Alright this is it - my final!
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Jenner Chen
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Submission:
Rei, the Lightning Priestess - punishing the Earth clan for destroying a town because they wanted the rare materials underneath it. (It is not her most preferred fight, because electric/flying is weak to ground/rock, but she can manage.)
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If you want to know more about Rei (and Ring) - there's a short and long story for them:
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SHORT STORY (the TLDR): As the Priestess of Lightning, Rei must serve justice and punish those who have done evil deeds. With her little brother, Ring, following in her shadows (a byproduct of being caught up in the fight for her ascension), they both roam around the world, seeking to eviscerate evil.
When Rei goes into battle, Ring will start playing his drums, like a fanfare to victory. Rumors say that the drums sound like languid, rolling thunder, or a slow heartbeat, or maybe a monotonous elegy for the prey in Rei's path. Only those who have been hunted know what it sounds like.
Unfortunately, none have lived to tell the tale.
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LONG STORY:
"Lightning never strikes the same place twice," is what they say. In Rei's case, it never needs to. In a single, decisive strike, anchored in a split second, lightning lays waste to anything in its path.
The same can be said for Rei. Previous priestesses often wielded lightning like it was a preface to the storm. They served their god with glaives, hammers, great chisels, and heavy swords. Their attacks were deafening - leaving craters and crevasses, engraving their presence into the Earth like it served a warning for those who do wrong. The old priestesses were walking thunderclouds, ready to wreak havoc and punish, in the name of justice.
However, when Rei became a Priestess, she defied her predecessors. In life, she has learned that lightning does more than destroy - it annihilates. Lightning strikes and is gone in a flash. Within that second, it destroys everything it touches, and then it leaves. And the only trace of its existence is the remains it leaves behind.
To honor that knowledge, when Rei was reborn in the image of Lightning, she chose to forge a simple weapon: a very long, single-edged sword. Her greatest asset is not strength, but speed and reach. She killed efficiently, precisely, and quickly. So fast, in fact, that more often than not, she left the scene before the prey knew they were dead. And in the event that her sword doesn't cut it (some of Earth clan's armor are somethin' else), bludgeoning people with her wings also works.
Funny enough, bludgeoning people and stabbing them was also how she became a Priestess.
The ritual to harness lightning is ... cruel, in a sense - immense power requires sacrifice. To become a Priestess, one has to have done evil and be hunted. If the prey somehow manages to kill the Priestess in the process, the prey will take her place. It is a succession forged in blood, built by lives, and reinforced with justice.
Rei did not want to be a Priestess. She was only trying to get herself and her brother away from a kidnapper. The kidnapper could not hold on to both of them as they both struggled against the ropes, and he dropped them both. Reaching for the sword to kill the kids instead, the kidnapper chased after Ring as Rei still struggled against her bindings. Ring was younger, so he slipped the ropes easier.
When Rei was finally able to cut herself free via sharp rocks along the road, she could not find Ring anywhere. In the clearing at the end of the road, she only saw a shadow of a man standing over a small body, holding a bloody sword. In rage, the man rushed over to get her too - and she ran. And he chased until she could run no further. She hid in the quarry until she had the opportunity to bludgeon the man to death.
Lightning came for her right after with two sins - one for the life of a man, and the other for the life of her brother. The man, she had killed with rocks, and her brother, she had killed because she was slow to get out of her ropes. And as Rei looked upon Lightning with her great, heavy hammer, she realized that if she wants to live, she could not afford to be slow.
Rei's battle with the previous priestess was as one-sided as it could be. She held on to the sword the man killed with, and ran between the rocks. The priestess, lugging her heavy weapon, was livid because she was smashing rocks instead of her prey. When Rei ran out rocks to hide behind, she decided to face her fate. As they charged towards each other, Rei realized that all she had to do was be faster.
The Priestess was resilient, even with a sword stuck awkwardly between her ribs. Rei tried to push harder, so it would reach the Priestess' heart, but she could not. Her enemy could not wield a hammer with only one hand, so she dropped it, and the clutched Rei's face instead. And in a flash, all Rei could feel was pain. It was the same pain that urged her to push harder, and then she blacked out.
When Rei came to, she faintly saw a figure talking to her, asking her if she preferred a hammer or a sword. She could not understand the motives, but her heart answered sword. The figure chuckled, and mentioned "that's a first," and then welcomed Rei as the new Priestess of Lightning.
As a Priestess, she traversed the planes of the living, the dead, and the stuck. There was where she found Ring again, stuck permanently in his form both physically and mentally. He never stopped blaming himself for being reckless, and bold, and gullible enough to get kidnapped. As Rei led Ring out of his realm, he decided to live in her shadow - so he could be with her always, but never drag her down like he did before.
When Rei traverses great distances to hunt her prey, she still never forgets the unwilling sacrifices and prices she has paid to become a Priestess. She also never forgets the harsh lessons that the process has taught her, and those teachings that she will pass on to her prey as they traverse into hell. The left side of Rei's face still throbs every time she begins her hunt. Partially disfigured as a result of lighting coursing into her body, she takes this pain as a reminder - to be fast, to be decisive, and to be as swift, merciless, and devastating like lightning.
Here's a closeup of her face from the illustration -
Feb 5, '20
