The Docks

Rider heard Ira’s cry, but did not design to respond. The armoured Titan was silent as he strode forth, keenly award of his surroundings, even as he focused upon Ira.

That familiar ghostly light once again streamed from behind his visor, the blue wisps becoming ribbons of ethereal power as he marched, coming to a stop only a dozen metres away from Ira, staring up at the servant. He did not deign to respond to the man, as this was not the time for talk. Instead, he simply raised his arm.

The beacons of light that streamed from his eyes coalesced into the familiar shape of his shield, the titanic slab of metal forming out of the cold blue. Archaic runes could briefly be seen upon the darkened metal, before fading once again.

Rider lowers the shield onto the floor, helmet pointed towards Ira in silent challenge.
 
"Oh, wow, you look a little different today," Ira whistled as Rider approached, eyeing the ghostly light swirling around the armour. "Guess this is your gameface?"

The redhead looked down at himself: floral shirt, flower wreath and shorts. "I can't help but feel kinda underdressed. Way to show a guy up, Mag. I came here to have a good time, and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now." He chuckled, shrugging and giving Mag a lopsided smile. When there was no reply after a few moments, he huffed a sigh. "All business, is it? Okay, sure. We can play it that way if you want." He reached up and removed his sunglasses, flicking them off to one side to leave his golden eyes exposed. They glinted with amusement as he looked down at the knight and his wolf.

"Let's dance, big guy," he said, cracking his neck to one side.

And then he vanished.

Ira's body disappeared in a flash of golden light from his position on the shipping container, and not an instant later, he was in the air behind Mag, more gold light shimmering as he reappeared. A gleaming golden spear was clasped in his hand, and he drove it towards the base of the knight's neck with pinpoint precision, at the gap where his helm met his armour.
 
At Ira’s disappearance, Rider reacted instantly. He had expected something of the sort, based upon the build of the man. A warrior such as that depended upon speed and agility. Couple that with the magical abilities of servants, and moving that fast was to be expected.

That was why, when Ira disappeared, Rider was already ducking and pivoting, his shield coming around for a swing at the man behind him as the spear scored a glancing blow upon his armour, rather than separating it entirely. To the right of Rider, Revenant blurred, arcing around and behind Ira, ready to cut off the man’s attempt at escape.
 
After Mag had gotten a good lead outside, Jannik walked out casually, acting nonchalant. He'd put on a pair of sandals, replacing the shoes he'd ruined earlier in his haste to protect himself at the Library, and as he strode out, he was glad to see that there were no civilians around to bear witness to what would be happening. He sighed and decided that this time he'd actually do what he could to aid his Servant, rather than just sit back. Instead of sitting within the warehouse, which would be his avenue of retreat if things went poorly, he snuck out and slipped behind a few shipping containers when he saw that Mag had the enemy's attention fully.

He debated the value of being visible to the enemy Servant, considering he would need line of sight to make the throwing darts have any kind of effect, and then decided to do what he did best. He'd lay a trap. While still concealed behind several shipping containers, he began inscribing runes into the asphalt, etching them deeply enough to work for his purposes but keeping the lines thin to be less noticeable. Not knowing what the enemy Servant was like in combat, he figured a generic rune to slow those who triggered it would be best, especially due to how quickly he could craft them.

As he was chanting quietly, letting the magic take hold in the runic form he'd made, he silently wished he'd established a mental link so that he could speak with Rider at a distance. A few moments later and the first rune was done. About a foot across in any direction, it wasn't big, but the effect would be like stepping into a puddle of thick tar. Satisfied, while keeping a mental note of his mana reserves, he moved as silently as he could back towards the warehouse, stopping before leaving his cover.
 
As quickly as he had appeared, when Rider swung around with his shield, Ira vanished again with another flash of gold. Again, he appeared behind the other servant, this time forgoing his spear to deliver a forceful kick to his back - using the momentum of the shield's swing against him to unbalance him. The force of the kick seemed entirely disproportionate to Ira's size, more like being slammed into by a small vehicle than the strike of a relatively slender man. As he did, he swung his free arm out, and a rope of golden light formed in his grasp. The rope lashed out, twisting around Mag's leg, and Ira jerked his arm back - aiming to pull the limb out from beneath him and drop him to the ground.

