No armor or weapons allowed... and the loser forfeits all of their equipment!

"Miss Isolt, allow me to explain the rules. I'm Liam Baldwin; I'm kind of like the appointed leader of this ragtag lot," the blond-haired boy spoke back up, pressing one hand to his chest and bowing, as if to appeal to her ego. "With you being a royal knight and all, you have a lot of advantages in terms the armor and weaponry the empire pays for, right? Nothing but the best for the royal knights." Now back upright, he spread his arms to either side and walked forward past the others, who were busily arguing about when they'd voted him as their leader. "If you use that equipment-- granted only to the elites-- against us rookies, I'd hardly call that fair! After all, most of the time, we're out here practicing with sticks in our leathers. Poor Harvey over there doesn't even have a shirt on."

"I understand that you all are under-stocked with equipment; that's part of the reason the royal army is here, to bolster your defenses. But it's not much of a tournament of prospective royal knights if you're not using your weaponry, is it?" Isolt questioned, crossing her arms beneath the swell of her breastplate and raising one eyebrow.

"On the contrary! Mankind has not only waged war since time before memory, but has also trained themselves in the martial arts since such a time. Therefore, we have all agreed that we should fight in a bare-handed style! First one to submit loses. You can understand something like that, right? I highly doubt a warrior such as yourself could be made to yield to any of us," the boy grinned, gesturing at everyone besides the muscular beefcake of a young man who'd spoke to her when she first entered.

If she had to face Liam Baldwin and make him cry in surrender, she thought she could do it with one arm. A guy like Harvey, though... he shouldn't be any problem, with her demonic strength, but would the others buy it? Would they become suspicious of her demon nature, if she suddenly manhandled such a large opponent? The acting involved in this one was likely to be pretty difficult...

"There is a final rule!"

Isolt frowned, her eyebrow twitching slightly. She wasn't doing a very good job of pretending to be gracious, in the face of this smug bastard rookie knight.

"In the old days, when warriors traveled the streets and participated in tournaments at the royal court, it was traditional for the loser to surrender arms and armor to the winner following a contest. We'd like to reinstate those rules for this tournament."

The royal knight captain smiled, barely hiding her growing aggravation. "Liam... You just acknowledged that my arms and armor are of a special class, provided only to royal knights. In fact, my pitch-black blade is one-of-a-kind, created by the royal army's finest blacksmith. You're telling me you expect me to surrender that over to children?"

"Ha! I don't think you're but a year or two older," Liam snickered, then shrugged. "Are you saying you'll lose? Are you proposing there's even a chance that the training knights of Dyna's company are going to show up the strongest of the royal knights?" He seemed to be enjoying the trap he'd set for her; when she shook her head, he clapped his hands, then raised both fists in victory, looking back at his teammates. He wasn't the most popular guy on average, but when his wily nature was turned against a common foe, they were happy to have him in the class. "Now, you may have noticed that we're all in our training gear, which could hardly be considered armor. You, on the other hand, are armored from head to toe and armed as well! You should meet us at our level, Miss Isolt."

"Of course," the woman scoffed, quickly removing her sword-belt and placing it upon a bench nearby the training weapons, which they'd all vowed not to use. Next, she unhooked her breastplate from its two back buckles, then freed her chest from both halves. Underneath was the rest of her silken tunic, a royal purple color on the breast and black down the back, sleeveless. The newly revealed fact that her glamorous bosom-- large, but not indecently large like their own captain's-- filled the armor so thoroughly was well-received by both boys and at least one of the girls.

"Gauntlets and boots too, if you please."

The woman clicked her teeth irritably, then started with the gauntlets. Her hands were bare and slender beneath with black painted nails. Next came her boots... beneath, she wore long, black stockings up to her thighs, so at least she wouldn't be barefoot. Still, to show her silk stockings in front of all of these uncultured, backwater bumpkins of knights and to dirty the toes upon their dusty courtyard was already more of an indignation than she wanted to suffer. She removed her pauldrons from her shoulders as well, predicting that would be their next request. Now, she stood "armored" in just her tunic, skirt, socks, and pendant.

Actually, there was one more thing. Liam pointed to what seemed to be a dagger's sheath, held on her leg by a garter. "My, my! The royal knights carry cowardly assassin tools like those, huh? That's a revelation!" As if he himself wouldn't rely on the trick of a concealed dagger before he would a sword.

Isolt's eyes widened and her cheeks momentarily went pink; she'd forgotten about the Demon Lord's favor she'd been concealing beneath her boot. "Underestimate the value of a backup weapon at your own risk, Liam," she scoffed, quickly unhooking the belt from her thigh and placing it with the others. She was very happy to let the whole class believe that she had a dagger in there... Who knows what sort of questions it might raise if they saw the floppy, rubbery gift that her master had given her? It was her most prized possession... She couldn't afford to let them see it, let alone steal it from her!

Harvey Dustaine stepped forward now, looking over her slender, feminine body with an expression of approval. "Alright! This is my kind of training exercise!" he chortled, rubbing his hands together and showing her a big grin. "Just don't complain when we embarrass you as a royal knight! We're a lot stronger than you stiffs up in the capital are probably thinking!"

"Sheesh, if you boys keep menacing her, you're going to make her think everybody in the knights is a demon in disguise," an orange-haired girl, presumably Harvey's sister, Harley, added. "... B-But I look forward to wrestling you, Miss Isolt!"

Something told Isolt that everybody here wanted to get their hands on her... But who would? Putting back on as charitable a smile as she could manage, the lone royal knight in enemy territory tore the signed document into strips, then flipped them all words down onto the weapons table, to begin randomly rearranging them into brackets. As she did, Liam tapped her on one bare shoulder. She barely fought the instinct to release her evil black wings from captivity and tear through him with razor sharp pinions. "What is it?" she questioned, smiling over her shoulder.

"I just wanted to make sure you're clear on the rules. We're playing a rather advanced form of the arms and armor surrender part. Again, something our captain would approve of."

"Yes, you'll get the sword, the armor... even the dagger," she responded, lowering her eyebrows in an expression that said, "stop testing me."

"No, you misunderstand. The loser surrenders everything. Every stitch."

"What? Surely you're joking? I didn't come here to strip you all naked."

"Yes, well, we're willing to risk it for the sake of treating you in kind," he shrugged, smiling boldly and failing to retreat an inch. "That silk of yours looks very valuable. You can hardly blame them for being excited, right? This will just make putting us in our place all the more joyful for you, as a proud royal knight! You've nothing to fear!"

"... I can believe this could be some jest by a bunch of bored young knights, but are you honestly telling me your knight captain would submit to these same rules?" Isolt questioned, turning her head away and busying herself with the brackets to avoid making her agitation too obvious.

"Oh, yes. And impose some more, I'd imagine," Liam chuckled, sweating slightly as the image of their overly lusty captain entered his head. Ralli's training was one thing but an exhibition match with Dyna these days tended to leave one in the infirmary for a day due to "dehydration," or so the nurses there said.

"Dyna Montague, you slut!" Isolt the Lord Herald hissed to herself, gritting her teeth as she cursed the wayward imp who'd left her master's forces just to get her freak on with every young warrior in the city of Merridan, apparently. "Once I finish converting your forces, I'll seek you out and end you by my own blade...!" With vengeance on her mind as well as the preservation of her own possessions, the royal knight had now discarded almost any prospect of holding back her strength during the event to come... The young men and women would be lucky to escape in one piece. Furiously, she began to flip the names, eager to reveal her first victim...