Holy Light (Moira)

All it took was the press of a single button, and then darkness flooded in around Moira. A room void of light and filled with the scraps of old, broken planks emerged around the Shield Warden. Her vision fell blank, save for the few inches of space she could make out around herself, while another sound slowly circled around her. The noise was repetitive and heavy, and for a moment, Moira was glad that she wasn't alone with the Cabal. The Frozen Flame was there with her, and even if she couldn't call for backup from her own order while within the barrier, the Flame would try to help.

They were allies...

Again, the noise continued, circling around her as if it was watching and waiting for something. It moved around to her front, where she identified the first sound as footsteps and everything else as kicked debris, and then it abruptly stopped. Pieces of metal began to clank and click together while Moira tried waiting for her vision to come back, and upon considering the possibility of a weapon or a machine being prepared, she took her stance.

Her own armor shifted and pulled taut around her form as Moira hefted her shield up. Her back straightened and solidified into a more powerful, unbending posture, just like her father had taught her, and her knees bent low. She turned her body, so that one side was facing her opponent, and without breaking her stance, she narrowed as much of her form behind her shield as she could possibly get. Her other arm gripped her own hammer as she stood there, clenching and then unclenching nervously while she waited for the spell of darkness to fade.

The spell took some time... or so Moira thought. She stood, waiting patiently for something to happen while piece after piece of metal clicked across the room. No one spoke. Not Moira, not Cassandra, John, or Robyn. Even the enemies were silent in their little arena until finally... the redheaded girl got sick of the lack of noise. If the spell wouldn't end on its own... then maybe she could have burned it out of her system!

"In the name of the Lady-" The words had always come so easily to Moira once she had received the Rose. She practically chanted them at times, and normally, her body flushed with power when she did, burning sometimes on an indecent level from the way the blessing worked. She didn't always understand it... but she had faith in it. She placed hope in the way her hammer flared with light when she spoke and smiled when she saw it happen again. That smile disappeared when she saw everything else.

There were no other allies in the room. In fact, there were just two people. Moira and a tall man with trimmed, grey hair. There was no spell or magical effect keeping her blind and in the dark, the room was just... dark. The walls and windows were all enchanted and turned black. They didn't let any light in, and when she tried to look out of them, she saw nothing. It was like the rest of reality had become no more than a mere void for the two of them. The light fixtures above had all been struck and broken, shattered until the floor was covered in a variety of sharp objects like glass and nails that stuck out from the multitude of boards that had been spread out on the floor. There were no pieces of furniture, everything else had been carried out.

The room had been turned into a battlefield just for the two of them, and her opponent was still getting ready.

The grey-haired man Moira had seen standing next to Michel looked a little more battle ready when she finally saw him in the room with her. When he had been outside, he looked... almost like he had been cosplaying for a television show character. His face was aged and pockmarked, wrinkled around his blue eyes like he had glared or squinted too much in his youth. His lips were dry and cracked, pressed into a thin, blank line as he registered the sudden change in lighting. He was all in grey, his hair was old and weathered with the same signs of age, and the scruff that had grown out on his squarish chin also came to match. There were a few peppered locks of black mixed in with the rest of his hair, but for the most part it was almost like he stuck to a specific color scheme. His long, woolen, grey coat looked like something that had been appropriated out of the medieval age. It reached all the way down to his calves, like some kind of body-length tunic or trench coat and was covered in a dozen different belts and leather straps. Pouches brimming with various ball bearings, types of ammo, and medical supplies all hung from those belts, as well as a large, leather-bound knife that had been strapped upside down to one of his shoulders. The other shoulder was half covered in a layer of metal armor as the man with grey hair finished strapping it in place along with his gauntlets.

Moira actually saw quite a bit of her opponent’s gear, including a second knife tucked away in one of his brown leather boots and a large, sharp halberd leaning against one of the nearby walls, before her vision suddenly fell dark. The spell she called to her hammer abruptly fizzled out and disappeared... as if she hadn't even cast it in the first place. She blinked hard as the room descended into darkness once more and slowly began to step back away from the spot where she had last seen the grey haired warrior.

Based on what she noticed from sound alone, the warrior didn't seem to try and follow her. He just stayed in place and finished equipping the last few pieces of armor he had. He let her try to cross to the other side of the room where she narrowly managed to avoid impaling her feet on some of the nails sticking out from the floor and tried opening the door on the far side of the room. Unfortunately, the door didn't budge. She tried shoving it, unlocking it, kicking it... hell, she even tried hitting it with her hammer and shield. Each time the door just shook and banged against its frame, while the smiting light she summoned flared out from her hammer's head... and then simply dissipated again before she could even finish a swing.