"Too slow buddy!" Ira called out, laughing.
 
“Too weak.” Rumbled Rider as his body refused to budge to Ira’s attempts, the man having learnt the extent of Ira’s strength from his forceful kick beforehand. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been as powerful as Archer’s blows, which told him Ira was a fighter than capitalised upon skill.

He could work with that.

The blue blur that was Revenant as dashed around the duo, one massive paw aiming to swipe the smaller Lancer towards Rider, who tears his fist back for a devastating punch.
 
Another flash of light, and Ira was gone again, dispersing away only to reform a short distance away, still grinning. "Not bad," he remarked. "Suppose I shouldn't be surprised you're kind of a tank." He was about to say more, but his attention was briefly caught by movement off on the far side of the yard, as Jannik broke from his cover. The servant raised an eyebrow, then scoffed. "Oh, jeez, you're lucky I'm a nice guy," he murmured, before calling out at a volume the other master would no doubt be able to hear. "Hey Mag, tell your master he ought to be more careful about who spots him creeping around!"

Sure, going for the master would be a ton easier than fighting his servant, but that would be kind of like admitting he wasn't confident in winning. And that definitely wasn't happening. Plus, killing the master was a lot more permanent than killing a servant. If it wasn't necessary (or justified), he wasn't gonna go out of his way to be that guy.

"I'm too nice for my own good," he said with a sigh. "So guess I'll keep beating you up to make myself feel like less of a softie?"

Shrugging, Ira spun his spear in his grip and then lunged forwards, but rather than closing the gap between the pair of them he unleashed an arc of golden lightning from the tip of his spear, crackling through the air and lancing straight for Rider's chest.
 
Rider grumbled at his Master’s actions, fighting the urge to place his helmet within his palms as he exposed himself to the enemy servant. He almost thanked Ira for not attacking his foolish master. This was supposed to be a battle, by the gods!

‘Master, please do not come near the battle. One wrong move and your life is forfeit.’ The spirit pleads, using his telepathy for the first time. It wouldn’t do for him to be the first to lose his master. He wasn’t sure he could live it down.

He was snapped out of his mental communication by the familiar sound of magicked lightning. Reaching upon instinct, his shield alights with a familiar blue sheen as the lightning impacted harmlessly, the energy dissipating.

Whistling sharply (despite having no lips), Rider watches as Revenant once dashes up and towards Ira, letting ou a flurry of attacks as the Warg refused to let up.
 
Jannik had been peeking around a corner, watching how Ira fought, when the lull came and Mag addressed him mentally. Though he couldn't readily reply in return, he stood and jogged lightly back to the warehouse's entrance. There he paused, waiting at the very entrance, though he took a moment to scratch a rune on two different cans, placing them on the ground in front of him to erect the same barrier he had in the Library. It would take one, maybe two of those hit he'd seen from Ira, which was all he needed, at least so he could slip back inside.

After all, not being killed gave him some insight on the Servant that Rider was fighting. With only a few bits of info to go off, the magus began to wonder where the other master was. He looked around, then quickly reached into his bag. He pulled out a deck of playing cards, smiling. While they were normally something he'd use to win a bit of extra money from strangers with, as they had runes laid within them in order to assure him better card draws, he'd also found that the same enchantment allowed him to use them for divination with better than average results.

So he pulled from the deck three cards, laying them in a pattern on the ground, and then turning then over, the faces of the cards showing.

One-eyed Jack, the first card he flipped, indicated that the man he sought was being secretive and hiding something. That was an obvious one, considering it was the Holy Grail War, and it probably meant his identity or something. The second card, the Two of Clubs, made almost no sense. It meant there was going to be something along the lines of a duel in the future. Jannik sighed, knowing that he didn't remember everything about divination, but the Two threw him off as he flipped the third card, an Ace of Hearts. He was alone, wherever he was, simple as that.

Unfortunately, there were no more cards to flip, and while the information was partly useful, Jannik wasn't overly surprised by much. He put the cards away and moved the barrier back with him as he seated himself inside the entrance to the Warehouse that he'd made. Feeling safer, he opened up his magical circuits, though without using any specific spell, to more easily allow Rider access to his mana.
 
