The Library

As they left the Library's exit, Jannik pulled to a halt a few feet past the door. He could still feel the heavy power of the building, and a realization popped into his mind. The thing held an influence in its immediate area. He held out an arm to stop Rider as well, a grin spread across his cheeks.

"I have a plan, yes. One that involves us waiting right here. The Library is...It's power extends slightly outside it, and there's a high likelihood that we won't miss when Archer comes out. At that point, we'll engage him quickly, and try to put him down before his Master can arrive. I can only hope that this unstable Master has already wasted a few of their command seals on pointless things. Your thoughts?"
 
Archer drew open the doors, peering into the swirling energies of the threshold. He'd not wanted to be noticed planting the camera, so though he'd missed that opportunity, he left with useful knowledge. Extending his senses once more, he noticed a presence, one he was now familiar with.

He drew his gun on that threshold, turning to offer a courtier's bow towards Leibhar. "I thank you for your hospitality, Librarian. Go in peace through time."

As he rose, his face held a neutral expression, but his eyes held a grim light. Beyond the gate lie an enemy. Let him believe he faces concern. Size isn't power.

"It's just the measure of how loudly you fall." He murmured as he turned, bring to mind all his skills, and stepped through the threshold. Poised to fight, eager for the opportunity to silence his thoughts.
 
Rider stood aside Revenant as Archer exite the building, shield brought to bear as the man emerged from the twisting nether of magic that was the library. His master had gone to a safer location around the corner a few minutes before, so Rider didn’t need to worry about protecting him as much.

He gave no warning, no time for pause or thought. The moment the rival servant materialised into being once more Rider’s arms were grabbing at his body and, with a titanic leap, hauls the servant up into the air, clearing the library.

Tearing the arm that held Archer back, he sends the servant rocketing to the ground, before landing with a crash of cracking concrete. Wisps of blue light streamed from the darkness of his visor as he stormed towards the servant. Behind him, Revenant cleared the building and landed upon the roof, the predator graceful in its movements.
 
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The transition left Archer's senses with nothing to grasp. In the split instant before being seized, his face turned towards Mag, expression unreadable. Yanked along for the ride, the gunslinger looked ahead to what would come, mentally smiling at the anticipation.

So this one had some spine after all.

Being thrown might have been undignified, but he suffered the hurl, twisting to catch the rooftop on his feet, skidding backwards from the force. As he slowed from the friction, he braced leaning forward with an out flung hand. His gun appeared in his other hand with a speed that made it seem like teleportation, lifting to meet his enemy.

He gained his footing as he heard stone crack ahead of him. His next glimpse of Mag was an approaching giant in armor, ethereal light streaming through the gaps. This range favored him, and he wasn't about to let the gap close. A minor adjustment to his hand, and he fired, then fired again.

Twin roars as the massive revolver breathed its tongues of fire, lines of ardent light marking the shots. His first was aimed for Mag's chest, slightly to the right of where the sternum should be. The second was sighted lower and left, for the knight's right knee.
 
Rider’s shield flashed forward, the titanic armament covering him as the two shots thundered, crashing into the surface of the shield and dissipating without a trace. Without pausing, Rider marched towards Archer, every footfall sending the sound of crunching stone echoing around him..

A flash from behind him alerted him to Revenant’s presence as the warg dashed past him, powerful limbs closing the distance between Archer in a flash as Revenant launches towards him, maw open.
 
The Servant noted the lack of effect his shots had on the shield, factoring it as a tactical consideration as he strafed to his left, maintaining distance from Mag's steadily approaching form. The oversized dog coming around the knight was a more pressing issue, but as it lunged with jaws open, Archer jolted forward in a lightning fast roll to tumble underneath the threat.

Within his motions he lashed out with the gun, thrusting the barrel at the bottom of the beast's jaw and funneling mana into both arm and gun with focused, explosive force. His blow would land with power twice what one might expect of his class, the results of a skill that allowed him to channel his prana like a jet thruster. If his punch with the barrel of his gun connected, he'd pull the trigger, loosing a contact shot that seemed less the bullet of a gun, and more the shell of a cannon. Just as he could use prana to burst himself, he could also charge his weapons.

At the point his somersault would slow, he'd spring to the left in a second, twisting to keep his gun on target. Gleaming azure eyes seeming to not blink, the gunslinger stared down Rider, expressionless.
 
The blow from the weapon sent reverberations of sound from where it met Revenant’s jaw, the sound that of an artillery shot as the dog yelped, the majority of it head blown off as the body was sent sprawling, landing limp and loose against the ground.

This moment of distraction was all Rider needed however, his giant form putting on a burst of speed as he also closed the gap between Archer and himself. His titanic shield swung, barely missing Archer as the Servant’s roll continued. However he didn’t stop there, and instead put his incredible strength into a bash from the shield, intent on shattering the man before him for what he had done to his mount.
 