The door wasn't the only thing that wouldn't break. The windows, the walls, even the ceiling and the floor seemed to be warded against most types of physical damage to try and keep her inside. The only thing that Moira actually had any luck in breaking were some of the wooden boards scattered across the ground. Boards that finally began to scrape across the ground all over again when the only other person in the room started moving again.

"They told me beforehand that out of everyone who could have possibly intervened here... you would be the one that was least likely to surrender, and at the very least, I was going to have to fight." Strangely enough, the older man didn't even try to mask his voice. He didn't cast any spells while she was blind and left in the dark, he just walked around to stand right in front of her again. The hilt of his massive halberd could be heard tapping against the floor as he spoke, like a nervous tick or habit he had succumbed to. "Even so... I would like to try and extend the offer anyways. It's not like-"

"No," Moira growled back at the darkness... and heard it sigh from somewhere within.

"Very well..." he said, and the tapping of his weapon abruptly stopped. He picked it up, and while Moira couldn't see him any longer, she could hear him moving as he deftly stepped around the mess of planks and boards that covered the floor. Most of them had to be kicked out of his way by now, and Moira realized what he was doing. While she had to deal with watching her step to avoid stepping on nails and glass, he had created a safe zone around her from where he could easily reach with the length of his polearm. He could attack her freely and **** her off balance with the uneven ground he had set up around her!

"I-if you give up, then the Order mi-might be convinced to show mercy on you and your friends." Her voice was already shaking. Her brow furrowed and her grip tightened around her weapon as her eyes tried to scan through the darkness, but she found nothing, and her voice began to quiver even more. She wasn't sure as to why her voice started to shake so much, unless she was somehow scared, but that didn't make sense to her. If she was scared, then it was almost like she didn't feel the fear. It was like her emotions had been drowned out and muffled or just ignored somehow while she tried to offer the same opportunity to her opponent. He seemed honorable... slightly, in the way that he offered her a way out, but he didn't answer her. He just attacked, and she barely saw the outline of his silver weapon before it struck at her eyes!

His first attack, like every attack after it, came from Moira's front which thankfully gave her enough warning to try and block his strikes. He didn't try sneaking up behind her or going at her from the sides, he just went straight for her, and with each thrust, he buried the steely, spiked tip of his weapon into the front her shield. It wasn't like the sparring or monster fights that Moira had grown used to. When he attacked, his weapon actually pierced through her defenses and stabbed holes into the front of the Order's enchanted shield. The artifact began to crack, break, and crumble with each of his blows as if it hadn't even been infused with holy magic in the first place! The room filled with the sounds of his weapon clashing against her while Moira watched on in horror as he dented and ruined her shield. He **** her stance to stumble slightly and then drop completely when Moira's foot fell onto one of the nail-ridden boards below.

She screamed and swore as her stance buckled beneath her, but the grey-haired man didn't stop. He didn't wait on some code of honor this time because her misstep was what he had been planning for, and when he thrust forward another time, Moira had to try and duck out of the way to dodge the spear-like tip on the end of his halberd, a move that proved to be a mistake.

All it took was that one stab with his weapon and Moira seemed to fall into whatever plan he had set up. The axe head of his weapon twisted in front of her eyes as she nearly fell out of the way, and she watched as it drew back right into the other side of her shield. The artifact groaned under the sudden pull of his weapon’s last strike... and then left her hand completely as the other warrior completely wrenched it out of her grasp! Her breath caught in her throat as she watched, frozen, while he disarmed her with one swing of his weapon and then threw it across the room before he even straightened up again.

She could hear the shield clattering against one of the far walls as it dropped against the ground, but knowing its location didn't immediately help her. She couldn't even stand to try and retrieve it. Hell, she tried casting the spell needed to try and hopefully heal her foot, but even that magic didn't come to her aid. Both her mana and shield may as well had just been gone. The only weapon she had left was her warhammer.

"What are you?" the redhead hissed when she finally heard his weapon start tapping against the ground once more. Her eyes narrowed at the source of the noise, but once again she couldn't see him. He didn't laugh or chuckle at her confusion, nor did he taunt her over nearly assuring his victory so quickly. He just stood in front of her waiting, as if he thought she might drop her hammer at any moment.

"Do you know what a Blank is?" he said, and Moira's face paled before the room filled with light once more.