"Uhg, that shield is annoying," Ira groaned, vanishing in a flash of light moments before Revenant reached him. He reappeared at Rider's back once more, and again drove his spear forwards, thrusting it at the other servant's back. Rather than relent the assault after a single strike, he then ducked to the side and brought his other arm up, yelling out "Kleos!" As he did, a second spear appeared in a swirl of gold in his grip, and he drove it in towards Rider's flank. He followed that strike by blinking away, reappearing on the far side of the armoured titan and striking again, this time with a high strike, then blinked again to behind him and struck again, and again. Each of the flurry of strikes came from a different angle as Ira blinked to and fro around his opponent, and carried tremendous force despite their speed. Each impact with shield or armour created a thunderous boom and a small shockwave that kicked up the dust and dirt from the ground around them.
 
Rider groaned in annoyance as Ira’s assault began. The duo of spears struck his body over and over, rending and tearing armour despite his best efforts on the contrary. The armoured Titan whirled on the spot, his shield as light as a feather to him as he brought it up just in time to stop at least one of the spear strikes. However, he knew this was temporary at best. He needed a plan.

But what? The servant didn’t seem to have a limit to the amount of times he could teleport like that, and the extra spear doubled the amount of damage he could do, tearing at his armour as it did.

Tearing at his armour... he had it!

Rider purposely allowed himself to miss the next attack, groaning in pain as the duo of spears pierced his back essence head on, but that was all he needed.

Pouring all his energy into that one wound, the armour closed faster than the eye could see, sealing around the heads of the spears, energy intermingling with the other servant’s constructs.

“Got you.” He rumbles, spinning his body to yank the spears, still in his back, from the Servant’s grip. Then, he intensified the shield’s weight to himself and spun full circle, uses he added shield weight to increase his momentum. His shield approached like a solid wall of sheer pain, as Revenant passed by and through Rider’s other side, trying to spot any sort of trait of that seeming teleportation.
 
There was a moment of alarm on Ira's face as the armour closed around his spears, then a yelp as Rider spun around. He hadn't been expecting the other servant to be quite so willing to take a hit like that, and the moment of disorientation was enough for the ploy to be successful. He let the weapons go, though moments after they left his grasp they vanished, dissipating into golden light, and then the shield struck him in the side. The force of the blow took him from his feet and he was tossed away like a ragdoll, slamming into a shipping container with a resounding clang.

"OW." He declared loudly after a moment, peeling himself away from the resulting indent in the metal and dropping back to the ground. A trail of blood ran down the side of his head from the impact, but even as he reached up to rub at it, the wound shimmered with golden light and closed up. "Rude trick! But nice shot; if I were human, that'd be leaving a nasty shiner."

He spread his hands out again, and his spears reformed in either hand. "It'll take a little more than that to keep these guys away from me, though. Guess I'm kind of clingy, when it comes down to it." Shrugging, Ira cracked his neck and flicked his hair, and with the motion, the blood on his face dissipated away, leaving him unmarred once more. "How're you holding up, bud? I hit anything important there?"
 
Rider watches as Ira stood up from that blow, unsure whether to be pleased or annoyed. He had managed to get a solid hit in, and he knew the other servant would be hurting from it. He hadn’t yet to meet one with durability such has his, after all. Yet as he watched the wound close up and the man stand, cursed spears reappearing in his hands, he couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated.

However, he cooled that thought. He knew the position he was in. Big and strong against fast and lithe. It was a tale that was swapped through the centuries, and it always warned not to lose your cool if you were the larger. So he queer his annoyance and faced Ira, Revenant padding by his side.

“I could do this all day.” That deathrattle voice rumbles from behind the steel visor, blurb streams of light the flaring for just a moment as his head tilted from side to side, the sharp crack of clicking bone echoing out.

“That’s a nice trick you have there, warping like that.” The giant grunts, his free hand gesturing towards the man as he kept his shield at the ready.
 
Last edited:
Jannik watched the two, and when Rider's opponent had gone flying, he smirked a bit. Mag might not be the fastest Servant, but he could hit like a freight train when the time came for it. Watching that same opponent get right back up like it was nothing, however, gave the magus pause. When the spears reappeared, he frowned. His Servant could do much, but something like that creature would eventually wear him down, and that wasn't something Jannik was going to simply let happen.

