[X] Plan: Test Run (part 2)
"Now remember, Caster, this is just supposed to be a practice match. So please, refrain from trying to kill your opponent. That means no Chains of Heaven, and no Ea; do I make myself clear?"
You've been putting this off for long enough. Wakaba Mirai's new Mystic Code should be allowing her to properly supply mana to her servant, but you want to make sure that it's working properly before you tell her to deploy Ramesses into a heavy combat situation. You stand back a ways, along with the majority of your combined team, as Tomoe-san and Wakaba Mirai speak to their respective servants before the match.
"All right, Rider, today's the day. You're finally going to be allowed to go wild. Just, uh… Just don't kill their Caster, okay? This is just supposed to be a practice match, so don't vaporise him or anything, got it?"
Tomoe-san and Wakaba Mirai step back, joining you as you watch the scene unfold from a distance. Caster and Ramesses take their places as opposite ends of the arena. What will they open up with? You wonder. Full-front assaults of their strongest weapons, or will they make probing strikes first in order to gauge their opponents' weak spots? No doubt, they already know their enemy's weaknesses and strengths.
You hold your breath, anticipating the match to come. Beside you, Wakaba Mirai sits down, clutching a Grief Seed which she nervously runs her fingers over. She says nothing, but you can see the intensity in her gaze.
"Shall we dispense with the pleasantries, oh King?" Ramesses asks of Caster. He holds his position firmly, standing proud with a hand on his hip, and his other hand clutching at his crook. "Our masters have been waiting for this moment. Let us not keep them wrapped in suspense while we stand around making idle prattle."
"A most agreeable suggestion you have forwarded," Caster replies. Step by slow, steady step, Caster advances, drawing a heavy, ornate axe from within his golden portals. "It would do us no good to mince words now, when we can let our skills do the speaking for us. The time for talk may come later, after we are spent."
When their weapons meet, it's almost impossible to tell who dealt the first blow. Ramesses is fast with his crook, striking at Caster's leg, but Caster blocks, returning with a swing of his axe that occurs at almost the exact same moment in time. After that initial display, their blows become a flurry, and it truly does become impossible to keep up with them. There's a brief flash of red; Caster's axe has landed a glancing blow on Ramesses' cheek, but it leaves no more than a faint scratch, and draws only a few drops of blood. It does nothing to stop their exchange of blows, trading favourably for a blow to Caster's leg that does almost nothing to slow him down.
Those are only probing strikes; they're testing each other before making any serious overtures. You look to Wakaba Mirai; so far, the flurry of activity and the glancing blows don't appear to be taking their toll on her, and the Grief Seed remains loose in her grasp.
Caster's swing goes wide by just a fraction of a centimetre, giving Ramesses enough room to bring his crook around. You see Caster hesitate, and move to block the strike; but he's blocking a strike that doesn't come! Ramesses' crook continues straight on, clipping Caster in the jaw and causing him to step back.
"What was that?" you hear Wakaba MIrai ask Tomoe-san. "Why didn't your Caster block that? It was such an easy shot?"
"Caster meant to block a feint which he saw your servant make against him," Tomoe-san replies. "So when Ramesses' attack continued straight on, it caught him by surprise."
The two return to trading blows as soon as Caster has stepped back into the ring, and this time, it is Caster's blow which sends Ramesses back. Slipping his axe underneath Ramesses' crook as he swings, Caster catches him in the chest with the broad flax of his axe, and Ramesses is sent reeling backwards several pained steps.
Beside you, Wakaba Mirai's grip on the Grief Seed tightens, but as she breathes in deeply, you see her grip relax as her servant rights himself. She keeps that up, no doubt steeling her body for what is about to come.
"It seems we have reached the limit of what we can do, just as we are," Ramesses says to Caster. "Perhaps now that my master is more agreeable to the idea, we can finally unleash our fully fury upon one another?"
Caster smirks, returning his axe to its place inside his golden portal as he crosses his now-freed arms over his chest. "Our contest is hardly one which our full fury can be afforded," he says. "But I agree; it is time for us to 'up our game', as our masters might say."
As it was when their offensive first began, you find yourself hard-pressed to determine which king is the first to launch their attack. Ramesses unleashes bolts of sunlight with the wave of his crook, while Caster's golden portals open up to reveal staves, which set of an impressive light show as golden explosions burst from the earth, causing a wave of stone to overtake the sun-lances. The two are launched in such quick succession that the only reason you're able to guess which one came first is the reactive nature of Caster's choice. Immediately, Caster launches his own offensive, loosing high-pressure jets of water from his staves, forcing Ramesses to intercept them with his sun-lances, cutting them off at the source.
Caster is forced to side-step the sun-lances in order to not be sliced to ribbons; he does so, effortlessly, and returns fire – literally – blasting Ramesses with jets of flame from his staves. Ramesses retaliates with more sun-lances, with slice their way through the flames, only to reveal Caster's trap. Not an elemental attack, but explosive gemstones are launched from Caster's staves next, which explode in Ramesses' face and force him backwards to avoid being swept away in the blast.
