Been chewing on this one for a bit, and I think it's ready to toss into the mix. Also, I'm afraid that if I keep hanging on to it, it'll get *longer*. No one wants *that*.
Enduring as the stones themselves! Chibi-Kanae! Fall in!
One of the tallest angels on the layer. Quite possibly the toughest angel on the layer. Almost certainly the slowest angel on the layer. Staring with a frame that was already both taller and more massive than nearly all of her potential opponents, her deus built her for endurance first, and strength second, with speed a distant third. She can't really dodge. She could block, if her Deus was good enough to be able to predict attacks before they were thrown, but that's not going to happen for a good while yet. That's okay, though. She isn't designed to avoid blows. She's designed to take hits, over and over as long as it takes until she can actually catch her opponent, take her to the ground, and grapple her into submission. It's a waiting game. Her fighting style has flaws, to be sure - as long as her enemies are fast enough to strike and away without getting caught, there's not much she can do about them except wait for them to make a mistake. or become fatigued. She does have one ace in the hole special move if it looks like neither of these is going to happen, but it, too has flaws. Essentially, she pulls her stance in a little, sets down a bit further to the ground, waits until her opponent is in range, and then suddenly lunges at her opponent, reaching out to full extension. For the span of that lunge, she's moving about as fast as an average to slightly below-average speed build. She doesn't have quite the accuracy to match, and she cant correct in midblow, so it is quite dodgeable, but this is usually coming towards the end of a long fight where she wasn't moving nearly that fast, and where she hasn't been *using* all of her reach advantage (keeping her limbs in close actually makes her style more effective) let alone lunging like that, and she can often catch her opponents by surprise. Of corse, this is generally towards the end of her rather impressive endurance, and it leaves her *badly* overextended if it fails, so if it doesn't work, that's usually the game. She's also pretty dependant on the fact that most Deuses don't know how to grapple - if she runs into someone who's good enough to wriggle free, things become *much* more difficult.
She makes a good match for about the third round of a large single-elimination tournament. Her strategy is strong enough to plausibly win more often than it loses, and interesting enough to make for a good fight scene, with the hero suddenly having to reevaluate their tactical priorities, but she is definately beatable, particularly if you've had some warning.
Her look is very simple. She's large, tanned, and muscular, with short, wavy blond hair. Her stance is a fairly traditional wrestler's stance, with legs somewhat bent, hands up and open, and somewhat curved posture. She's barefoot, for better control and balance. (She isn't fast enough to hop over trip attempts, so she has to be ready to quickly regain her feet. Footstomps would be a problem, but sh's normally in a stance that makes those difficult.) She wears a yellow vest and shorts over a white T-shirt. The T-shirt has the eyes and smile of the traditional smiley-face covering the front. Her Deus *likes* smiley-faces. Less obviously, the shirt, vest, and shorts take up all of her weight allowance, being as thick and protective as she can get them. She's not worried about strikes to her arms or legs, and she figures with her height she might be able to block headshots, so torso armor is the priority.
Her Deus is a really little, mostly shy girl, who likes books, and generally wants to think well of everyone, and who turns into a *really* happy bouncy type once she gets past her shyness. She also has a serious case of hero-worship going on for her older sister, who is quite tall, really quite muscular, and named Kanae. Her sister is *also* a wrestler, in her first year of college, and already the rising star of her school's (newly co-ed) wrestling team. She gave the little kid (who I don't really have a name for) the egg as a going away present, to give her something to have near, when Kanae was away (and also give her a reason to actually go out and be a little more social.) Entirely unsurprisingly, sheproceeded to model the angel as closely as she possibly could off of said older sister, and carry her everywhere. She got involved in a few local tournaments, every one of which she lost, badly, in the first round. She became sad. She wrote to her sister that she was a horrible Deus and would never get it right, and that the kids at the local Layer made fun of her for her build. Her sister came home that weekend, went with her to the local layer, and proceeded (with the benefits of her actual skill at wrestling) to utterly demolish every one of the kids there, while giving her little sister tips on how to actually *use* the rather odd Angel she had made, followed by more tips in the ice crea parlor afterwards, on the way home, and, every once in a while, over email in the weeks following. Her Deus has, by now, mostly integrated the tips her sister gave her, which is enough to make the fighting style actually work, and to utterly dominate almost any grappling encounter she gets in, but she's still somewhat lacking in skill of her own, which means that she tends to telegraph her moves a bit, can't read the moves of others very well, and occasionally has problems with accuracy and precision. If she runs into a new trick and doesn't stumble into an efective way to deal with it almost immediately, she's not necessarily going to be able to figure one out that day. On the other hand, through the wonders of email, she'll have an answer for it the *next* time she sits down to face it. It's okay, really. She's learning.
Rough skill comparison: by this point, the normal Deus can pretty consistently get to the second or third round of local tournaments. Her older sister, if she cared enough about it and took the time to practice a bit with the interface, could probably take the same angel to the second or third round of the nationals. She wouldn't make the Final Four on anything but a total fluke, but the sweet sixteen wouldn't be unthinkable.
So...useful?
Feel free to use as much or as little as you like.
