Failure to App
THE PLAYER
Name: Tai
LJ: auraunda
Contacts: veridis tre at AIM; contact for email
Current characters at Dissideo: waterblade
THE CHARACTER
Name: Oerba Yun Fang
Series: Final Fantasy XIII
Age: Physically and mentally, twenty-one; chronologically, five hundred twenty-one
Timeline: End of Chapter 9/Beginning of Chapter 10; just entering the Fifth Ark
History: I've got a few screws loose, but I'm a l'Cie, same as you.
Personality: Described as "stronger than Lightning and more stubborn than Snow," Fang clearly lives up to the phrase with her combination of head-strong drive, easy confidence, earthy sex appeal, and at times cold-bloodily ruthless determination. She is a woman who has a goal and will do anything to carry it out and succeed against any odds, any enemies, or any problems thrown in her way. Don't try to mess with her because she will literally beat the hell out of you before running off to the next place she's set her sights on, usually laughing or grinning as she leaves you in the dust.
While she isn't cold, by any stretch of the imagination, Fang doesn't have any use for beating around the bush. She is a very direct person, stating problems up-front, not bothering to hide them behind pretty words meant to comfort. For her, there is no point in hiding the truth, nasty as it can be, and she comes quickly to the heart of a matter, sometimes forcing people into a confrontation of truths that they'd rather not face at the moment. Her intentions are... maybe not the best, but certainly efficient, when she does this; with the "Cie'th City" clock ticking, they don't have the time for personal crises, emotional problems which will only make the doom clock go faster. Even without the brands, though, this would be characteristic of her, as a headstrong person who knows what she wants and doesn't want to deal with any wishy-washy nonsense.
She is practically the living embodiment of confidence, both in herself and in her goals: she taunts her enemies in battle with mocking words (or just plows over them with forceful exclamations), ending many fights with something along the lines of "And I was just getting started." She takes herself, and the people around her (mostly), seriously, but she can also tease her friends with the best of them and even laugh at herself. She's one of those people who knows exactly who she is and has come to terms with it, meaning she's comfortable with herself and the decisions she makes. This is usually a good thing - she doesn't panic, she doesn't flake out, she likes to grin and laugh and can tackle problems head on - but it can lead to blindness, a narrowness of her worldview and an inability to see past her own concerns at times. Protecting Vanille is so important to her that she's willing to let everyone else die to keep her safe, and it takes her a long time to overcome that. At heart she is a good person, and spending time with her shows that she's far from unfeeling, but she can be very callous and dismissive, especially of people she doesn't know.
Fang's personality mostly expresses itself through teasing that can vacillate between lighthearted to sarcastic and right back again in three seconds, giving her a playful, almost saucy aura. Her smile is normally more of a smirk, and she can get a little flirty with almost anyone. It's one of her ways of expressing affection, but it's also one of her ways for keeping people off-balance, something she likes to do occasionally. Even when she's being serious, Fang can't stop herself from making witty remarks and half-jokes, even against herself, and seems to find people's foibles amusing (until they start costing lives and homes). She won't put up with people acting stupid, but she's as likely to put them back in line with well-aimed comments as a straight talking-to. While she absolutely won't tolerate anyone speaking badly (or, more exactly, wrongly) about her home, it's one of the few topics she can't take or make a joke over, leaving just about everything else open for some sort of teasing, with her friends and pseudo-family first in line. She will take care of them, she will teach them how to survive, she will tell the truth behind the legends and explain everything she knows, and she will jokingly give them a hard time throughout the experience. She also won't talk down to someone just because of their age or inexperience, though she'll expect them to shape up right quick if they're holding others back.
Even with all of that, though, Fang is also a very caring person. Losing her family at a very young age didn't drive her to shut herself off from the rest of the world, but it did make her more conscious of life and death and developed something of a need in her to replace her family and find a place for herself in the world where she can just belong. Being raised with Vanille in the orphanage in Oerba led her to bring Vanille into her personal circle of protection at an early age; the two girls were rarely separated after meeting. Becoming a l'Cie was the direct consequence of deciding to protect Vanille specifically and Gran Pulse as a whole, though she hadn't intended Vanille to become one as well. As the story progresses, she becomes a sort of take-no-nonsense, yet still likable, big sister figure for most of the party, particularly Lightning and somewhat to Hope. She also has a much less tempestuous relationship with Snow than his future sister-in-law does, giving her at times a slightly better (and at times slightly worse) control over the man than Lightning. And while she likes to heckle and give Sazh a hard time, they still get along and are generally acknowledged as the most experienced in the group.
