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ONCE THERE WAS A WORLD...
...and in that world, there was a girl.
Priscilla: The prodigy warrior who was destined to become the most dangerous awakened being in history. Now snatched from her terrible future and deposited in Anatole, a land full of wonder and darkness, she has managed to create a new life with new goals, and a freer mind.
(Then again, do people really change?)
CLAYMORES AND THE ORGANIZATION
send us a blindfold; send us a blade. tell the survivors help is on the way.
i was a blindfold; never complained. all the survivors singing the rain.
Priscilla's world is one plagued by monsters who terrorize the human population, murdering them and consuming their intestines. These beings, called yoma, are far too powerful to be opposed by most people... and difficult to battle even for the rare human capable of engaging them, as yoma are able to perfectly impersonate their victims - blending into human society, undetectable. For this reason, it is said that the only ones capable of stopping them are the Claymores, human-yoma hybrids created by a mysterious group known only as The Organization.
Only once in the Organization's known history has anyone ever volunteered to become a hybrid... but even so, it is not difficult for them to find specimens. Routinely, they purchase or "adopt" young orphaned girls and subject them to the hybridization process. The process robs them of all coloring, leaving them silver-eyed, blond-haired and pale skinned.
It is hard, and painful, and the result is a woman as much monster as human, shunned by the majority of the human population and gifted with powers beyond (and sometimes far beyond) that of any pure human... and in most cases beyond any yoma as well. They are trained from childhood in all forms of combat, and in the use of their inhuman powers, until they are deemed ready to run through the final certification trial - which includes a surprise encounter with a yoma. If they survive, they are deemed full warriors. The trials are undertaken ten trainees at a time. Those who survive are added to the ranks of warriors - given a number from 1 to 47, according to strength.
It isn't unusual for all ten to die.
Once certified, warriors are not permitted to rest. They are not permitted to retire. They must fulfill their missions, and obey, and fight until they have outlived their usefulness and either die... or lose control of their own power and Awaken, becoming monsters far worse than the yoma they fight. If they fail, they are executed by their own.
All the time, they are told they are fighting to save humanity from the monsters. That this is a necessary evil.
This is a lie.
THE CHILD; THE TRAINEE
i believe that there is hope buried beneath it all and hiding beneath it all and growing beneath it all and this is how we'll stand when they burn our houses down.
This is what will be - o glory!
Priscilla was born in a small down in Musha, the southern regions of her world. She was the middle child of three, and especially close to her father. Call her daddy's little girl, if you like. This became a problem on the day he consumed her entire family in front of her. Of course he wasn't her father anymore - he was a yoma, and when he forced her to watch him eat them, he sealed her fate - and his own. Only a child, she grabbed an ax and lopped his head off with her own hands. The experience would continue to haunt her for the rest of her days.
Soon after, she fell into the waiting arms of the Organization. It was hatred that kept her alive through those years of pain and harsh training - hatred for the monsters who shattered her life and killed her family. It was knowledge, too - the knowledge that if she excelled, and passed certification... she would join the fight to wipe the scourge of yoma from the world.
This was a battle worth undertaking. Worth the pain of being cut open, and the fear she would encounter in the world outside. Worth the fear directed at her from her own comrades, as well, because if one thing soon became abundantly clear, it was that Priscilla was not quite like the others.
THE SOLDIER; THE EXECUTIONER
someplace weakness is our strength, and i'll die searching for it.
i won't let myself regret such selfishness.
At 16 years old she was certified. Almost immediately, she was placed as the second ranked warrior - meaning she was stronger than 45 of the 46 other warriors in the ranks. Alone, she was able to kill dozens of yoma - cutting them into chunks of flesh - without taking a single wound, or allowing a single drop of blood to stain her skin or clothes... and she did this not only without drawing on her yoki power, but while actually suppressing it to the point of nonexistence. This, in itself, was unusual enough, but the strength she had so far exhibited was inconsequential compared to her infinite potential. Priscilla's strength grew rapidly, constantly... and for this reason, it was said that it would be only a short time before she surpassed the Number One ranked Soldier, Teresa of the Faint Smile.