He took his scribe and, pausing briefly to take a steadying breath, carved a rune into the palm of his left hand. The pain was crisp and staggering, but ash he was crouched, it didn't cause him any real issues. As he finished, the whole symbol weeping ruby tears, he let his frown dissipate. If there was one trick he had made sure to keep out of the limelight and eyes of those he disliked, it was the ability to use runic magic aerially, casting and drawing the shapes into the air itself, so long as he had carved the proper rune into his own flesh. It wouldn't last long, only until the wound was healed, and as the healing progressed it would lose strength, but it this instance, with the fresh damaged flesh still pumping pain into his brain, Jannik was able to do so much more than he could normally.

He stood, bracing himself on the doorjamb, and raised his left hand. With simple, yet forceful, motions, he drew a variety or runes in the air, each one little more than bloody smears hanging freely, as if painted on an invisible wall. He worked each one carefully, amending small mistakes that would weaken the structure as a whole, but as the two Servants had taken a pause to chatter, he made the most out of the time he had. in just a few minutes of work, he had a pale, rusty-looking haze hanging in front of him. He put a few small markings with each individual rune, little items to act as a coordination of targeting for the runes themselves, and then began hitting them each with his left hand, sending them flying out over the battlefield, causing a small dome to form, though in the hot air it was almost invisible.

There was one way he could help, and while he'd tried to sneak about the battlefield to set something up, this was the safer, if more painful, way to do such a thing. Mag could beat this Servant, of that he had no doubt, but that speed would ruin him, so Jannik had rigged up a net of sorts that, at his command, would do all it could to snare Ira, if only for a moment.
 
"Isn't it?" Ira grinned, leaning onto the longer of his two spears with a smirk. "Fun, too. Never used to be able to pull it off in quite the same way. Guess I owe that one to the grail?" He shrugged. "Either that or like a fine wine, I just get better with age, even after I'm ... dead, or gone, or whatever it is ended up happening to me. The options aren't as limited as you'd think."

Pushing himself off the spear to stand fully upright again, Ira rolled his shoulders, limbering up. "If you think that's nice though, well," Ira whistled appreciatively, "you should see some of my others. I've plenty more. Like a deck of cards, but I'm stacked with all aces."

He took a breath and held the longer spear up, flashing Mag another grin. "I'd hate you to think I was all talk, though. So shall we continue?"

As the question hung in the air, Ira answered it, slamming the haft of the shield into the ground. As he did, a line of golden light burst outwards from it, zigzagging along the ground towards Rider like a lit fuse, moving at a blur. When it reached the other servant's feet, the light exploded upwards, a column of shimmering golden flames erupting from the ground and spiralling into the air. The blaze burned white-hot, but that wasn't the only quality of it: more than just burning like regular flames, the column seemed to sear at the composite energy of the soul itself just as much it did at physical matter.
 
Rider hissed in pain as the flames struck his feet, the line had been going too fast for the servant to properly react in time. His graves were easily torn away as the servant’s shield swing through the flames, blue sheen shining fiercely as it conteracted the attack, flames meeting it yet not spreading, simply disappearing.

Stumbling back but a little as his true legs were exposed by the heat, the bones charred and blackened but slowly begins to heal, blue light comfortingly wrapping around them as the armour sealed up again.

‘Master, I am in need of assistance. This servant is too fast, and too well geared against me as I am. You know what must be done.’ He mentally says to Jannik, as he looks towards Ira.

“Enough of this.” He says angrily, still reeling from the pain of the flames that had only grazed him. “It’s my turn now.”

And with that, the titan hefted his shield and charged towards Ira, knocking shipping containers clear out of the way as he aimed to squash the servant.
 
Jannik heard his Servant's request for aid, and he saw that they would now be working truly in tandem. He grabbed a chunk of runestones, surrounded in unmelting ice, from his bag and hefted it. He only hoped his snare would work as desired. With a whispered word, he activated the runes, and though it didn't cause any outward effects, his mana began to drain more noticeably, siphoning into the stones and thereby increasing the strength of his magic.

He tapped into the link between himself and Mag, sending only two words back in response. Go. Now.

He uttered the trigger word for his trap, and the runes he'd cast into the air around the battle suddenly streaked inwards, the bloody portions of them causing ruddy streak to drag through the air. They aimed to slam into Ira and, if they made contact, they would each apply a lowing effect. If enough hit, it would force him into a position where movement would be impossible. In addition to their normal slowing effect, the runestones provided an augment as well, allowing the runes to move to some degree, chasing their target with the most basic of turning capabilities. With his smirk, Jannik also spoke, albeit only briefly.