It's easy for her to care for people she meets face-to-face; perhaps too easy. Fang runs a dangerous line in caring where the needs of those she knows outweighs the good of the many, without the consent of the ones "losing." It's one thing to force many, many people to death to appease a panicked populace; it's another to choose freely to sacrifice for the greater good, and Fang does not like the idea of anyone she knows coming to grief, willingly or unwillingly. She at first refuses to go along with Snow's idea of finding a way around their Focus, stating flatly that she will go on as it's better than watching a friend turn Cie'th. She only changes her mind after Bahamut appears and challenges her, with Lightning and Vanille stepping up to her aide, and even after that she still has some doubts about the idea - and for Dissideo, this fight hasn't happened yet. It was this intense caring that made her turn into Ragnarok and try to destroy Cocoon, home of millions of people even in her own time, though without Vanille and at the will of the Maker that task was left incomplete.
Her status as a native of Gran Pulse (and willing to talk about it) also puts her by default as the mentor in all things l'Cie for most of the game, since what the majority of the party has to go on is legends and stories fueled by paranoia. She's more than willing to tell everything she knows, figuring that the more her party members understand, the better all their chances of survival will be, and there's absolutely no reason to keep them in the dark.
Abilities: Unlike her fellow l'Cie, Fang's magical skills are somewhere in the subbasement level, making her - for the most part - a purely physical fighter. She is the only one of the six to not have a specialty in the Black Mage-equivalent Ravager role. Instead, Fang specializes in three things: full-out assault, defense, and making her opponents suffer.
Fang is capable of casting spells that cause devastating effects such as Slow and Fog, and if she gets the chance she will usually throw out at least one of these as the battle begins to give herself an extra edge. She can move quickly and jump ferocious heights, much as a traditional dragoon can do, only without all the encumbering armor. She also seems to have something of an affinity with flying creatures of all sorts, and with proper timing on her part could potentially take one over and control it, even using it as a mount.
She can also dig in her feet and take a hit with the best of any of them. One way her l'Cie magic does manifest for her is to create barriers around herself of pure energy that can do things like reduce the power of a blow and even restore some of her health. She can also annoy opponents enough to pull them off her allies and make them attack herself instead; these barriers last a relatively short time and must be recast and recharged, so she isn't invulnerable. If she gets lucky, she's even able to counterattack after a barrier breaks, especially if the enemy is close in. However, she's not likely to use those skills much in situations where she's traveling alone, meaning it will be a more secondary skillset in Dissideo.
Where she really shines is straight physical assault. Fang is magnificent at charging in headfirst to battle, taking leaps and jumps from long distances to drill a hit straight into an opponent's head. Her spear easily enables her to make strong, sweeping, devastating slashes that will hit several opponents at once. The last bit of useful l'Cie magic manifests here as she's able to call up balls of pure energy and throw them at opponents to knock them clear on their ass from a good distance away. She is relentless in her assaults, striking and cleaving her way to victory - of all the l'Cie, including that lunkhead Snow, she's the one that has the most pure strength, and her familiarity and knowledge of spearwork makes her a hard-hitting opponent that just won't stop.
She is pulled from before the Bahamut fight, so unlike the other l'Cie she does not have her Eidolon. If canon updates are allowed, she'll probably get upgraded past that point in the future, but for now he's still waiting. However, she can turn into the partial, incomplete Ragnarok - meaning she can cause insane amounts of damage with a wave of her hand. It is not a skill she likes or wants to use, and is more of a suicide charge than anything when it comes down to it. Conceivably, if she could be mindcontrolled or possessed, the ones doing so would be much more likely to activate it than she would be herself.
Weapon: A double-bladed spear that can separate into a three-section staff; the Bladed Lance model specifically, a good all-around hunting and combat weapon. Her name is inlaid on it in the writing of Gran Pulse.
Preferred faction: ...Chaos wait let me explain don't kill me!
Dissidia itself shows that not everyone on the side of Chaos is evil (hi, Jecht and Golbez!); however, they are all intense and believe in something. Fang, whether she likes it or not, is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) mass-murderers in the entire history of her world, and for years has carried around a resentment, sometimes crossing into intense hate, of everything that has led her and Vanille's lives into the predicament they found themselves in. Fang has consciously chosen to damn millions of relatively innocent lives to protect those few she holds close to her, becoming Ragnarok and severely damaging Cocoon, killing untold numbers of noncombatants just to guard Vanille. She hates the war that robbed her of her family and wiped out her world, she hates the fal'Cie who changed her even though she volunteered for it. Her only real goal, before she fights Bahamut and fully accepts the view of her new friends from Cocoon, is the safety of her wavering, makeshift family. To that degree, while she will fight them, she will not fight them to kill; she will fight them to make them stronger. The other Cosmos warriors? That'll be a toss-up, as they'll have to convince her that they're sincere in their wish for the safety of their comrades.
