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Shade shook her head.

"Everything beyond two years ago to me is only fragments. Some things I should not remember, because I can;t posaibly be that old, aome things.... I just seem to know and I don't know why."

As Dani showed her subarmor, Shade put a hand to her head.

"For some reason...."

She let her other hand drift to her side, and stunbled back a few steps in surprise when a staff appeared in it, staring, eyes wide.

"...I should know this but I do not...."

Shade flinched, instinctively placing the staff between her and Batrias.... his punch connected solidly with a dome of force that just barely defended the woman behind it.

She opened one eye, and he could watch as it turned a misty silver..... and went slit-pupiled.

"Seems there are times when I remember everything, however, Batrias. I am not the one you knew as Hopesong, that facet of my life ended decades ago."

Her voice was different, a few not4es on the scale lower, as though she was a different person.

She streightened, and spun the staff in a fluid and well=preacticed gesture, as if testing it.

"You want a fight, Batrias of Holy?"

(co-post between me and Shade)

Shade managed a tight smile. "That's... half right, Dani." She took a fighting stance that dated back to the *old* days of fighting with the staff, her clothes.... henshining for lack of a better word, into silver and grey clan robes.

Dani is still blinking. "Half-right, whatcha talking about?"

"It seems.... my past comes and goes as needed. Hopesong is as dead as Anubis was when he took the Ancient's place, were he to choose a new name when he had his change of heart."

Dani blinks again, "My Uncle? He was always Anubis...."

"Hopesong did not die."

Dani tilts her head, "Yah she did, me mother was there."

"Dannin..... knows that what drove the person named hopesong ceased to exist, the same time someone else joined what would best be called Balance. Then again, Shadowsage never did enjoy being well known."

"Shadowsage.....my mother always mentions her with my aunt Kaylyn," Dani says, "but they all died before I was born; Anubis...Kaylyn...Hopesong...all of them."

"Dannin was a very precocious child, even before she was kidnapped." Again, she moved with a well-practiced ease as she stepped between Batrias and Dani. "Not all of them died, though they let that belief remain in favor of starting again."

Dani is confused again, her head cocked like a kitten in a new place.
"But Anubis and Kaylyn, I know they died...."

"Kaylyn and alaric were tragedies, though it is almost ironic that the Armor of the Ogre passed from one bearer to the next in a strikingly similar fashion. Anubis.... is missed."

Dani shakes her head, she knows the name Alaric, but when she heard her mother speak of Alaric and Kaylyn, it was always with saddness in the elder Wildcat's eyes, and with Anubis, it was regret. Dani knows little of her Wildcat half, but enough that she is proud to be one.
"What are you saying?" she asks

"The balance is fragile right now, I have all of my memory at this moment..... but when I no longer need it to survive, it will fade on me again. I am saying something you must tell me when this is over and we are talking to your parents. My given name is Kageseji Hopesong. Translate it, Dani. What name does that become? Who else died that knew your family before the Wildcat clan was all but wiped out?" Her eyes glimmered, slit-pupiled and draconic, as her raven hair aquired a shimmer that was definately more than human.

The wheels in Dani's mind begin to turn. She stays confused only a moment longer, then snaps her armored fingers. "You! You're Shadowsage! You knew Kaylyn and Alaric, everyone. You helped my aunt and the Ancient create the armor I wear!"

"Once upon a time....... yes. Don;t press me about my past, or even tell me about it beyond stories.... your parents are right in letting me remember on my own, just please figure out how to help me do so faster. What time I had to remember myself...... is now gone."

Dani tilts her head again. This is all pretty close to frying the poor Wildcat's head.
"I don't understand, but I'll do what I can," she says

"We have a fight to survive." Shade says

Dani looks at the storm, Batrias, then back at Shade, "I figured that much."

Again with a quick spin to her staff, she settled in a stance- a well-balanced one.

"Then so be it, Batrias... just.... I have no wish to fight."

She wore an aura of power that suited an experienced magician more than the softspoken woman Shade was.

She started chanting.

Dani swollows, unsure if she should be in this fight. As Batrias summons his armor, however, she decides that she should equip her own, just in case.

"Armor of Wildfire," she calls, "By Rightiousness!"

In a swirl of cherry blossoms and silk, the armor of Wildfire wrapps itself around the young warrior, but not the armor most knew. This was give to Ryo shortly before he married Dannin, the new armor that was more of a samurai than the one he wore against Talpa.

The mask splits, letting Dani show her face. She draws one of her two swords, but stays out of the way.

Batrias considers the question for a moment, then dismisses it. "You're trying to fool me. Of course I know why I have to fight. It's the will of my armor!" He shouts at Shade, his limbs aching from summoning his armor.

He points his sword directly at Shade, then at Dani. "It doesn't matter which one of you I have to kill. My armor has never told me wrong, and it does not lie now. Both of you have done, or will do something to anger me. I will not tolerate it!"

With that, he rushes forward, hearing the loud crack of thunder in his ears. His sword raised above his head, he charges for Dani...

Batrias pushes against the swords that have come up to block his. For some reason, the scene seems to familiar to him, though he can't place from where or why. A migraine settles into his head as he tries to break the only two swords in the way of what his armor desires.

Lightning again crackles overhead, moving vertically, from one cloud to the other. It looks like a fearful ribbon of power in the sky.

"You can't win," Batrias says. "My armor has never been wrong."