel to the exalted rank of a Heroic Spirit as the latter had not done anything noteworthy to merit her ascension. Lucia has sworn to settle accounts with Astameer's Servant, a reckoning that is all but assured as the relationship between her Master and the Lady Astameer is acrimonious at best.