Teresa was, in short, a legend. Some believed she was the strongest Warrior who ever lived... and if she was not, then she was certainly among the strongest - a fighter so powerful she could dispatch any number of yoma without strain and without drawing on her power. However, despite her overall excellent abilities, Teresa's greatest asset was her ability to read the flow of yoki energy with such skill that she could predict the movements of a foe, essentially allowing her to counteract movements before they were even made. The former Number Two, Quicksword Irene, who had been displaced by Priscilla's promotion, stated that she would not want to fight Teresa regardless of how many warriors accompanied her. ...so, it isn't hard to imagine how difficult the situation became when Teresa went rogue, killing a group of humans and cutting down the executioners sent to take her head as punishment.
The Organization responded by sending the rest of the top 5 to execute Teresa's sentence. Though all four were exceptionally strong, Priscilla was considered their primary weapon - both because of her immense strength and because it could be used while suppressing her power, thus preventing Teresa from reading her movements in advance. The plan was simple: numbers three through five would drive Teresa from the inn where she was staying (along with her newly "adopted' ward, Clare), and while the Number One was thrown offguard, Priscilla would strike her down before Teresa even realized she was there.
It was a good plan. Unfortunately, Priscilla did not follow it very well.
Considering striking from behind to be the action of a coward, she moved to confront Teresa directly and engaged her in battle. Initially, she had the upper hand, as Teresa struggled to counter Priscilla's unexpected power while her trump card, her yoki-sensing ability, remained "blinded" by Priscilla's suppression. However, years of experience ultimately turned the tide of battle, and Teresa soon pressed Priscilla back, prompting the other three to join the fight. Unable to match Teresa's power, they accessed their yoki... and instructed Priscilla to do the same. This was a grave error. With her yoki-sensing once more active, Teresa cut all four down quickly, efficiently, and almost effortlessly.
For a moment, she considered lopping off Priscilla's head - recognizing her as the only true threat among the four. But ultimately, softened by her experience with the child Clare, Teresa showed mercy and left Priscilla alive.
Officially, this is the end of the warrior Priscilla's story - and the beginning of the tale of the beast. But here, we must first take a detour to...
IN ANATOLE (AT HOME)
the unshackling of the chains on my wrist and the loyalty to pain that resists
and the greatest books are talking about this.
why must everybody die to exist?
(She repeated the word over and over again in her head, for long moments as Teresa walked away. From that moment on, she was lost... though it took some time for this to become obvious.)
She arrived in Anatole still panicked from her brush with execution. Quickly, she became aware of her surroundings, and the nature of the city - the thick mist that wasn't mist, clogging her senses and filling her head with energy. The strange people from other worlds, from other times. The absence of the Organization... and the presence of monsters.
(She chased Teresa from the town of their encounter and onto a hilly field, yoki gushing from her like water from a broken dam. So much yoki, in fact, that Teresa could not read it, couldn't understand it... and finally, at long last, she was forced to draw out her power, herself. And so a battle between monsters began, shattering ear drums and scorching the Earth while the three warriors who had been Priscilla's companions watched in horror, helpless in the presence of all that power.)
It was in those monsters that she found her focus again - in the fulfillment of her duty to defend humanity. Priscilla founded an organization of sorts, herself - a humble one with the simple name "Patrol Unit" -- later simply The Patrol. In the months to come, she would become a model citizen - a defender, a hero, a leader. She would make friends, and fall in love. She purchased a mansion, and raised pet cats. She watched her 17th birthday pass by... marred only by the arrival of a foe from her home.
That foe was Riful, one of the three great powers of their world, called the Abyssal Ones. For some reason unknown to Priscilla, Riful took a great dislike to her, and began tormenting her emotionally at every opportunity. In time, the enmity between them grew the point that Riful drove Priscilla and her lover, Senji, into hiding... and then tortured Senji when he stepped into the light again. Priscilla managed to drive Riful back, but it was too late for her love. He died en route to the clinic, and Priscilla returned home, shellshocked, only to discover the arrival of another of the powerful three...
