Anya, Battle Nun Fighter

Name: Anya
Race: Human
Age: 25
Class: Fighter
Rank: C

Description:
Anya is a beautiful and athletic woman with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. Her habit is tailored to be both intimidating and alluring. Despite being the last nun to join the party, Anya is the best known battle nun from her party, and one of the most recognized nuns in the kingdom.

Biography:
Anya’s mother was a nun. She received permission to leave the service when she fell in love with a young nobleman. They married and had Anya, but a change in fortunes in her father’s family led to him taking another wife, a noble woman who immediately took over the roll of first wife, Anya’s mother reduced to little more than a concubine and Anya to an inconvenient child that diluted the inheritance.

Her mother could not leave the family, but she could spare her daughter the abuse of the first wife. Anya came to the orphanage at 4 years old, her only memories of her mother that remained were a song she sung to Anya while preparing her for bed and the tear-stained face as she left her at the Church.

Anya was a sensitive, hurting girl in a house full of hurting girls. While not all of the girls were mean, the ones that were stood out, and dominated Anya’s experience of her youth in the church. When Anya grew taller and stronger, she finally lashed out, using her fists to counter the mean words of her antagonist. She won the fight, bloodying the other girl’s face in her rage and earning the respect or fear of the other girls. It also earned her a week of punishment. Extra chores, extra religious lessons and sleeping in a closet was supposed to teach her to find other ways to express herself. But after a week of crying in a dark closet, Anya learned a very different lesson. When she rejoined the other girls they looked at her differently. The girl that had bullied them, a blue haired girl named Raina, had stopped after Anya beat her up. When Anya lied and said the punishment had been easy, the other girls looked at her in awe.

Anya found her place as the tough girl, the one that punched bullies and beat up girls who said cruel things to her or her friends. But while Anya grew up viewing herself as the hero that fought back against the mean girls and the nuns who let them bully her, in reality Anya had become just as bad as the girls that were now afraid of her.

Anya got in trouble a few times, but she learned how to avoid the nuns catching her in the act, and very few girls were willing to tell on her. Before long she didn’t have to hit the girls to get them to do what she wanted, they just did it.

School was easy, she didn’t get in trouble, and Anya had a circle of girls that called her friend. She went through her studies pretty easily, all the time preparing for her awakening when Imris would give her real power that she would use to fight beasts, demons and people that were out there being mean to innocent people, just like she had when she beat up Raina.

That all came crashing down during preparation week, only days before Anya was to receive her final mission. Raina walked up to her and apologized, not learning the lesson from the first time she had tried it. It infuriated Anya, that Raina could come to her, expect Anya to forgive her, to absolve her of her crimes, of the years of torment the girl had heaped on the other children. Anya refused, and when Raina persisted, even kneeling before her, Anya lost it. She shoved the girl to the ground, climbed on her and punched her as tears streamed down Anya’s face.

The nuns didn’t understand. Anya tried to tell them, to explain what Raina had done all those years when they were little, but the nuns just talked about forgiveness and controlling her feelings. Anya walked out of the room angrier than she entered it, convinced the nuns were wrong to focus on what she did and not the hurt Raina had caused that created the situation. It only got worse when Priest Gabriel rejected her graduation, denying her the last mission and her chance to attend the awakening. Anya had to retake classes for the next six months and correct her “rebellious and violent” spirit before she would be given a final mission. Anya instead spent the next six months fuming as she heard news of Raina receiving a C-rank and the teachers gushing over her skills with magic and how she was likely to become a battle nun.

When Anya was denied graduation a second time she broke. She would have left the church altogether but as a ward of the church she couldn’t without permission, and her request was denied. Instead she was sent far south to a convent outside Tristanis. There she worked and served the people of a small village. Without news of the capital and without hearing about Raina’s successes, Anya slowly let go of her bitterness and anger. She was finally able to forgive her childhood tormentor and begin moving on with her life. Just over a year later she returned to Riledo having completed her final mission, with one thing left to do before she could attend her awakening.

When she found Raina she knelt before her, and with tears in her eyes begged forgiveness. Raina not only forgave her, she embraced her and again apologized for the hurt she had caused Anya. Raina held Anya as she cried, finally free of the weight of her bitterness and hurt.

Anya received a C-rank and fighter skills when she awakened, and a solid skill set for tanking. Anya tried her best, but she wasn’t a very good tank. When Raina stopped by to visit her several months later it was Dalia, the head sister of Raina’s party that suggested she didn’t need to be a tank, and to find what role fit her best. Her statement that it is the heart that makes a warrior, not the skillset, stayed with Anya. Six months later it was Dalia that came and found Anya, now fighting with a two-handed sword, and offered her a position in her party of battle nuns.

Anya accepted, joining Dalia, Raina and the other sisters. With the six sisters together, their party rose to prominence and is now the premier party of battle nuns in the kingdom.

Skills:

Skill 1: Heavy swing – Anya performs a heavy overhead attack
Skill 2: High Regeneration - Greatly increases Anya’s healing from wounds and cures her fatigue (passive skill)
Skill 3: Endure – Anya can withstand large amounts of physical pain (passive skill)
Skill 4: Infuriate - Anya insults 1 opponent to become so provoked that he attacks her in anger.

Equipment and fighting style:
Anya wears metal gauntlets to protect her hands and arms, along with heavy pauldrons on her shoulders. Her habit is a stylish brigandine, specially tailored to provide a good balance of protection and freedom of movement.

Anya's Fighting style is best described as controlled aggression. She has learned discipline from her head sister and captain, Dalia, but she shines when she can unleash her feelings and attack freely. The need to be in sync with her sisters contrasted with her strength when she lets go is a balance Anya has learned to trust Dalia to manage. In combat it takes little more than a word for Dalia to direct Anya, and with her head sister's guidance, Anya is a force to reckon with. At least, as long as she keeps her cool.