I can see Chaos convincing her that joining his side will help end the conflict faster, much as the Emperor convinced Jecht. I can also see her thinking that joining them will mean she can protect Vanille (and possibly other l'Cie) by keeping some of the nastier ones away from them. Also it's a nice parallel to her sending Vanille away in the Euride Gorge plant and then joining the Corps. And it's another source of information for them, one she can funnel back to Vanille when she gets the chance to speak to her. Yes, she'll probably end up switching sides at some point, but for the first round or two I think this'd be really interesting to play with. Vanille-mun's cool with it too.
Sample: I guess you could say I knew what I was walking into when I went into it; not many other ways that story's going to end, right? Become a l'Cie, and you spend the rest of your days as a statue or a wandering Cie'th. Say goodbye to everything and everyone you knew 'cause in a couple of months or so, you're not gonna be there anymore.
So why would anyone choose this?
It's a big price to pay, you got that right. But it's worth it if what you're trading for is important enough. We lost everything to the war, our families, our homes, whatever sort of normal life two kids from Oerba could have, and after awhile all we had was each other. She was the one thing in my life that I could always count on, and for her - I'd do anything for her. Anything to keep her safe and going on, no matter what the price I had to pay for it was.
Heh... Silly girl; she didn't have to become one, too. You know, the whole point of me doing that was so she didn't have to go get herself in these dangerous situations, and then she goes and does it anyway. It wasn't like she wasn't going to have enough danger coming at her after everything settled down. Wasn't one of my happier moments, that's for sure. Still... I'm glad she did it. Spending the rest of the days as a crystal would be kind of lonely without her.
------------
"Come on, now, you're never gonna learn if you don't even try!"
The tall, dark-haired woman stood beneath a tree that reached far above her head, ending in a scraggly clump of leaves and a cluster of fruits. Staring up at the crown and shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand, Fang muttered to herself under her breath as she waited for her companion.
"Couldn't land us anywhere near a bunch of smaller trees, could you, Sazh? Good, there you are!"
Before the newcomer could say anything, Fang had grabbed his shoulder and was pointing up the tree towards the fruit, looking down at him with a grin that Hope tried to mirror back, a little nervously. "There's not gonna be any shops down here now, you know, so we're gonna have to do a lot of scavenging. Sad to say, that pretty little stick of yours isn't gonna be much help in bringing down any of the wildlife, and all that magic you throw around will only shred them down to their component pieces - not exactly the state we want our food in. So, you get to add to the larder by bringing in these things. They've got a lot of juice in them, which means we won't need as much water, and we can hollow them out to use them as carrying containers. So now..." She glanced back up the tree.
"So..." Hope began, turning to look up at the tree himself. "How do I get them down?"
"Like this." With that, Fang took one step back, then another, sizing up the tree like it was Snow and he'd done something thickheaded once again. Then, with no other warning, she spun in place, lashing out with her foot and striking the tree solidly with a powerful kick. The thick trunk absorbed most of the blow, but the top tossed a little, fronds shaking with the vibrations - enough, apparently, to snap the stem of one of the fruits, which quivered for a minute before dropping straight down.
She caught it, grinning, then turned to kneel and crack it against a nearby rock, making the rind split easily. Grabbing one end in each hand, she pulled it apart into two uneven pieces, dropping the smaller one in the teenager's unsuspecting hands as she turned to head back up the little valley. "Go ahead and eat that, then get going on the rest of them. I'm gonna see if I can find something to take down for a little meat tonight; be back at the camp in an hour or so."
"Okay... and thanks!" he called after her, waving at her retreating back. Fang lifted a hand to him in reply, not turning back to look at him as she pulled a piece of the fruit from the rind and popped it into her mouth.
"After all these years, still the best thing on earth."