A glimpse of the results against the Rider's mount was all Archer needed to focus on what was coming. Fling his arms and legs behind him added just enough momentum to complete a final roll, springing away from that lashing shield and the man wielding it. Taking a moment to flit eyes over the massive device, a slight frown on his face. Tower shields were difficult obstacles in single combat, offering virtually full frontal coverage, and this thing put them to shame. Worse, he didn't know what it was capable of.

He seemed to merely gesture with his free hand, and suddenly where the gunslinger had held one, a second revolver rested in hand, a twin to the first. This was going to require a different approach, and he reluctantly connected back to his Master's prana.

Archer lunged forward into a charge, springing into a twisting dive to take him over the giant's head, bringing both guns in line and loosing three shots each. He shifted his target each pull of the trigger; attempting volume and area of fire over precise placement. While a kill was preferred, anything to slow down Mag would help him overcome this seemingly defensive orient Servant.
 
Rider twisted, using the momentum of his swing to bring his shield to bear upwards. A shot clipped the side of his helmet, jerking his head to the side as sparks and vapour rose from where it had connected, yet the armour held strong as a blue sheen enveloped his shield, the rest of Archer’s shots impacting harmlessly as they fizzled against the wall of steel.

Rider frowned from behind his visor, the blue wisps of light intensifying for a moment as he continued and swung his shield in a horizontal arc towards where Archer’s trajectory would lead him. From behind the duo Revenant’s body rose, the warg looking none the worse for wear, and launched himself towards and slightly above Archer, intent on cutting the man off if he used his gun’s recoil to escape.
 
Like he'd suspected, the man was strong enough to adjust such a mammoth shield for such a defense, and though the renewed presence of the beast was surprising, it was less shocking that one might imagine. Such a creature did not become the tool of a Servant and fall so easily, though the question lingered as to how. It's head had visibly exploded, after all.

This two pronged assault, on the other hand, was too obvious. Hammer and anvil only worked when there was no avenue of escape. Archer pistoned his hands towards his feet, bursting mana into his guns and letting it release explosively, with no real target. It was the force he desired, a sharp thrust that propelled his straight along his path, taking the impact with the roof on his should to roll back to his feet.

He mentally groaned. That shield needed to go.
 
Rider was impressed with Archer’s ingenuity when it came to being slippery. While he wasn’t the type of fighter to pull off such flashy movements, he knew enough about those that valued speed and dexterity in a fight to know that this was impressive.

It was an honour to fight such a worthy opponent.

Leaping upwards with all his strength once more, Revenant flashing below him, he continues his assault, bringing his shield down with such force that the stone around him cracked and shattered, Archer having barely gotten out from beneath Rider.

Rolling from his crouched position, Rider uses the side of his shield to fling his body over the top and try to deliver an aerial punch towards Archer. At the same time, the blue sheen on his shield and the power of the wispy light dimmed.
 
There was the opening he'd been searching for, and Archer held little back from taking advantage of it. Mana poured into his limbs through his body as he leaped into the face of Rider's off-hand strike, his legs surging to propel him at over three hundred miles an hour. His left hand and gun arced in and upwards into a lightning fast uppercut for Mag's lower torso, his right scything high and across for the knight's throat with a vicious pistol whip, each moving fast enough that twin thunders sounded.

Yet there was no flash of the guns. This wasn't gunfire, but strikes so fast they exceeded that of sound itself, propelled beyond his blistering charge by the bursts of mana Archer had unleashed. Archer's assault was coldly calculated, his maintaining the distance for advantage a ruse to disguise the very deadly efficacy that he possessed at such ranges. The very way his hands gripped the revolvers in these moments had altered, treating them more like blades, more like a class entirely not his own.
 
Rider was surprised to see the sudden assault. The man hit harder than most anyone he had fought, and with such skill he wondered if the grail was wrong in placing him as an Archer. Such blows would easily tear down many a servant.

A pity Rider was the worst opponent to try this upon.

Each blow, capable of shattering walls and bone with ease, were handidly ignored by the colossus, even as his armour dented and scratched.

Continuing with the momentum of his attack, Rider’s free hand rocketed forward once more, clutching Archer’s bicep in a death grip. Continuing with his momentum, still weathering the blows, Rider’s head rockets forward, intent upon connecting with Archer’s. Should he succeed, he would use the moment of disorientation provided to spin and deliver a crushing blow with his shield, sending Archer flying into the waiting paws of Revenant.
 
This one was tough. Unbelievably tougher than he'd have imagined. His active skill, the one that made his eyes glow with inner light, warned him of what was coming. Archer only had one option if he wished to escape this relatively unscathed.

Apologies Master. I was hoping to have to avoid this.

"Phantasm Shell." Archer's head rocked back as Rider's helmet struck it, his nose breaking under the force. His left still held against the dent in the armor, his right flipped inwards. The words invoked power, light radiating from the metal of those two fell tools, crackling into azure arcs around the revolvers.

"Twelve Shell Cannon." He pulled the triggers.