Sun and water; sun and fire; sun blocked by pillars of earth; sun and a rainbow of explosions; each time you think your eyes have managed to follow the flow of battle between Caster and Ramesses, an explosion of colour tears your focus away from you, forcing you to reconsider your opinion of the fight. You look to your right; Tomoe-san is calm, watching the fight with a look of determination on her face. Every new explosion as the attacks of Caster and Ramesses meet dyes her golden eyes in a different colour; red in the glow of flames, blue as the jets of water, green and all the colours of the rainbow as gemstones explode like the dazzling glitter of Tohsaka-san's attacks.
Caster didn't just steal that attack from Tohsaka-san, did he?
He's not using his swords; out of a desire not to kill Ramesses, no doubt, but the blasts from Caster's staves are growing ever greater, to be met by the sun-lances of Ramesses II which have only grown in intensity as well. Their blasts meet, scattering and raising explosions all around the battlefield. "Caster's restricting himself to attacks that will allow Ramesses to show off, but not put him in any danger," Tomoe-san whispers to you. "I… Guess I agree with how he's doing it, though I doubt Ramesses would let himself be skewered as easily as Caster thinks he would."
You nod your head, and look over to Wakaba Mirai. Her breathing is steady, calm, measured, but her grip on that Grief Seed is iron, and you see a thin trickle of blood dripping from her closed hand. "How are you doing?" you hear Asami Saki whisper to Wakaba Mirai. "Are you doing okay?"
"Rider's really taking a lot out of me," Wakaba Mirai says. "But, I only know that 'cause I can feel how quickly he drains me. I'm not actually taking on any Grief even though I can feel him burning through me like crazy."
That means the Mystic Code Hitomi and Oriko provided for her is working, you imagine. You tilt your head back slightly, and catch Hitomi's attention. "Is the way she described that accurate?" you ask, knowing that Hitomi is the only other person who could tell you if Wakaba Mirai's Mystic Code is working properly or not.
"I think so," Hitomi replies. "When I tell Saber to go all out, it feels like I'm constantly being drained, but somehow I never run dry. The feeling will take her some getting used to."
You nod your head again, and return your attention to the battle as a golden flash of sun tears through an earthen barrier, forcing Caster to step to the side before he can retaliate with jets of fire and water. Staves are discarded as Caster pulls out his axe again, and he and Ramesses meet in the middle, clashing their weapons together with much more ferocity than before. These aren't probing strikes; these are strikes meant to break the other's weapon, and even from this position you can hear the strain each weapon makes as it slams into its other.
Finally, with one great heave from each combatant, their weapons break. Shards of heavy axe spray into Ramesses' face as they splinter, while two broken halves of his gold-and-blue crook strike Caster in the chest and arm. Both fighters are forced back from the blows, and they take up new positions.
"Your master has done well to support you this far," Caster says, nursing his injured arm as Ramesses wipes the blood from his face. "Even if you were to forfeit our duel now, she would no doubt be impressed by how much longer she can command you for without tiring."
"You insult me, oh King, if you think for even one second that I will give up while my master has the means to fuel me yet. Nay! I shall fight on!" With that proclamation, Ramesses raises his hand, and calls "Barque of Ra, come to me! Mandjet!"
The clouds part as a massive, familiar boat comes down from the heavens. Wakaba Mirai grits her teeth and tightens her grip on her Grief Seed, but still she makes no move to cleanse her Soul Gem, nor to call off her servant's Noble Phantasm. Ramesses mounts his boat, and its bow is lit up by dozens of solar rays as he prepares to fire on Caster. "Surely, you must have something in your unending arsenal which can match this, oh King?"
"With pleasure."
In a blinding flash of gold, Caster has mounted himself upon his massive, uh, ancient fighter jet, thing – seriously, what the heck is that? It's been a year and a half, and you still have no idea what the heck that thing even is or where Caster got it from! He called it a 'Vimana', but how could someone from ancient Sumer have a freaking fighter jet! – and takes off, engaging Ramesses in the sky.
Caster's Vimana rockets high into the sky above Ramesses, and from above looses many luminous blasts from his staves, causing Ramesses to force his boat to take evasive action; and this is where your willing suspension of disbelief takes a vacation. You could believe all the other stuff you've seen so far; the hideous witches, servants with magical and martial powers from beyond time; improbably weapons with untold power; but you draw the line at a dogfight between a Sumerian fighter jet and a flying boat from ancient Egypt! It's just absurd!
Your eyes can barely follow the twin flashes of gold as they soar through the sky high above your heads. You can only tell which flash of goldl represents who by the colour of their attacks; Caster employs a wide variety of blasts, reds, blues, greens, and golds, while the blasts let out by Ramesses' boat are only ever the orange-gold of the blazing sun.
"They cannot be serious," you say to Tomoe-san, as the two of you watch as Caster's golden whatever soars through the thick, smoky cloud left in the wake of several explosions going off all around his craft. "I mean, this is just insane."