(In the end, she lost control and succumbed to the beast within, cutting down not only Teresa but her former comrades as well. Only Irene and Priscilla herself survived - if you could call the thing she became "Priscilla." Aimless, she wandered North, consuming and destroying everything in her path. It was there that she met the man who would change the course of her life...)
WHEN SHE MET THE SILVER KING
here by my side, you are destruction.
here by my side, a new color to paint the world.
never turn your back on it again.
Isley.
(--the silver king, who reigned over Alfonse - the land of ice and snow. Troubled by Priscilla's rampant violence and destruction of towns in his territory, Isley attempted to kill her... and at first it appeared as though he might succeed, until the damage done to her body triggered the release of all the mental blocks she had erected to control her apparently endless yoki. In a single instant, she eradicated half his body - unheard of for the man who was, until that moment, the strongest being in their world. Sensing an opportunity, Isley humbled himself before her, and pledged himself to her service. In that instant, he swore to bring to her anything she desired.)
They met in the ruins outside the city, and though Priscilla attempted to maintain an emotional distance from him, it took very little time for the charismatic Isley to draw her into his proverbial web. Soon, she found herself drawing closer to him, despite all her attempts to dissuade herself and the immense uproar it caused among her comrades. He told her that he loved her, had died to protect her, and he offered her the use of his sword... and so they became partners in defense of the city, and soon lovers as well. In this, at least, she found contentment.
(Her mind shattered by her awakening and his attacks, her memories and identity lost, all Priscilla truly wanted was to return home - to Musha - and find her family. Her dead family.)
Of course, peace cannot last forever.
(Ever the opportunist, Isley grew emboldened by his influence over Priscilla and her strength, and so he gathered the survivors of his generation and waged a war against the Western Abyssal, Riful, and the Eastern-stationed Organization itself. The war cost the lives of half the Soldiers in the ranks, as well as nearly every remaining Awakened Being of Isley's own generation - he sacrificed them on a diversion allowing him to move South and confront the Southern Abyssal, Luciela. Along the way, they met a human boy called Raki, to whom Priscilla took a liking, due to his odd, familiar scent. Indulging her, Isley took Raki in, and they traveled together, and stayed together even after he defeated and unseated Luciela, claiming the Southern lands for himself.... not realizing that Luciela had not died, exactly. Instead, she had merged her flesh with that of her sister, Rafaela, to become a creature that would later wreck havoc on all the land.)
Isley grew restless with their arrangement at a rather unfortunate time - after the magic of Anatole had recreated a twisted version of Priscilla's father, whom she had killed in the undercity. Wounded grievously and sent into a near catatonic state due to the trauma of killing her father a second time, Priscilla was near death and unresponsive while he leveled her home - which also served as the headquarters for her beloved Patrol. She arrived aboveground to find her home destroyed and herself abandoned by the man she loved.
(...they went their separate ways Isley found himself targeted by creatures called the Abyss Feeders, created to consume him alive. To protect Priscilla and Raki, he drove them from the South. Priscilla, finding that proximity to Raki's scent stirred her missing memories and began to return her identity, went with him willingly... even starving herself to keep him near. Traveling Westward with Raki, weakened by starvation, her body shrinking until she was the size of a child... Priscilla did not even know when her silver king died.)
She swore she was done with him, but Isley did not let her go. Instead, he pursued her, persistently, and over time and drew her back both to him and into his war with Luciela and Riful, both of whom remained present in Anatole. And what a war it was - a battle that shook the city to its foundations... and brought Priscilla into direct conflict with the Abyssal Luciela. In desperation, Luciela nearly gutted Priscilla, before merging her flesh with that of her sister to create the monstrous power called...
(Riful, meanwhile, had found the merged Luciela-Rafaela beast and, not knowing that Isley had fallen, managed to "recruit" a gifted yoki-reader and manipulator, Renee, into attempting to wake it. The news of this drew Clare, now a warrior herself, into Riful's lair. In the end, it was Clare that woke the monstrous beast they called...)
THEN CAME THE WAR
i fought the war, but the war won't stop for the love of god.
i fought the war, but the war won.
The Destroyer.
Grievously wounded and unable to regenerate her damaged body quickly enough to avoid death, Priscilla succumbed to Isley's persuasion and released all of her power... and so became the beast.
