World Tree MUSH

 Dorter Trade City, located right on the border between Gallione and Lesalia, is a lively trade town. Like many cities in Ivalice, it's layout is similar to many old European cities that have experienced massive growth over time: in the 'good' sections, it's cramped in places, mostly safe, and with large open air markets. This is where respectable people live and work. 

 But after the 50 Year's War and with a civil war only briefly paused, poverty and starvation has made the slums grow. Cramped, dirty, and with a stream cutting directly through the city, this area is dangerous even in the daylight in such lawless times. 

 Rotting wood and cloth coverings drape boxy buildings. Steps are everywhere in the uneven construction. Rooftops are relatively squat, never reaching more than two stories or so. 

 Still, despite the dreary surroundings, the Dorter people make the best of things. There's a tiny stall or two selling food of dubious quality and safety. Several dive bars and inns, and even less reputable establishments that dwell in the poorer sections of any town. Beggars and tight back alleyways aplenty, the shanty-town-like slums is even more of a nightmare to navigate than the rest of Dorter for an outsider. 

 And of course there's a Vine right in the slums that authorities haven't bothered to deal with yet. Mostly because the town guards don't want to get mugged, and the /real/ authorities are too busy putting down revolts and fighting a war. 

 A few blocks of wanderings, and thus far there's only been a single flower seller to accost any explorers from off world. What /is/ attention grabbing is the sound of a door flinging open. From out of a dingy storefront, a middle aged man is tossed out of it. He tumbles several feet from the force of the toss, landing on his rump. 

 "Mercy! By the Saint, Mercy! I've done naught wrong, Dame Templar! On my mother's grave, I haven't!" 

 Out of the building walks a woman in Templar regalia: red robes hemmed in gold, gold-plated graves and armguards. She's absolutely massive, towering over the much smaller man. Hood up, it somewhat covers her scarred and burnt face, which is currently in a scowl. She hucks a book at the man, smacking him in the forehead and causing him to cry out. 

 "What then, you swine, is /that/!?" A copy of 'God is Not Great' lay on the ground. Claudia promptly spits on it. 

 "By the Saint, that's not even the worst of it! You wilting idiot, I know times are rough! Don't think I'm not sympathetic to a common man, but throwing away your faith to pedal /this/ midden? A pox on your body and may the Father find it in him to forgive your soul!" Comes her voice, rough and common as dirt. Even a bit scratchy. But it carries, the woman knows how to be heard. The merchant is in tears. Claudia doesn't look that much happier, her voice stuck between rage and honest sympathy for a man trying to feed his family. 

 She glances around. No one thus far has been stupid or unlucky enough to stumble upon the thing. From inside the building, a medium sized young man in knight's gear and wearing far less ornate armor comes out. 

 "Searched the shop, Dame Kinborrow. Took the kids in like you ordered, m'Lady!" 

 Claudia makes up her mind with an angry snarl. The merchant's eyes go wide. 

 "Please! Don't hurt them! I..." WHACK. 

 Claudia punches the man across the face. "Stuff it, Heretic! I'm no highborn butcher. Your family isn't involved in this, their safety is on my honor. Ain't too late for you, either, lad. Out with it! Who's your supplier!?" 

 He goes silent. "They'll kill me, Lady Templar!" A leg rises. SMACK! 

 He goes flying into a crate, laying there as it smashes around him. He's dazed...and whistles with bloody fingers. 

 Up top on the roofs, figures skulk. The merchant has connections.

 

 And the Templar and her man unaware. 

 "Last chance godless knave! Tell us your supplier, who you sold that piddle to, and /maybe/ you can avoid swinging on the gallows!" Her fist rises, as though preparing for another punch to the man!

    Princess Peach has been... exploring today. She's slightly incognito - she's not wearing her dress or her crown, instead opting for a dark grey button-up jacket and matching hat, with a black miniskirt and leggings leading down to a pair of red shoes. She doesn't look exactly... inconspicious, though, due to her ridiculously expensive-looking jewelry.

    She's clutching a pink flower in one hand as she leans around a corner. The shouting caught her attention, of course. This seems to be... some manner of law enforcement business. She doesn't really want to get involved in that... it wouldn't do to be caught interfering with another nation's legal system!

    The badly battered merchant tugs at her heartstrings, though. Surely... surely this isn't necessary? A few hesitent steps are taken around the corner, high heels clacking on the cobblestones...

 For the moment? Peach goes unnoticed even in her finery. No, the gold-clad Templar is much more interesting to the rogues lurking atop the buildings. Even as Claudia raises her fist to beat a lesson into the merchant, there's a weapon aimed. Crude sounds of an early gunpowder weapon goes off, and the wide shot interrupts her righteous punch with one straight in and out. 

