Magic
Primary Magic: ReQuip: The Sentinel
Secondary Magic: -
Caster or Holder: Caster
Origin:
The flow of time is a peculiar and often paradoxical thing that is far too complicated to make sense of if one wishes to retain even an ounce of sanity. Countless timelines exist separately alongside each other, never colliding or mingling. In one such timeline, perhaps billions of years into the future of our reality; the world is radically different and history has taken a course for the unexpected. Or perhaps it is to be expected and we are flowing towards it, setting the events in motion even now.
In a world where mages make up only a fraction of the population, the two kinds of people had gotten along reasonably well over the ages. Of course, there had always been voices of protest and dissent - even during the ancient times - but they were few and far in-between enough that no one paid much attention to it. Still, ignoring something doesn't cause its existence to cease. Over time, these voices grew in power, ever so slowly that no one noticed it until it was far too late - exactly like the snowball effect.
No one knows when and where the pebble started rolling, but a series of events led to an all-out war between mages and non-mages eventually - far, far in the possible future of this particular timeline. The Sentinel program had secretly been put into effect, even before the hostilities. Their design was worked and reworked to perfection over the centuries until finally, with the greatest creation of magic and science fused together gave birth to the perfect soldiers.
The Sentinels were created from an offshoot of The One Magic and engineered by mankind's greatest scientific minds with one goal. To hunt down mages.
At an age of terror where mages weren't even considered to be human anymore and were retaliating in kind, the tides of war finally turned in favor of the humans. Designed to morph right down at the atomic level in order to counter and destroy their targets, the Sentinels were the greatest enemy a mage could ever face. It had a counter for anything thrown at them - as well as a high resistance to all magic. Their abilities changed to better suit the situation, as expected of a super weapon. Needless to say, it was a massacre. The few mages who survived were forced into hiding. Even then, it wasn't enough. The Sentinels were then reprogrammed and upgraded once again, to lock onto the genetic code of any race that wasn't purely human. It was an unfortunate time to be alive. But that's where this story stops and another begins.
Procurement:
Valerie had always been odd - even as a little girl. It was through little fault of her mother, or her upbringing. Any outside influences only magnified what was already there. The truth of it was that her mind simply worked differently than other people's. It should come as no surprise that she completely and utterly botched her attempt to establish her first ReQuip - first attempt at magic, as well. Inspired by her aunt Sasha's unique and fun looking ReQuip magic, she too had tried to accomplish her own version of it.
The magic simply wouldn't work. It was as if there was nothing of a magical nature inside her - which couldn't be true. She couldn't be a mundane. So she tried, over and over again, forcing the magic to work. It was in one of these desperate attempts that she managed to vanish herself into a pocket dimension - instead of summoning a weapon or armor to her.
Naturally, she panicked.
She had managed to pull herself into the void - empty and timeless. Or so she thought, at least. Living beings weren't meant to traverse such dimensions meant only for inanimate objects. After much freaking out and embarrassing moments of terror, two things occurred to her.
One - she had managed to get her magic to work, well, it had all gone horribly wrong but it was still magic. And two, she wasn't suffocating or dying or in pain. She couldn't notice any sort of negative effects once she calmed down enough - which took her what felt like hours, unfortunately. She was simply stuck in a form of stasis. It made sense, given that the nature of the pocket dimension was to contain an armory indefinitely. After many more hours of trying - during which her body was slowly getting accustomed to the dimension, she still couldn't go back home. Thinking that perhaps the dimension needed something else to occupy it before she could leave, she tried to summon a weapon. Strangely enough, it was much easier than before when she'd attempted it back in the real world.
What happened next was purely accidental - through no epic reasons such as her being destined for it or having similarities, attunement or other fantastical idea - she managed to summon a perfected Sentinel to her. Well, she didn't exactly summon it to herself. Rather, it took her place in her world. As it was merely a weapon, an empty shell, it functioned as a suit of armor for her. Except for the part where it couldn't be worn. She'd managed to completely twist what was supposed to happen. Again. Of course, this caused the timeline it had come from to unravel completely and cease to exist.
Unlike regular ReQuip, she couldn't manage to be on the same plane as her summoned ‘armor’ - meaning she couldn't use them directly. After a lot more trial and error, it became clear that while she herself couldn't be there inside the Sentinel, she could still control it as easily as if it were her own body. Her magic was just strange in the sense where it required her to switch places and control them from her position in the pocket dimension. After a time, Valerie convinced herself that this was actually better and suited her quirky nature just fine.