(It wasn't until the Destroyer had ravaged much of the West that Priscilla picked up the scent of Clare - who had been created as a Soldier with the flesh of Teresa - that Priscilla realized she had been following Raki's scent because it was Clare's scent. In her attempts to reach Clare, who she hoped could unlock the mystery of her identity, Priscilla slaughtered and consumed Riful, as well as the awakened Number One and Two warriors of the new generation. She killed, also, Dauf - who had been Riful's lover. During her battle with Dauf, Priscilla's memories returned... and she recognized Clare's power as Teresa's. She pursued Clare/Teresa then, intending to kill her again. It was only through Clare's sacrifice, merging her body with that of the Destroyer, that Priscilla's rampage was halted... though even the combined power of Clare/Teresa and the Destroyer itself could not kill Priscilla... only contain her. Barely.)
...and in that moment, reacting to the release of her infinite yoki, the Anatolian Mist struck back at her. Her mind - or was it her body? - touched the life of the her that she had never been, and never known.
(And both lives became her life.)
THE TWO WHO ARE ONE (ANATOLE AGAIN)
can't move on but i can't go home and i'm not so strong but i
make my way to the place i know inside my heart where i used to go to get brave and
i don't want to be lost anymore.
The war ended with the death of Riful at Priscilla's hands, and the silencing of the Destroyer at the whim of the Mist.
Priscilla remained in her awakened state for two weeks before Orihime Inoue managed to reverse her physical transformation, pushing her back into her warrior form. And so she became a 17 year old girl with all the memories and experience of an adult awakened being. After some adjustment, she has returned to her previous positions, to Isley, and to her old home.
How well she has adjusted to all of this remains to be seen... but so far, she seems to be doing quite well.
(Or is she?)
HERE. IN MY HEAD.
oh my, look at these eyes -
maybe they're like mine - things i wish i did not see.
I push away all the dirt and debris...
but what will be left of me?
In any person, there are things which remain a constant. In Priscilla's case there is this: the love of battle, the excitement of war. Physical strength and emotional vulnerability. Psychological problems as well - Priscilla is prone to bouts of amnesia and flashbacks during moments of stress - in extreme cases, she can even emotionally and psychologically regress, losing entire years of her life.
In all her forms, she is obsessive - doggedly pursuing goals even for years and even to the exclusion of other things she cares for. And while capable of love in all its forms, in the end, Priscilla's devotion is always to The Mission. What the mission is, on the other hand... that can vary. A lot.
And while her outward behavior and professed moral code can vary a great deal, at her core, Priscilla is never driven by love, or altruism. Always by hate, by vengeance, by fear. Nothing can conquer that - not her love for humanity (which is great, even so), not her devotion to her friends and lovers, not her belief system itself, not even her human or awakened nature.
Nothing.
THE GIRL
No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
As a rookie warrior, and for the majority of her time in Anatole, Priscilla could best be described as a crusader. She perceived herself as a defender of humanity against all evils from without - the monsters, the invaders and especially the yoma, and considered anyone who killed a human being to be beyond redemption or forgiveness... regardless of the circumstances. She had, in short, an extremely harsh view of justice, and could be described as an extremist. And while initially this was fueled by her intense belief in the edicts of the Organization, in time she was forced to relinquish that belief... and yet her worldview remained.
In part, this was because Priscilla had erected that worldview in order to hold herself upright. After the tragedy that took her family and left her responsible for killing her own "father," Priscilla threw all of her rage and all of her thirst for vengeance into her mission to suppress the yoma, and then to protect humanity itself. In this way, she gained purpose, and the structure necessary to keep herself functional.
For this reason, too, she adopted an extremely stringent honor-code which governed her behavior for much of her career - she did not believe in sneak attacks, or group attacks on a single opponent, for example. These things she believed to be dishonorable and, whenever possible, she would refuse to engage in those sorts of tactics and engage in single combat with a foe on her own. She acknowledged no grey - only black and white - in any circumstances, and furthermore held a very strong belief that right would always triumph - that in every case, goodness would ultimately win, even if evil were, technically speaking, stronger. When her worldview began to deteriorate - both in Anatole and in her own world, Priscilla did not take it well.... to say the least. Indeed, it led to the edge of Awakening in Anatole... and to a full mental breakdown and Awakening in her home world.