 Claudia doesn't hesitate, and dives behind cover as a second shot nearly wings her again. Behind an abandoned stall, she clutches her arm, and a light glow heals the wound. The merchant meanwhile starts crawling vaguely, unaware, in Peach's direction. 

 After she's done cursing at the wound and healing herself, she pops right up. The Knight soldier in league with her almost instantly is leaping up to a box, then huffing up to a ledge on the roof. "Orders, M'Lady!?" 

 "I keep telling you, stop calling me that! And stick the rogues!" Pause. 

 Three in total up on the rooftops. One a man with a crude firearm, two others archers. Out of a building, a Templar-colored mage runs out, huffing, only to hunker down as two arrows narrowly miss her. 

 "Stick the rogues! Leave the coward merchant alive!" 

 High heels click, and Claudia is the first to notice. She peeks her head out, and eyes Peach. Scowl. Finery. In a place like this? It's an instant conclusion that has her grinning. 

 "Saint bless! Even a highborn barely out of her swadling clothes wouldn't show up like that here! Must be the one selling this blasphemer's writ! Oi, foreigner! Rum luck us, being so bold! By Saint Ajora, you will pay for your crimes! Have at you blueblood!" 

 Then Claudia is abandoning cover, suddenly intent on the woman who has only barely peeked out onto this emerging travesty. There's this pure, undisguised /hate/ in her eye for who she assumes is a wealthy woman of nobility, given the jewelry. Unthinking, and perhaps just a little crazed. A woman looking for a fight with the aristocracy.

    The gunshot makes Peach jump in surprise, her head snapping to the direction it came from. A gunner and two archers. Perhaps if she were to help the law enforcers deal with these maniac firing deadly weapons in the middle of town she could leverage the social grace towards convincing them to stop beating that poor merchant to a pulp. Maybe.

    It's a better idea than actively interfering with an arrest, anyway...

    She bends her legs, slightly, preparing to leap up to the low roof just above her... when the woman in charge begins shouting something at her. With confusion, she straightens her legs again and just stares at the rapidly approaching Templar.

    "E-eh? I-I'm not selling anyone anything!" Are her earrings really that conspicious? A hand reaches up towards them absently.

 The knight that's absconded to the roof rushes towards one of the archers. The archer is a bit faster, plugging the man with an arrow that ends up in the gut. Said Templar soldier falls to a knee, and then he swings his sword. The archer barely ducks back, taking a horrible wound across the neck. Not enough to kill, but he's gurgling out curses against the knight. Rogue and soldier are on equal footing. The second archer is trying to pin down the mage. And doing pretty decently! She can't respond, but instead eyes the merchant. With some incantations? She raises her hand at the Heretic. 

 A Stop spell wraps around him, and he's frozen in time. An arrow cuts past her cheek, she shrieks, and keeps down. 

 The third rogue seems to be the leader amongst this militant lot. He fires, and Claudia takes another glancing wound to the side. Her headlong charge halts, she snaps up a stone, and spins around to huck it at the man in a glowing holy fist. He goes flying back as it nicks him, tossed barely out of firing range of princess and proper Templar. 

 "You know what, highborn? Funny that, I have heard that excuse three times today! Take a nap in the dirt that you wretched lot force the common man's face into!" She snarls, wiping off the blood on her side, and then sliding to a stop towards Peach. 

 First, a feinting strike to the left. It's weak for a White Monk of her skill, slow and easily defended. Then her other arm goes around, glowing brightly as she seeks to give Peach a proper drubbing in the jaw! Not enough to kill, but she's clearly aiming to knock out a person with added pain and prejudice!

    Peach isn't being distracted by the action that's going on around her any more - she's got her attention focused squarely on Claudia. She visibly winces as the Templar takes that glancing bullet, raising one hand in a sort of pleading motion. Asking if she's okay without actually speaking, maybe? Peach hates to see people get hurt.

    Then Claudia launches a deadly projectile stone at... the shooter, presumably. Peach doesn't look to follow it, as the Templar is still charging right at her! She takes a half step back, raising her hands to fend off the feinting jab... and then takes a brightly glowing right hook to the jaw. The force of the blow knocks her into the wall and then causes her to bounce right off of it, staggering out into the open. There's some blood on her face - which vanishes with a few sparkly lights as the princess irritably waves her hand in front of her face. "...Okay. You hit me. Got it out of your system?" She seems more annoyed than actually hurt. This highborn lady is tough! And apparently a healer.