Side note: to be honest, I wasn't thinking of the "CAST IN THE NAME..." line so much for a regular chapter as an omake. Not so much for the angel as for the (mega) Deus.
Enduring as the stones themselves! Chibi-Kanae! Fall in!
One of the tallest angels on the layer. Quite possibly the toughest angel on the layer. Almost certainly the slowest angel on the layer. Staring with a frame that was already both taller and more massive than nearly all of her potential opponents, her deus built her for endurance first, and strength second, with speed a distant third. She can't really dodge. She could block, if her Deus was good enough to be able to predict attacks before they were thrown, but that's not going to happen for a good while yet. That's okay, though. She isn't designed to avoid blows. She's designed to take hits, over and over as long as it takes until she can actually catch her opponent, take her to the ground, and grapple her into submission. It's a waiting game. Her fighting style has flaws, to be sure - as long as her enemies are fast enough to strike and away without getting caught, there's not much she can do about them except wait for them to make a mistake. or become fatigued. She does have one ace in the hole special move if it looks like neither of these is going to happen, but it, too has flaws. Essentially, she pulls her stance in a little, sets down a bit further to the ground, waits until her opponent is in range, and then suddenly lunges at her opponent, reaching out to full extension. For the span of that lunge, she's moving about as fast as an average to slightly below-average speed build. She doesn't have quite the accuracy to match, and she cant correct in midblow, so it is quite dodgeable, but this is usually coming towards the end of a long fight where she wasn't moving nearly that fast, and where she hasn't been *using* all of her reach advantage (keeping her limbs in close actually makes her style more effective) let alone lunging like that, and she can often catch her opponents by surprise. Of corse, this is generally towards the end of her rather impressive endurance, and it leaves her *badly* overextended if it fails, so if it doesn't work, that's usually the game. She's also pretty dependant on the fact that most Deuses don't know how to grapple - if she runs into someone who's good enough to wriggle free, things become *much* more difficult.
She makes a good match for about the third round of a large single-elimination tournament. Her strategy is strong enough to plausibly win more often than it loses, and interesting enough to make for a good fight scene, with the hero suddenly having to reevaluate their tactical priorities, but she is definately beatable, particularly if you've had some warning.
Her look is very simple. She's large, tanned, and muscular, with short, wavy blond hair. Her stance is a fairly traditional wrestler's stance, with legs somewhat bent, hands up and open, and somewhat curved posture. She's barefoot, for better control and balance. (She isn't fast enough to hop over trip attempts, so she has to be ready to quickly regain her feet. Footstomps would be a problem, but sh's normally in a stance that makes those difficult.) She wears a yellow vest and shorts over a white T-shirt. The T-shirt has the eyes and smile of the traditional smiley-face covering the front. Her Deus *likes* smiley-faces. Less obviously, the shirt, vest, and shorts take up all of her weight allowance, being as thick and protective as she can get them. She's not worried about strikes to her arms or legs, and she figures with her height she might be able to block headshots, so torso armor is the priority.
Her Deus is a really little, mostly shy girl, who likes books, and generally wants to think well of everyone, and who turns into a *really* happy bouncy type once she gets past her shyness. She also has a serious case of hero-worship going on for her older sister, who is quite tall, really quite muscular, and named Kanae. Her sister is *also* a wrestler, in her first year of college, and already the rising star of her school's (newly co-ed) wrestling team. She gave the little kid (who I don't really have a name for) the egg as a going away present, to give her something to have near, when Kanae was away (and also give her a reason to actually go out and be a little more social.) Entirely unsurprisingly, sheproceeded to model the angel as closely as she possibly could off of said older sister, and carry her everywhere. She got involved in a few local tournaments, every one of which she lost, badly, in the first round. She became sad. She wrote to her sister that she was a horrible Deus and would never get it right, and that the kids at the local Layer made fun of her for her build. Her sister came home that weekend, went with her to the local layer, and proceeded (with the benefits of her actual skill at wrestling) to utterly demolish every one of the kids there, while giving her little sister tips on how to actually *use* the rather odd Angel she had made, followed by more tips in the ice crea parlor afterwards, on the way home, and, every once in a while, over email in the weeks following. Her Deus has, by now, mostly integrated the tips her sister gave her, which is enough to make the fighting style actually work, and to utterly dominate almost any grappling encounter she gets in, but she's still somewhat lacking in skill of her own, which means that she tends to telegraph her moves a bit, can't read the moves of others very well, and occasionally has problems with accuracy and precision. If she runs into a new trick and doesn't stumble into an efective way to deal with it almost immediately, she's not necessarily going to be able to figure one out that day. On the other hand, through the wonders of email, she'll have an answer for it the *next* time she sits down to face it. It's okay, really. She's learning.
Rough skill comparison: by this point, the normal Deus can pretty consistently get to the second or third round of local tournaments. Her older sister, if she cared enough about it and took the time to practice a bit with the interface, could probably take the same angel to the second or third round of the nationals. She wouldn't make the Final Four on anything but a total fluke, but the sweet sixteen wouldn't be unthinkable.
So...useful?
Feel free to use as much or as little as you like.
Side note: to be honest, I wasn't thinking of the "CAST IN THE NAME..." line so much for a regular chapter as an omake. Not so much for the angel as for the (mega) Deus.