Priscilla is, by her nature, extremely polite, and given the apologizing both after and before the fact for any perceived rudeness or imposition. She is also a highly emotional girl, prone to crying and possessing a terrible temper when provoked.
...also, she was rather clumsy - often tripping on her own feet or on rocks in the streets, breaking her belongings by accident, that sort of thing. This applied to all places... except the battlefield. There, her prodigious talents became evident, and Priscilla became graceful, confident, and terrifying. The scarcity of foes who could stand toe-to-toe with her, much less defeat her, made her rather overconfident (even cocky at times)... but it also, oddly enough, made her prone to fear. Indeed, any foe beyond her level of ability terrified her beyond reason.
In light of her strong code of behavior and beliefs about justice and goodness, one wouldn't think she would be comfortable with an Organization of slavers who force women into dangerous situations and execute them if they prove disobedient... and yet, she was not only comfortable with them, but extremely devoted and loyal to them. In this way, her idealism can be seen to be influenced by (and to influence in turn) her practicality in sometimes surprising ways: her ideal of defending humanity overrides her ideal of honorable behavior, of individual rights.
Priscilla was known to be somewhat overexcitable and lacking in attention span. She talked herself in circles rather frequently, sometimes interrupting herself, confusing herself, tripping over her words and wrapping back around several times before finding her grounding.
All this, of course, in the months before she became the one-horned beast.
THE BEAST
and then i feel it racing in my veins
and when i let go, nothing walks away.
As an awakened being, Priscilla's personality was... changing, to say the least.
Initially, she appears to be an almost literal beast - dry of personality and ravaging everything in sight. She consumed entire towns to satisfy her endless hunger. Even then, she remained in many ways an 'innocent,' her senses addled by her awakening and unable to understand why people feared her even as she consumed them alive. Her rampage was responsible for the creation of at least two Claymores - Clare and Ophelia - both of whom became obsessed with fighting awakened beings and taking vengeance on her for the deaths of their loved ones. Oblivious to this, Priscilla cut a bloody swath across North until her encounter with Isley.
After her battle with him, however, things began to change, as the trauma of the battle both unlocked the full extent of her power and repressed her memories, regressing her mental state to that of a child. From that day forward, she took his lead, allowing him to seduce her mind and win her affections and her loyalty. By the time she resurfaces around a decade later in the Northern war, Priscilla seems less childish but still mentally... absent. She speaks in riddles, and metaphors. She is always distracted, always wandering off on her own and disappearing - a bit of a problem considering her suppressed yoki. She becomes similar to a child of nature, one could say, standing naked in the snow.
Her emotions are a riddle - she shows few outward signs of affection for Isley, and yet worries for him when he is away, and runs to defend him when he is endangered. She shows intense (nonsexual!) attraction to Raki, which is easily mistaken for true affection... but ultimately claims that she followed him only for the effect his scent had on her emerging memories. And when Isley's army slaughters nearly half the Organization's warriors, Priscilla feels their deaths and cries for them... yet makes no move to defend them.
She disappears after the Northern War, having spent some time in the South living with Isley and Raki as some kind of odd, illusory family, and when she reappears in the West with Raki, she has become an almost literal demon child, her body shrinking down to the size of an prepubescent girl. In this form, she is often mistaken for his daughter, and Raki rather treats her like a child, despite her being almost twice his age! It isn't until Clare and Priscilla come into closer contact - and Priscilla recognizes Clare's scent as the one she had been drawn to on Raki, that the pieces begin to come together.
With her memory returned or returning, Priscilla becomes a relentless force of nature, tearing through everything that places itself in her path. At this point, she returns to her doggedly mission-based personality, one might say: she pursues Clare with all the single-minded relentlessness that she had once used in her pursuit of Teresa... and in pursuit of her own memories, as well. Even so, she shows some signs of mercy: despite claiming a lack of affection for Raki, she nonetheless saves his life. She offers the awakened warriors Alicia and Beth a chance to escape, claiming she is uninterested in them. She repeatedly states that she has no desire to kill or fight anything that doesn't insist she do so, and even inconveniences herself when fighting Helen and Deneve in an attempt to spare their lives. The only exception is Clare, whom she seems to equate to Teresa. One might say that, even post-awakening, she pursues the dictates of her mission to purge the traitorous Number One.