Stress testing:
The newly practicing mage took to her incredibly unique form of ReQuip – or Reverse ReQuip as she liked to call it – like a fish to water. Overjoyed that she could finally use magic, the girl spent her every waking hour trying out the magic and testing its combat capabilities.
Surprisingly enough for someone with such a sporadic attention span, she turned out to be extremely well suited to using her magic and utilizing it to the fullest. Her single minded focus aided her in picking out minute details and reacting to them quickly to turn the battle to her advantage. It also helped that she had no morals whatsoever and wasn’t above using dirty tactics and underhanded methods. Whatever it took to win, she was perfectly fine with doing that. Her niche, as she soon decided, was firearms. With enough practice and the many abilities provided to her by the Sentinel, she was soon on par with talented marksman that had been training for years. Well, while she was using her ReQuip, at least.
Valerie uses different kinds of ammunition and weapons to get the effect she wants – ranging from bullets targeted specifically for high density/mass targets to piercing rounds and the like. Though not consisting of any true elements, her bullets are imbued with magic, giving them different properties and effects that can be found in other, ‘real’ magics. As neither the armor itself nor the bullets consist of any actual elements, they cannot be manipulated or devoured by mages such as Slayers who specialize in such tactics. A super weapon designed especially to hunt mages would have to be resistant to such things, of course. This does not, however, mean that it is immune to damage. Only the manipulation of itself and its extensions. Both the Sentinel and its weapons can be destroyed once enough damage has been dealt, similar to regular ReQuip. The Sentinel is neither living nor dead, or even from this particular reality – and as such would not take increased damage from spells intended to destroy a specific type of weapon or element that wasn’t tailored especially for itself. Nor can it be controlled by someone else. It is still for all functions and purposes, part of someone’s ReQuip.
Strengths:
- Highly versatile - Vale's armory gives her a near infinite range of weapons, and armor that morphs to suit any situation. She can also create sub spells to use along with armor or weapon sets.
- Gives the user a variety of boosts and enhancements, as well as elemental resistances once equipped.
- No elemental weaknesses as it doesn’t hold an affinity for any element. This means slayers or other mages that focus on devouring and manipulating the magic of others will not be highly effective against a Sentinel.
- Suited for both long range and short range combat as she can easily switch weapon sets - even if they're all classed as firearms.
- Anti-magic immunity due to the nature of the Sentinels.
- Being that her body is whisked away into a pocket dimension and replaced with a suit of armor, she has no organs or other human functions to hinder her.
Weaknesses:
- ReQuip magic tends to be a bit of a mana sink, as it requires the mage to expend mana in order to gain access to the armory.
- The Sentinel’s abilities do not discern between friend or foe once combat is initiated, and is sure to damage allies caught within its attacks along with the intended targets.
- As the Sentinels were made to be self-sufficient, they are in no way capable of using any abilities that can aid another person – unlike regular mages who can provide helpful effects to their teammates or extend defense spells to shield someone else. This could prove extremely problematic, tensions between potential allies aside. If charged with protecting a client, she has no way to defend them other than quickly taking out the threat.
- Unlike regular weapons and armor, those summoned by ReQuip can be destroyed in combat. Once destroyed, they cannot be re-summoned for the entire duration of that particular thread.
- As this magic requires its user to have the weapons or armor equipped, the boosts and abilities provided by those would disappear if the relevant armor or weapon is destroyed.
- A ReQuip mage that hasn't summoned any weapons or armor is exactly the same as a regular person with no special powers. This can give others an advantage in combat if Valerie is slow to call out her armors and weapons.
- Valerie's form of reverse ReQuip leaves her essentially an empty suit of armor without a body. This means that her friends could fire on her if they don't recognize the armor. There is also no way for her to prove that it really is her since there's no one in it.
- No elemental weakness is in a way, a double edged sword. By negating any elemental weaknesses, the Sentinel has also given up any elemental advantage it could have over someone.
- A lot of people might mistake her for a summoned creature or some form of oddity as she wouldn't appear to resemble a mage, thereby raising the probability of her being attacked on sight and ruining any chance of making an ally in the midst of battle.
- If she completely loses her mana and her armor is destroyed, there is the danger that her body would be stuck in stasis indefinitely.
![Grand Master [2000]](https://i.imgur.com/SGD5XSW.png)
![Master [1000]](https://i.imgur.com/AQXM4xC.png)
![Senior [500]](https://i.imgur.com/Nmfn8cD.png)
![Novice [250]](https://i.imgur.com/lrYlde6.png)