 Claudia is all grins until Peach is waving her hand. Wounds dissappear and suddenly the Templar narrows her good eye. Her brow twitches. And next? She laughs. It's not a good laugh. Long, bitter, and she suddenly brushes her side casually. Just a bit of her own wounds begin to heal. 

 "Well, well, well! Not only a supplier of Heretical books, but you deign to make mockery of the Church's holy arts? Hah! I'm going to assume you're a foreigner indeed, because anyone with a mere lick of sense would not /dare/ to challenge a Templar to a tussle!" She vaguely waves to the rogues fighting up top. Knight and Archer are evenly matched. A glance. Claudia can't /quite/ conceal her pain at her man's mortal wound. But the two fight it out, drawing knives. Stab. 

 The mage pops out mid-chant, and the second archer fires. She eats an arrow to the knee, and then ends her chant, bleeding. The rogue archer is consumed by a second tier lightning storm, but the mage is out of magic and trying to stop the bleeding. 

 With the merchant still Stop'd, seems it's just Claudia and Peach. 

 "...Not that I would turn down a tussle anyway!" All of a sudden, Claudia is wreathed in holy chi. She leaps, closing the distance easily, and then begins to use her long, powerful legs to unleash a flurry of stone-shattering kicks towards the woman in a holy pummel. Nothing is aimed to be lethal. 

 It's even worse. Claudia is trying to hit Peach where it hurts, to shatter bone and cause pain to muscle with superhuman force that Monks in Ivalice are known for.

    Peach is momentarily distracted by the continued fighting around them - she wants to intervene and stop this madness, but she has a monk to contend with! A monk shouting blatant insanity at her, but still something that deserves to be paid attention to! "Wh-what? You attacked me!" is all she manages to squeak out before Claudia is closing the gap again.

    Peach really doesn't want to be hit. She might be able to heal a bruised jaw and a split lip, but broken bones are another story. She lets her body go limp - the first kick strikes her crossed arms, and sends her sliding backwards - totally frictionless, as if across ice, as she levitates half an inch off the ground. A moment later, she plants her feet and leaps up into the air - a good eight feet, before kicking off a wall and vaulting up onto the roof of a low building. She's rubbing her arm where she got kicked - it was with enough force to break bone, but she seems to merely be thoroughly bruised and sore. "This is insanity! What do you think you're doing?! Your people are in trouble!"

    Peach is still refusing to actually fight back. She's gonna lose at this rate.

 "Oh come now! No need to play innocent, highborn moppet! You walk in on this just /right/ as we're about to bring this Heretic to justice? Suppose I can't blame you. Times are tough out on those...what do they call them, Vines? Same here in Ivalice! All the same, really! Can respect a man who wants to feed his family, but /this/ way!? Denying the Saint and the Father!? Drown me in chocobo piss but I won't let the poor wretch sell his soul out to the Lucavi, for I am an Ajora fearing knight!" 

 Then she points her finger right at Peach. 

 "That said you are a right lucky agent of the fallen! But not quite good enough!" 

 Peach slides back, and then Claudia takes to the air herself. Both hands raise up. She's almost lost in battlefield rage. But then Peach calls out! 

 And she ends her leap on the roof of the gunman. Twitch. 

 "Silver tongued wench you are! Fecking moppet!" Snarls Claudia. Both hands clench, such that her hands bleed. This is one impressively angry woman. 

 Blam! The wounded gunman aims for Claudia, and she barely ducks aside. He reloads, starts to aim, and then the mage casts another spell. A second Stop, and it takes. A slide. Claudia waves to the magess who gives a pale-face smile. She'll survive, if barely. 

 The merchant's spell wares off, and he's crawling around the corner to Peach. He gasps. "H...help me!" He begs. 

 And then Claudia is back down towards Peach. Her left leg glows impressively, radiating holy chi. Finally, she lashes out towards the young royal. 

 "The Saint keep the righteous! SAINT AJORA'S CROSS!" And from her falling back-kick, a massive wave of holy-aspected chi aims to smash Peach into the ground without hesitation. Claudia's fury is apparent in her face, scarrs darkening and growing that much more ugly in her fury at such nobility!

    Peach glances down at the merchant. She doesn't answer him, just returning her gaze to Claudia a moment later. "Look, I know it looks bad - a stranger walking in just as you're busting someone for... whatever crime this is meant to be I don't even know - but look I'm just..."

    A flying back kick of holy power sweeps towards Peach. She gives a little 'meep' of surprise, then takes a half-step backwards.

    There's what sounds like an explosion as the holy energy seems to hit Peach full on, the sheer force kicking up a cloud of dust that seems to mix with the Templar's holy aura, flowing back and around Peach like a flame blown by a strong wind.