For such a monster, she can also be surprisingly thoughtful - given to pondering large questions and analyzing the meaning of events. She frequently uses her yoki-reading ability to sense the internal state of a person, and ponders it... sometimes at great length. Which isn't to say that she necessarily cares about it. In this form, Priscilla is cold and emotionally distant, and her attachments easily fall away.
In Anatole, her awakened form (influenced not only by her canonical memories but also by her experiences in the city itself) displayed some of her original personality's leadership skills and even maintained most of her attachments, though she found it quite easy to toss them aside if necessary, as well. And while she maintained her later awakened personality for the most part, she was given to relapsing into her younger, gentler awakened persona as well... most often in the presence of Isley, for whom she maintained all of her warrior form's intense feelings of attachment in addition to her awakened self's decade and more of history.
THE WOMAN
it will never be the same.
less than jaded, but still... still, i've...
changed.
The nature of the woman remains unclear. Since her reversion to her warrior form, however, Priscilla has displayed several notable changes.
Her attention span has significantly improved, as she is no longer given to easy distraction. Most of the time.
She has become emotionally disconnected, and difficult to reach. While she had already begun building walls around herself before this incident (due to a host of personal betrayals), since her return those walls have become nearly impenetrable. She dislikes speaking of herself. She dislikes attempts to know or understand her. She maintains a professional distance whenever possible, and has even become disconnected from those she had already been close to.
Priscilla displays a greater degree of comfort around and with awakened beings - particularly Isley and Rigaldo, the two people to whom she feels the strongest connection despite their disparate natures. Likely a result of having lived with them for so long in the North.
Her fighting style has become less playful, less formal and more savage. She is given to tearing the heads and limbs off of monsters with her bare hands, and abusing her yoki in bursts of power.
She has also become more introverted, less prone to airing her thoughts... perhaps a good thing, considering the amount of time she spends struggling with her desire to Awaken. She misses the power, the freedom, the fearlessness. She misses her wings.
Priscilla's memories are... unstable at best, as she cannot always separate one life from the other, and even when she can, she can't decide which her is "real." Which memory set is predominant in her head will often change, and this affects her personality as well - she can be quite ruthless, at times. And merciless. And frightening.
And finally... while she once yearned for summer, she now misses the snow.
If there are more changes (and there may well be), they have not yet become apparent. However, it should always be remembered that Priscilla rarely shows her hand, these days. Who knows what cards she's holding?
BRING THE BLADE.
and you breathe in, and you breathe out
for it ain't so weird how it makes you a weapon
There is a standard set of abilities held by all of the warriors who are called Claymores. This rather wide-reaching set includes superhuman physical abilities, energy sensing abilities and the ability to increase their own power through the use of yoki. However, while all warriors possess the entire set, the degree to which they have them varies wildly depending on inherent ability, experience, etc.
As has been mentioned above, Priscilla's natural ability is unparalleled, even among the strongest warriors in history. But, of course, explanations will follow.
PRISCILLA'S ABILITIES
i was the one with the world at my feet.
got us a battle? --leave it up to me.
First things first:
[ a long and thorough rundown of Claymore powers and Priscilla's in specific ]
What follows is the short version.
Priscilla is extraordinarily strong, fast, durable, flexible, and generally physically capable. She also heals at superhuman speeds and can reattach a severed limb, or regrow it given a few days. Like all Claymores, she is affected by toxins, etc. only if she permits herself to be, and can adjust her body temperature at will. She can walk for days without stopping for food or sleep, and only needs to eat a few bites every few days at most. She can also enhance any of her abilities' effectiveness by tapping into her yoki, a massive pool of supernatural energy that increases her power when used. She can sense other people's yoki (or similar energy forms) with a high degree of ability.