What was unleashed was no mere bullet. Twelve times over, the guns reported as one, single, calamitous bellow, each round transformed into the shell of a cannon overloaded with the power to strike down castle walls. At this range, there was no room to aim, no point in it. The full fury is this unveiled Noble Phantasm was directed into Mag's torso, cataclysmic might given only one avenue.
 
The magical energy buiding up was all the warning Rider got before his world was enveloped in light, but it was barely enough. The momentum provided from his turn was just enough to bring the top of his shield to bear, a blue sheen once again enveloping it as the shots meant for his head and right shoulder were absorbed by the shield. However, the same could not be said for the rest of of the skeletal man.

In an instant, he felt the majority of his body leave him, the metal puncturing and tearing, unable to stand against the onslaught of power. The steel disintegrated as its form was lost, reduced to a glittering blue light as the warrior made the quick decision that trying to hold against the power was futile. For the first time, his true form in its entirety was revealed, a glowing blue skull in a silent scream as he and his shield were sent sprawling, bones clattering all along the roof of the building as his legs, arms and free hand were separated from him.

Behind him, Revenant let out of a howl of rage and flickered, the beast reappearing directly to the left of Archer, fueled with a need to avenge his Rider.
 
Archer called out across the link between his master and himself as he watched his Noble Phantasm surge. "Master, I need you to be ready to do exactly as I say if I call for you. Say 'I order by Command Spell, return to my side', because I might very well need it. A Servant I couldn't shake ambushed me, and I can't tell if I've almost put it down or I'm going to have to retreat."

He launched to his right away from the beast, feeding it a quartet of rapid shots across its hide from his own reserves, eyeing it warily as he worked to keep both the fallen Rider and it in his view. That it remained active put him on extreme edge, the mount of a Rider nearly never remained after it's master was fallen.

"Let me know you've heard and understood. This opponent is Rider..." Archer noticed a sensation below his feet. Almost like a churning sea...

Understanding flickered through him, his eyes widening. "And something's seriously not right."
 
Anger. Pure unadulterated fury rose from the Library down below. Although the battle had been outside, Archer's ability had completely destroyed the roof and most of the shelving below, as well as several floors below. The darkened Library below writhed with what looked like tiny ants as words leaked from their books by the thousands.

And the black entity they had met previously began its very rapid ascent to the roof of its now damaged home. Black wings thrummed the air as the unearthly creature came and bust from the gaping hole of its home, a massive black dragon from legends of old like a stain on the dark sky. It screamed in fury, its red hues like the gates of hell in which it planned on dragging the three combatants to.
 
As Leabhar rose, so too did Rider. Blue fire enveloped what was left of his body as bones jerked and were lit ablaze, his jaw clacking as his body pieces itself back together. The flames slowly coalsced back into the eh familiar shape of his armour, his true form once again hidden as Magnan rose once more.

At the sight of Leabhar, Rider was filled with emotion. Not fear, but a prideful send of anger. Archer was his opponent. His quarry. And he would not let some overgrown beastlord steal that honour from him.

So, Rider raises the hollow end of his arm towards Archer and, still attached to Archer’s clothes in its death grip, Rider’s hand flexed.

Rider’s body jerked as it flew through the air, moving faster than a mortal eye could see as he brought his shield to bear and slammed into the body of Archer, hisbhand reconnecting with a clack as he sent then smaller man flying away from Leabhar.

“A little something to remember me by.” Was all Rider called out, before his body once again jerked and sped off and away, over the edge of the library and back down towards the last portion of his body, held between Jannik’s hands, Revenant a streak of blue light as he follows behind.

Upon landing, Rider does not waste time explaining anything to his Master. Instead, he grabs the youth and sprints full speed back into the mortal world.
 
The library quaked. A large, roaring boom broke the silent revere of the two studying woman bellow. Noises could not be identified-- walls crumbling, books falling, the sounds of what would later be revealed as a noble phantasm causing chaos on the floors above them. Of course, Valerie didn't know that. She only felt and saw what reached them from above. And it did not bode well.

The book slipped from her fingers. She stood up, features pinched as she looked to Lady for guidance. What did the woman sense? Valerie's gaze demanded immediate answers.
 
Lady had stopped reading all together at the sounds a battle outside the library walls. Shelves rattled, books toppled, and ancient Scrolls tumbled to the floor, but above those sounds was the din of war. Closing her eyes she listened, paying close attention to any words that were shouted or fluxes in energy. At one moment the hair on the back of her neck prickled as she felt the charge of what had to be a noble Phantasm and The Librarian on the move.

When she opened her eyes she found Valerie staring at her expectantly. "The energies of Rider and Archer battle above us. One has activated his Noble Phantasm, I believe, but I do not know which exactly. Given Rider's small drop in energy I would say that Archer was the one . The Librarian is there as well."

Another shudder of the building indicated the battle was on going for a moment longer before one of them disappeared. "Rider has gone. I no longer feel his presence near the library." During the battle both had their strengths and weaknesses simply judging by the feeling of Mana alone. One had hit hard enough to put the other down for a moment and the other had to use his Noble Phantasm against the other. And overall revealing fight though she did not see it.
 
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