THE MANNEQUIN
Title: Twisted Judge
Color: #5F009F, rich purple
THE WORLD
Name of Stage: Flight of Vengeance
Image: The Fifth Ark
Effect(s): Aerial combat speed is increased while ground combat speed is reduced OR all non-physical attacks take a 25% reduction in effectiveness
Name: Tai
LJ: auraunda
Contacts: veridis tre at AIM; contact for email
Current characters at Dissideo: waterblade
THE CHARACTER
Name: Oerba Yun Fang
Series: Final Fantasy XIII
Age: Physically and mentally, twenty-one; chronologically, five hundred twenty-one
Timeline: End of Chapter 9/Beginning of Chapter 10; just entering the Fifth Ark
History: I've got a few screws loose, but I'm a l'Cie, same as you.
Personality: Described as "stronger than Lightning and more stubborn than Snow," Fang clearly lives up to the phrase with her combination of head-strong drive, easy confidence, earthy sex appeal, and at times cold-bloodily ruthless determination. She is a woman who has a goal and will do anything to carry it out and succeed against any odds, any enemies, or any problems thrown in her way. Don't try to mess with her because she will literally beat the hell out of you before running off to the next place she's set her sights on, usually laughing or grinning as she leaves you in the dust.
While she isn't cold, by any stretch of the imagination, Fang doesn't have any use for beating around the bush. She is a very direct person, stating problems up-front, not bothering to hide them behind pretty words meant to comfort. For her, there is no point in hiding the truth, nasty as it can be, and she comes quickly to the heart of a matter, sometimes forcing people into a confrontation of truths that they'd rather not face at the moment. Her intentions are... maybe not the best, but certainly efficient, when she does this; with the "Cie'th City" clock ticking, they don't have the time for personal crises, emotional problems which will only make the doom clock go faster. Even without the brands, though, this would be characteristic of her, as a headstrong person who knows what she wants and doesn't want to deal with any wishy-washy nonsense.
She is practically the living embodiment of confidence, both in herself and in her goals: she taunts her enemies in battle with mocking words (or just plows over them with forceful exclamations), ending many fights with something along the lines of "And I was just getting started." She takes herself, and the people around her (mostly), seriously, but she can also tease her friends with the best of them and even laugh at herself. She's one of those people who knows exactly who she is and has come to terms with it, meaning she's comfortable with herself and the decisions she makes. This is usually a good thing - she doesn't panic, she doesn't flake out, she likes to grin and laugh and can tackle problems head on - but it can lead to blindness, a narrowness of her worldview and an inability to see past her own concerns at times. Protecting Vanille is so important to her that she's willing to let everyone else die to keep her safe, and it takes her a long time to overcome that. At heart she is a good person, and spending time with her shows that she's far from unfeeling, but she can be very callous and dismissive, especially of people she doesn't know.
Fang's personality mostly expresses itself through teasing that can vacillate between lighthearted to sarcastic and right back again in three seconds, giving her a playful, almost saucy aura. Her smile is normally more of a smirk, and she can get a little flirty with almost anyone. It's one of her ways of expressing affection, but it's also one of her ways for keeping people off-balance, something she likes to do occasionally. Even when she's being serious, Fang can't stop herself from making witty remarks and half-jokes, even against herself, and seems to find people's foibles amusing (until they start costing lives and homes). She won't put up with people acting stupid, but she's as likely to put them back in line with well-aimed comments as a straight talking-to. While she absolutely won't tolerate anyone speaking badly (or, more exactly, wrongly) about her home, it's one of the few topics she can't take or make a joke over, leaving just about everything else open for some sort of teasing, with her friends and pseudo-family first in line. She will take care of them, she will teach them how to survive, she will tell the truth behind the legends and explain everything she knows, and she will jokingly give them a hard time throughout the experience. She also won't talk down to someone just because of their age or inexperience, though she'll expect them to shape up right quick if they're holding others back.
Even with all of that, though, Fang is also a very caring person. Losing her family at a very young age didn't drive her to shut herself off from the rest of the world, but it did make her more conscious of life and death and developed something of a need in her to replace her family and find a place for herself in the world where she can just belong. Being raised with Vanille in the orphanage in Oerba led her to bring Vanille into her personal circle of protection at an early age; the two girls were rarely separated after meeting. Becoming a l'Cie was the direct consequence of deciding to protect Vanille specifically and Gran Pulse as a whole, though she hadn't intended Vanille to become one as well. As the story progresses, she becomes a sort of take-no-nonsense, yet still likable, big sister figure for most of the party, particularly Lightning and somewhat to Hope. She also has a much less tempestuous relationship with Snow than his future sister-in-law does, giving her at times a slightly better (and at times slightly worse) control over the man than Lightning. And while she likes to heckle and give Sazh a hard time, they still get along and are generally acknowledged as the most experienced in the group.