It should be noted that abuse of yoki can result in a warrior becoming an Awakened Being - a cannibalistic being formed when a warrior's human heart and mind collapse and are overtaken by the will and power of the yoma inside them. Awakened Beings are many times stronger than the warrior they were.
An experimental specimen, Priscilla's base abilities are unparalleled, even among the strongest warriors in history, having achieved the rank of Number Two immediately after certification - all the more impressive when one realizes that the Number One of the time was Teresa, one of the most powerful warriors that ever lived. This seems to imply that she had at least the power of a standard Number One even as a rookie. The question is... why?
Yoki Pool: The primary reason for her extraordinary power is her yoki pool - which is immense even during the Marked for Death arc, surpassing the former Number Two's yoki strength by a considerable margin. Indeed, the combined force of the third, fourth and fifth ranked warriors releasing their yoki felt to onlookers much like a chill or a breeze, while Priscilla's release alone knocked people backwards as though hit by a force bolt of some kind (in the manga), and caused the bridge she was standing on to begin coming apart (in the anime). This is impressive enough, given her youth, but becomes even more notable when one reads the Claymore databooks, which imply that the bulk of Priscilla's yoki is unavailable to her as her mind has erected barriers to prevent her from being constantly overwhelmed by her own power.
In recent months, her barriers have begun to break down, making her even more formidable. Her ultimate potential is difficult to quantify, but if her creator's read on her ability is to be believed, she ought to be capable of reaching at least four or five times the strength of a powerful number one warrior - though she hasn't achieved anything like that as of now.
Rapid (Exponential) Power Growth: One of Priscilla's two natural talents is this rather extraordinary ability which, as its name implies, results in Priscilla's strength growing by leaps rather than steps, and at a rapid pace. This is acknowledged by Teresa herself, who (upon their first meeting) comments to herself that, while she can defeat Priscilla at this time, she isn't sure she would be able to do so the very next time they meet - notable considering Priscilla had been assigned to kill her and would continue coming after her frequently until the job had been completed. It's also said frequently that Priscilla will soon surpass Teresa - an impressive rate of growth considering that Teresa overpowers her plus three others during their first encounter.
Aura Suppression: Priscilla's other natural talent - the ability to suppress her power so completely that it signature evaporates entirely. This is her default state, and renders her undetectable even to Teresa, the greatest known yoki-sensor in the series. In Scorched, it is assumed that Abyssal level beings can sense her aura, however faintly, simply because of their superior nature.
In addition to her canon abilities, Priscilla has acquired a few more through her time in Anatole:
Quicksword: taught to her by Irene herself. Priscilla's tumultuous personality means that she cannot control it for more than a few seconds. In any case, the quicksword is a battle technique that permits its user to swing her blade so quickly that it becomes impossible to detect the blade's movement - indeed the user appears to be standing still while the world explodes around her, when used properly.
Tentacles: Through half-awakening, Priscilla has acquired a significantly downsized version of her awakened form's tentacle attack. Specifically, she can elongate her fingers or form tentacles from her wrist, and use these to punch through any number of things and break them to pieces.
Enhanced Regeneration: Again due to her half-awakened state and her vast yoki pool, Priscilla's unusually powerful regenerative abilities have been kicked up a notch - unlike other offensive types, she can regenerate missing limbs at full strength, though it takes anywhere from an hour to a few days to do so, depending on the limb, her mindset, how much time she spends on rest, etc.
She is also a highly skilled warrior, trained in all forms of combat available to her world, and (like all Claymores) possesses both the general education and acting training necessary to pass as any number of things from a wife to a milkmaid to a courtesan... though she has never made use of this skill.
For those familiar with the canon, it should be noted that Priscilla's level of ability has advanced considerably from her appearance during the Marked for Death arc due to her continued training, half-awakened state, and vastly greater experience (as described above). At the moment, her primary fighting style involves fighting with her claymore, or a dagger, in one hand and using the other to knock heads off and break things apart with her fingers. It isn't a terribly formal style, and may even be seen as somewhat brutal.
PRISCILLA'S AWAKENED ABILITIES
all this time, all this time, you have had it in you.
you just sometimes need a push.