Tomoe-san can only shrug her shoulders, and reply to you with an equally incredulous "I assure you, Akemi-san, Caster is enjoying himself."
You can only nod your head, and look to Wakaba Mirai to gauge her comfort level. Now, the strain of commanding her servant is showing on her face, and her eyes are constantly darting back and forth between the battle in the air, and the Grief Seed clenched tightly in her hand. But her breathing remains steady, if laboured, and she holds off from using it.
Beside her, Asami Saki reaches out, placing her hand atop her lover's. "You can tell him to stop if you can't take any more," she says to Wakaba Mirai. "You're keeping Rider going a lot longer than you could before; nobody would complain if you called him off now."
"No," Wakaba Mirai says. "I can keep going… Just a little bit more…"
The sky is awash with lines and explosions of colour as Caster and Ramesses continue their dogfight, lighting up the city skyline like fireworks on a festival night. Your heart aches when you remember the summer festivals you and Madoka attended earlier this year, and your lips yearn at the thought of kisses long faded from memory. It's almost enough to make you forget about the beautiful light show this battle has devolved into.
But not quite. Not quite enough to divert your attention from the massive explosion that rips both combatants out of the sky. Caster is falling, having been thrown from his fighter jet by the explosion, while Ramesses is screaming down in hot pursuit, no longer riding his boat, but rather carrying it! What the heck? Is he going to-!
As the two approach the ground, Ramesses lets out a loud cry, "It is useless to resist, oh King! My master has proven that she has what it takes to support me!" which heralds him as he throws his boat at Caster-! "It is useless, oh King! Useless!"
But no sooner has Caster hit the ground, touching down with an impressive landing that shatters the earth at his feet, than he launches into a retaliatory strike. "Had I the spine of a lesser man, oh King, I just might have taken you up on that! But no-!" Caster spreads his arms wide, and launches into a full-scale assault with all staves blazing. The attack intercepts Ramesses' boat as it flies towards Caster, and the massive explosion as Ramesses commands his boat to retaliate provides more than enough of a cushion for him to safely land opposite to Caster.
Ramesses rises to his feet, and with his own arms spread equally as wide, he proclaims "You have not won yet, oh King! Now, I bid you face my final Noble Phantasm! Ramess-!"
"That's enough, Rider!"
Ramesses brings his declaration to a halt immediately upon hearing his master call out to him. Wakaba Mirai has, it seems, thrown in the towel, and the Grief Seed that was clutched in her hand she now holds tight against her Soul Gem. "That's more than enough," she says. "You don't have to do any more."
Ramesses nods his head. "It is as you wish, master," he says to Wakaba Mirai.
[Homura]About the results of the fight, you feel
-[ ] Good; Wakaba Mirai was able to keep her servant fueled right up until the very end
-[ ] Some concern; Though she was able to keep her servant fueled, Wakaba Mirai was still struggling, especially towards the end
-[ ] Very concerned; Wakaba Mirai was babysitting that Grief Seed the entire fight, and looked pretty bad come the end of the fight
[Homura] Based on the results of the fight, you think
-[ ] You can call this job a success
--[ ] Have as many people as you can go back to what they were doing before today's attacks disrupted them
--[ ] Tell everyone that they're free to go if there's nothing else they can think of that needs to be done
---[ ] Go home and spend the rest of the afternoon with your family
---[ ] Go check on Madoka; you need to make sure she and her family are doing okay after what happened
---[ ] Go check on Sayaka and Kyouko; they're probably shaken up by what they saw, and you need to make sure Sayaka is going to evacuate as well
-[ ] You aren't sure if you can call this a success just yet
--[ ] You should ask Hitomi and Oriko to tweak Wakaba Mirai's Mystic Code, and maybe have her or Ramesses fight a lesser opponent again, just to be safe
--[ ] You should tell Hitomi and Oriko to make major overhauls to Wakaba Mirai's Mystic Code, and have her try again tomorrow when they're finished
-[ ] Other (write-in)
[Kazumi] Do you
-[ ] Try having dinner with Niko's parents again
--[ ] Keep your conversation light; don't try to bring up anything that might set Niko or her parents off again (and you don't want that)
--[ ] Ask Niko's parents what happened in California; you need to know if you're going to have any hope of helping Niko recover from it
-[ ] Just go back to base with Niko and relax
--[ ] What does relaxing entail?
---[ ] Keep Niko company while she works on a project (does she actually need to do this, or is she just using this to run away from her problems?)
---[ ] Think of something you could do together, like a puzzle, a board game, watching a movie or a TV show (do you even have a TV in your new base?), etc
---[ ] Take Niko to talk to Assassin and try to work out an improved treatment plan for her (that doesn't sound very relaxing, does it?)
---[ ] Just go in her room and kiss the stupid girl until it's time to go to bed (are you sure Niko is ready for intimacy so soon after what happened at her parents' house?)
---[ ] Other (write-in)