It's easy for her to care for people she meets face-to-face; perhaps too easy. Fang runs a dangerous line in caring where the needs of those she knows outweighs the good of the many, without the consent of the ones "losing." It's one thing to force many, many people to death to appease a panicked populace; it's another to choose freely to sacrifice for the greater good, and Fang does not like the idea of anyone she knows coming to grief, willingly or unwillingly. She at first refuses to go along with Snow's idea of finding a way around their Focus, stating flatly that she will go on as it's better than watching a friend turn Cie'th. She only changes her mind after Bahamut appears and challenges her, with Lightning and Vanille stepping up to her aide, and even after that she still has some doubts about the idea - and for Dissideo, this fight hasn't happened yet. It was this intense caring that made her turn into Ragnarok and try to destroy Cocoon, home of millions of people even in her own time, though without Vanille and at the will of the Maker that task was left incomplete.
Her status as a native of Gran Pulse (and willing to talk about it) also puts her by default as the mentor in all things l'Cie for most of the game, since what the majority of the party has to go on is legends and stories fueled by paranoia. She's more than willing to tell everything she knows, figuring that the more her party members understand, the better all their chances of survival will be, and there's absolutely no reason to keep them in the dark.
Abilities: Unlike her fellow l'Cie, Fang's magical skills are somewhere in the subbasement level, making her - for the most part - a purely physical fighter. She is the only one of the six to not have a specialty in the Black Mage-equivalent Ravager role. Instead, Fang specializes in three things: full-out assault, defense, and making her opponents suffer.
Fang is capable of casting spells that cause devastating effects such as Slow and Fog, and if she gets the chance she will usually throw out at least one of these as the battle begins to give herself an extra edge. She can move quickly and jump ferocious heights, much as a traditional dragoon can do, only without all the encumbering armor. She also seems to have something of an affinity with flying creatures of all sorts, and with proper timing on her part could potentially take one over and control it, even using it as a mount.
She can also dig in her feet and take a hit with the best of any of them. One way her l'Cie magic does manifest for her is to create barriers around herself of pure energy that can do things like reduce the power of a blow and even restore some of her health. She can also annoy opponents enough to pull them off her allies and make them attack herself instead; these barriers last a relatively short time and must be recast and recharged, so she isn't invulnerable. If she gets lucky, she's even able to counterattack after a barrier breaks, especially if the enemy is close in. However, she's not likely to use those skills much in situations where she's traveling alone, meaning it will be a more secondary skillset in Dissideo.
Where she really shines is straight physical assault. Fang is magnificent at charging in headfirst to battle, taking leaps and jumps from long distances to drill a hit straight into an opponent's head. Her spear easily enables her to make strong, sweeping, devastating slashes that will hit several opponents at once. The last bit of useful l'Cie magic manifests here as she's able to call up balls of pure energy and throw them at opponents to knock them clear on their ass from a good distance away. She is relentless in her assaults, striking and cleaving her way to victory - of all the l'Cie, including that lunkhead Snow, she's the one that has the most pure strength, and her familiarity and knowledge of spearwork makes her a hard-hitting opponent that just won't stop.
She is pulled from before the Bahamut fight, so unlike the other l'Cie she does not have her Eidolon. If canon updates are allowed, she'll probably get upgraded past that point in the future, but for now he's still waiting. However, she can turn into the partial, incomplete Ragnarok - meaning she can cause insane amounts of damage with a wave of her hand. It is not a skill she likes or wants to use, and is more of a suicide charge than anything when it comes down to it. Conceivably, if she could be mindcontrolled or possessed, the ones doing so would be much more likely to activate it than she would be herself.
Weapon: A double-bladed spear that can separate into a three-section staff; the Bladed Lance model specifically, a good all-around hunting and combat weapon. Her name is inlaid on it in the writing of Gran Pulse.
Preferred faction: ...Chaos wait let me explain don't kill me!
Dissidia itself shows that not everyone on the side of Chaos is evil (hi, Jecht and Golbez!); however, they are all intense and believe in something. Fang, whether she likes it or not, is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) mass-murderers in the entire history of her world, and for years has carried around a resentment, sometimes crossing into intense hate, of everything that has led her and Vanille's lives into the predicament they found themselves in. Fang has consciously chosen to damn millions of relatively innocent lives to protect those few she holds close to her, becoming Ragnarok and severely damaging Cocoon, killing untold numbers of noncombatants just to guard Vanille. She hates the war that robbed her of her family and wiped out her world, she hates the fal'Cie who changed her even though she volunteered for it. Her only real goal, before she fights Bahamut and fully accepts the view of her new friends from Cocoon, is the safety of her wavering, makeshift family. To that degree, while she will fight them, she will not fight them to kill; she will fight them to make them stronger. The other Cosmos warriors? That'll be a toss-up, as they'll have to convince her that they're sincere in their wish for the safety of their comrades.