As an awakened being, Priscilla's powers are not unlike her warrior set. However, they are exaggerated.
Very exaggerated.
Even in her human form, which is many orders of magnitude weaker than her awakened form (a golden skinned, one-horned winged woman), she is able to slaughter two Abyssal level awakened beings simultaneously with minimal strain. It is even suggested that one of her limbs alone contains power equal to or superior to that of an Abyssal level being's entire body. Her regeneration is seemingly both instantaneous and endless - her body parts reattach themselves before they even hit the ground, and if she does not notice the loss in time to do this (which happens quite often, as Priscilla rarely bothers to avoid an attack), she can rebuild her broken body literally before the eye can register the change. Her bursts of speed appear almost akin to teleportation and her attacks are quicker than the eye can see.
In her awakened form, her power increases beyond even this, and her regenerative speed is sufficient to render her seemingly immune to most life-drain attacks. The limits of her tentacles' length is currently unknown, but they are show to travel great distances nearly instantly, and can break apart castle-sized armored monsters effortlessly.
Also, she has wings and can fly.
Finally, her yoki-sensing (always a strength) has become so vast that it appears to have given her some form of empathy (applicable only to energy-using people!) - she can read their motivations and their mental/emotional state even from miles away.
Priscilla's yoki pool as an awakened being is so immense that it is described as seemingly limitless, and her simple presence can reduce great powers to shaking and tears. Even so, her attacks in themselves are fairly simple, relying almost entirely on brute force. Her true strength lies in the endless ocean that is her yoki, which grows and replenishes itself constantly and at a dizzying rate.
All of this, of course, is only relevant if she were to awaken again.
PETS AND EQUIPMENT
i sing sometimes for the war that i fight.
and every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
Weapons and Armor: Her most notable piece of equipment is of course her sword, the Claymore. It is around two-thirds her height, and is both too heavy for normal humans to effectively wield and indestructible through any known means. Additionally, she has her Claymore armor and has taken to carrying daggers and throwing daggers with her as well.
While Priscilla maintains her standard Claymore uniform, she is often found in pale grey or white bodysuits these days.
General Belongings: A plastic Chicken Mascot figurine from Deadman Wonderland (a gift from Senji), silver hairclips (a gift from Isley), miscellaneous weapons for patrolling, a big vault with all the Patrol Unit money, lots of local clothes (boots, coat - worn with blouse and pants, cloak for cold days or traveling with Senji, dresses for local travel: 1, 2, various other things).
Technically the Headquarters and both Outposts are her belongings, as well.
PRISCILLA
mercy bows before the demands of justice.
NICKNAMES: Scilly, That Thing, Miss Prissy
AGE: 18(chronological?)/34 (mental, sometimes)
DATE OF BIRTH: July 10 [equivalent]
PLACE OF BIRTH: Musha (Southlands)
DEATHS: One (murdered by Gerald Gaskin)
PENALTIES: Memory - her handler at home.
FAMILY: parents, brother and sister, all deceased.
RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Taken by Isley.
SEXUALITY: Heterosexual
OCCUPATION: Head Commander of the Alliance, occasional gladiator, combat tutor
CURRENT RESIDENCE: A suite on the third floor of the Patrol HQ.
Height: 5'5" | Weight: 115ish. | Build: Very small!
Eyes: Metallic silver, slight glow around pupil. Glows golden when she uses her yoki.
Hair: Pale blond, straight and usually short.
LINKS: Voice Mail | Relationships | HMD | Permissions | Claymorepedia
PETS: Irene | Teresa | Noel and Sophia | Angeal | Crow | Arthur "Penny" Pendragon | An unknown number of rabbits.
RANDOM FACTS
☀Priscilla spells poorly and takes an inordinate amount of time to type.
☀Speaks Common (Anatole), Common (Claymore world) and a bit of Japanese.
☀Has a habit of adopting pets and naming them after people she misses.
OOC
NAME: Ariel
EMAIL: the.red.we.painted@gmail.com
PLURK: alovelyburn
CONTACT: Private Message or Plurk, please.
TIMEZONE: EST (GMT -4/5)
coloring by Lara.