    Claudia may be slightly confused to feel that her foot appears to be stuck in something...

    As the dust clears, Peach is standing tall, her eyes glowing a fierce yellow, her body surrounded by an aura of the same brilliant colour. There's a subtle heat emenating from her, like standing slightly too close to an open flame.

    "...You're starting to try my patience, 'moppet'," the princess announces evenly, her voice giving off a faint reverb effect. She then promptly shoves Claudia back with the force of a speeding car.

>> GAME >> Peach spends an Edge for: Star Child Foot Catching Technique

 Claudia ignoring Peach's initial protest might well be anticipated. She's too focused, too tense, too /righteous/ in her gaze on the princess that defies her. 

 "Quite your whining you..." No, it wasn't ignored, it seems that this Templar has a flare for the dramatic. She is smiling as that explosion goes off, hanging in the air for a moment as she enjoys the certain destruction of her foe. The merchant can't get far. And she can bring a 'Heretic' corpse back to Mullonde as proof of her deeds. Lord Folmarv would be pleased! 

 And then her foot is stuck, right in Peach's aura. Her eye goes wide, and she lets out an undiguised gasp of confusion. She hangs there that much longer! 

 "Tch! Well toss me out and stomp on my hind! Alright. You're no scum-sucking worthless aristocrat. Knighthood at least. Give you that much, heathen! Good technique, adequete strength...fine! Too bad lass, I beat you by at least a decade!" Her grin is mouth splitting. Then she howls aloud. 

 Her caught leg suddenly flexes, and her body uses that platform to wind back her leg. Suddenly her holy chi is guttering, rending both graves and cloth, tearing into her own flesh. So angry is this Templar that she uses the other woman's holy presence as a counter attack. 

 Blood drips from her now naked, scarred, burnt leg. And then she unleashes a kick with brutal and unrelenting force that only a true zealot and anti-nobility revolutionary could have! 

 Yeah, she's trying to counter attack right into Peach's side, all to send her towards the back alleyway...and right through about three buildings besides.

>> GAME >> Claudia Kinborrow spends an Edge for: Ridiculous Holy Counter Kick on Peach!

    "I'm THIRTY-TWO!" Peach just shouts at Claudia in annoyance - before she's hit by a holy counter attack and goes flying. Her brilliant yellow aura cuts out in an instant as she hits the wall of the alleyway, cracking a hole clean through it and tumbling directly into the building. She manages to arrest her momentum, however, splaying out her arms and legs and surrounding herself in a sparkly aura of white 'stars' while stopping dead in mid air.

    She slowly floats to the floor. She's... hurt, if her drooping stance and hand on her left side is anything to go by. "...You... bloodthirsty... You have no idea... who I am, do you? Attacking a nation's... monarch is a... declaration of war, you foolish..."

    She staggers back a pace. "Clearly I'm no match for you," she gasps out. It's... not entirely accurate. If Peach was willing to go all out from the outset - and actually had asdequate room to maneuver and an actual weapon - she might stand a chance. But she'd already wasted far too much time and let Claudia hit her too many times. "...I'm going to leave now. If you have... any sense left in that self-righteous head of yours, you'll..." She trails off.

    "...My name is Peach. Princess-Regent of the Mushroom Kingdom. You'll be hearing from me." And then, assuming Claudia hasn't gone back to chasing her in a rage, she turns on her heels and limp-strides away.

    A squeaky voice in the distance calls out for a 'princess'. ... Probably nothing important.

 Tch. Claudia takes a single back with about as much reluctance as you'd expect from one part zealot, one part would-be Death Corp member. One foot in both camps, Peach is her utter antithesis. 

 Also she's a jerk. "Bah! Too skinny by halves! You wouldn't look a starved tavern wench, little moppet! And that's coming from a one eyed Fira-face, more you be cursed!" She calls out, tauntingly. 

 The stars and aura though has her pausing. Claudia hasn't lived through one and then part of another major war without being smart. Hands crawl behind her, and she then reaches out with her now naked foot to slam down on the neck of the Heretical merchant. Grind grind. Tch. 

 She flicks a letter towards the retreating Peach. A conciliary movement, and one she hates. But it's an order. That's about when she offers Peach a very, very rude Ivalician gesture! 

 "Claudia Kinborrow, you overstarched noble! By all means, if you're truly innocent, may you make Ivalice less full of pain and sin! ...Mullonde awaits if you're no fecking liar, Miss Peach!" Claudia howls. 

 And then punches in an alley building. Mostly out of spite!