I can see Chaos convincing her that joining his side will help end the conflict faster, much as the Emperor convinced Jecht. I can also see her thinking that joining them will mean she can protect Vanille (and possibly other l'Cie) by keeping some of the nastier ones away from them. Also it's a nice parallel to her sending Vanille away in the Euride Gorge plant and then joining the Corps. And it's another source of information for them, one she can funnel back to Vanille when she gets the chance to speak to her. Yes, she'll probably end up switching sides at some point, but for the first round or two I think this'd be really interesting to play with. Vanille-mun's cool with it too.
Sample: I guess you could say I knew what I was walking into when I went into it; not many other ways that story's going to end, right? Become a l'Cie, and you spend the rest of your days as a statue or a wandering Cie'th. Say goodbye to everything and everyone you knew 'cause in a couple of months or so, you're not gonna be there anymore.
So why would anyone choose this?
It's a big price to pay, you got that right. But it's worth it if what you're trading for is important enough. We lost everything to the war, our families, our homes, whatever sort of normal life two kids from Oerba could have, and after awhile all we had was each other. She was the one thing in my life that I could always count on, and for her - I'd do anything for her. Anything to keep her safe and going on, no matter what the price I had to pay for it was.
Heh... Silly girl; she didn't have to become one, too. You know, the whole point of me doing that was so she didn't have to go get herself in these dangerous situations, and then she goes and does it anyway. It wasn't like she wasn't going to have enough danger coming at her after everything settled down. Wasn't one of my happier moments, that's for sure. Still... I'm glad she did it. Spending the rest of the days as a crystal would be kind of lonely without her.
------------
"Come on, now, you're never gonna learn if you don't even try!"
The tall, dark-haired woman stood beneath a tree that reached far above her head, ending in a scraggly clump of leaves and a cluster of fruits. Staring up at the crown and shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun with one hand, Fang muttered to herself under her breath as she waited for her companion.
"Couldn't land us anywhere near a bunch of smaller trees, could you, Sazh? Good, there you are!"
Before the newcomer could say anything, Fang had grabbed his shoulder and was pointing up the tree towards the fruit, looking down at him with a grin that Hope tried to mirror back, a little nervously. "There's not gonna be any shops down here now, you know, so we're gonna have to do a lot of scavenging. Sad to say, that pretty little stick of yours isn't gonna be much help in bringing down any of the wildlife, and all that magic you throw around will only shred them down to their component pieces - not exactly the state we want our food in. So, you get to add to the larder by bringing in these things. They've got a lot of juice in them, which means we won't need as much water, and we can hollow them out to use them as carrying containers. So now..." She glanced back up the tree.
"So..." Hope began, turning to look up at the tree himself. "How do I get them down?"
"Like this." With that, Fang took one step back, then another, sizing up the tree like it was Snow and he'd done something thickheaded once again. Then, with no other warning, she spun in place, lashing out with her foot and striking the tree solidly with a powerful kick. The thick trunk absorbed most of the blow, but the top tossed a little, fronds shaking with the vibrations - enough, apparently, to snap the stem of one of the fruits, which quivered for a minute before dropping straight down.
She caught it, grinning, then turned to kneel and crack it against a nearby rock, making the rind split easily. Grabbing one end in each hand, she pulled it apart into two uneven pieces, dropping the smaller one in the teenager's unsuspecting hands as she turned to head back up the little valley. "Go ahead and eat that, then get going on the rest of them. I'm gonna see if I can find something to take down for a little meat tonight; be back at the camp in an hour or so."
"Okay... and thanks!" he called after her, waving at her retreating back. Fang lifted a hand to him in reply, not turning back to look at him as she pulled a piece of the fruit from the rind and popped it into her mouth.
"After all these years, still the best thing on earth."
THE MANNEQUIN
Title: Twisted Judge
Color: #5F009F, rich purple
THE WORLD
Name of Stage: Flight of Vengeance
Image: The Fifth Ark
Effect(s): Aerial combat speed is increased while ground combat speed is reduced OR all non-physical attacks take a 25% reduction in effectiveness