"Rider, I order you by my Command Seals to use your Noble Phantasm without holding back. Let your enemy feel the full force of your mighty weapon, and do what you can to rid this War of him." He couldn't predict the outcome, and knowing that the damage would be immense, Jannik lifted his right hand, even as it clutched the icy stones, his arm near his eyes to shade them from the debris he expected shortly.
 
The descending runes did not escape Ira's notice as they shot towards him, although he'd failed to spot their original appearance. Clearly Rider's master was still intent on sticking his nose into the fight. Tch, and after I spared the stupid bastard. That's what I get for being nice.

Moving like a blur, Ira stepped to the side, sweeping one spear up towards an approaching rune and unleashing an arc of golden energy towards it. The pulse shattered the magic and dissipated it away, even as the servant spun and repeated the process on another, then a third. His movement and reactions became beyond the ability of the eye to track, making plain the gap between servant and magus, as in a whirlwind of golden energy Ira dispatched the descending swarm of runes in the split second he had between their descent and impacts. When the light of the display ended, Ira stood unscathed - looking only mildly peeved at the inconvenience.

The other servant turned to face Mag's charge, and seemed ready to launch back into the fray when the sudden surge of power he sensed gave him pause. Breaking out the big guns already, are we? Guess that's fair. You don't stand a chance otherwise, big guy.

Anticipating the oncoming attack, Ira did not return to his assault, instead vaulting backwards and away from the charge, using a shipping crate at his back to launch himself away from Mag at an angle, though he chose to cross back across his previous path rather than simply retreat directly away. Poised and ready to react to whatever was about to come, Ira gathered strength in case his ability to simply not be wherever Rider aimed wouldn't be enough, and he needed a more direct defence.

'Brace yourself, Thomas,' Ira sent into his master's mind. 'I think we're about to see a Noble Phantasm.'
 
Rider halted from his charge as Ira dodged above him, feet creating furrows in the concrete as he did so. Spinning around, he watched the man land, before he felt the power of the command seal overtake him.

His shield edge slammed into the ground hard enough to sent a ripple flowing through the earth, as at the same time his armour disintegrated into a swirling storm of plane blue fire, revealing Rider’s true, skeletal form to the world as it stared at Ira, muttering only two words.

“Shields Down.”

With a howl that sent chills down the spine of any who could hear it, Revenant’s body disappeared into that ever familiar blue light, the wolf seeming to almost smile as Rider’s shield followed suit, enveloping the skeleton in a light so bright that it blinded any staring directly at it.

From the light, Magnan the Defender appeared.

The man was tall and broad shouldered, with olive skin and cropped light brown hair. His body rippled with lean muscle and was riddled with long since healed over scars. He was clad in the pelt of a titanic wolf that had been made into a full outfit for him, the head and upper jaw of which was used as a cloak that now flopped wildly in an invisible wind.

Within his hands, a titanic broadsword was clasped. Ancient engravings ran alongside the flat of the double edged blade, shining with a fierce light as the man pointed the tip towards Ira.

“It was an honour, Ira. But this is the end.” He speaks, voice powerful and inspiring, a true replica of how he was in life. He took one step forward, and then disappeared with a crack of displaced wind.

Moving faster than any eye, mortal or servant, could possibly see the man struck at Ira, blade singing as he thrust forward with everything he had. His entire essence coupled with Archer’s shots, a part of Archer’s Noble Phantasm, Ira’s attack’s, lightning and fire. All of it, centred around one strike that was guided by skill that had immortalised him and the grail itself to strike home.
 
'Understood,' The magus sent back, rapidly channeling power into his specialty, Reinforcement. Lines etched across his legs, arms, torso, neck, and head. A familiar sensation of his own body hardening, bulking. It almost ached, a somewhat uncomfortable sensation that he knew well. Reaching out with his senses lightly, he felt the two fighter's positions, in case he needed to get out of the way. Fortunately, he wasn't in a line between them.

'Warn me if you ne-' The sudden pressure of power caught him off guard. 'What is...shit, use whatever you need Ira!'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top