World-Cycle: Chapter 2 - Emiya, Can I See Your Sword?

• Posted by SpookyBorn2021 December 29, 2017 - Filed in TSC: Skyrim - #Dragonborn1721  #World-Cycle  - 1,766 views

  --------------------------------------Chapter 2 - Emiya, can I see your Sword?--------------------------------------

  I won’t be ashamed to admit it, but that the journey to Markarth was particularly arduous for me. Even though I'd been here multiple times with Luvia, the climate and wildness of the land never failed to surprise me. Last week had only gotten us a third of the way from Riften to Whiterun, less than half of our total journey, and still, we’d nearly been killed twice by Frost Trolls and I swear Luvia is purposefully running into these bandits. The last fight we had with them was two days ago now, and before that, we’d had to put up with at least four different groups. Sure the fights were rather easy, Luvia or myself are simply powerful enough to take out two dozen regular warriors, and none of them were particularly well trained to fight against Magi. '

   

  It was mostly the cold, the terrible, terrible cold that made it so dreadful.

   

  “Emiya,” Luvia's voice broke the silence that I'd been enjoying so much for the last few days. “I suggest that we head towards that fort to at least rest for the night. We haven’t had anything other than a cave to take shelter in over the last few nights, and it really would be better to stay somewhere ‘civilized’. So please Emiya,” She pleaded. The normally confident, proud heiress of the Edelfelt family pleading to a second-rate Magus? I just couldn’t resist that, and she damn well knew it.

   

  “Of course, Luvia. We really have no reason to continue on and I’d hate for you to end up too tired to continue.” I said to her with a small smile. “And, well I can't deny that a warm bed would do me a lot of good. I have this kink in my back that just won’t stop bugging me” I rubbed my head sheepishly.

   

  Luvia giggled for a good five minutes. She barely held back it back, which was rather... unladylike of her to do.  “Say Emiya, can I see your sword?”

   

  “Huh, my—” I was surprised at the request, but was cut off straight away by a madly blushing Luvia.

   

  “Wait, no, not that!! I mean… that is to say, I... I... T-That’s not what I meant to say. It... it wasn’t supposed to sound so strange. I… Shirou, I want to see some of your blades. Yes, your blades! I've seen Stormfang in action and a few more generic swords, but I know that you've got dozens of different ones, and I kind of just wanted to see a few of them. So... pleeeeease Emiya?”

   

  It was a very strange reaction I saw from Luvia, and I hadn’t even begun talking yet. Hmm, she didn’t seem to say anything that strange but... I mentally shrugged. Huh, well women can be strange at times. “Well, alright then, Luvia. You’ve already seen Stormfang II in action, but it’s more of a ranged weapon. My favourite close combat sword would probably be this one."

   

  Piece by piece a bright light built itself up in my hand as a sword formed. It was shorter than an average blade, not even reaching from my hand to my shoulder and wide, nearly twice the width of my arm. It shone with a holy light, so powerful that the glow was visible even during the middle of the day.

   

  “This is Varn [1], the ‘Holy Sword that Pierced the Heavens and Carved the Earth from the Tip’ Heh, I know that it seems like a long title, but if there were ever a weapon that deserves such a name it would be Varn.”

   

  As soon as Varn fully materialized, Luvia’s face lit up with a mischievous grin, her voice teasing as she

   

  “Well, then Emiya. Perhaps it’s finally time for you to engage in a proper fight with a Magus. It’s no doubt been so long since you’ve fought anyone in a proper duel that I should be able to defeat you and your shiny sword with no real issue” The mischievous look was replaced instantly by a serious, challenging glare, as her hands began to glow with an eerie black light. “Well Emiya, how about a quick little battle?”

   

  Without a single word from me, Luvia began setting up a series of circular boundaries around us. Four layers thick she carved intricate designs into the ground around us, each one more complex than the previous and twice the size. Each circle would’ve probably taken me at least a day to carve, yet Luvia did it with a practised air, each circle being complete within minutes.

   

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   

  Luvia’s first set of attacks came without much notice. I must have spaced out as she set up the barriers and the next thing I knew a flurry of small black orbs had been shot at me, dozens of times faster than any archer could even hope to fire at. Quickly cycling through each weapon I’d memorized I pulled out the perfect counter, a spear glowing with an eerie red energy that pulsed in time with my heartbeat formed in front of me before launching through the collection of spells that Luvia had fired. Each sphere that touched the top of my Gae Dearg [2] was erased from existence as my spear flew, hurtling towards Luvia at speeds nearly rivalling that of her Finn Shots [3]. As the spear neared her, Luvia lashed out with a violent kick throwing it’s path of motion just enough for her to rush towards me, hands glowing with a version of her Finn Shots made into blades. Her speed and strength enhanced by magic, Luvia rushed towards me before delivering a series of vicious blows each aimed to stun me or knock me back while her arms were covered in her blades.

   

  “Varn – HEAVEN PIERCER”

   

  A shot of light flew forth from the sword in my hand, and Varn’s holy light expanded from around the sword into a needle-thin beam of light that instantly shot forth to knock into Luvia’s chest. The speed of the light was on a completely different level to everything used so far, leaving Luvia no time to react as she was sent tumbling across the field.

   

  “Hey, uh, Luvia are you alright there, I shouldn’t have….” The quick pause I took to ask Luvia if she was alright was quickly ended as she flipped herself up from the ground mid-tumble before unleashing a string of incredibly slow-moving spells, each one tinted with a mishmash of red and black. Each orb was perhaps the size of my fist but there was no chance that they’d ever hit me.

   

  Rushing towards me, Luvia released another stream of her Finn Shots, these ones moving faster than the still moving ones that she’d left behind, but the sheer number was more than anything else she’s used so far. Normally the Finn Shot would be launched from a Magi’s fingertip, and at most they could launch them from each hand but Luvia currently had 10 sets of tiny, almost invisible orbs of darkness flying towards me, one from each of her fingers. I felt the impacts before I could even react, each small shot was barely enough to push me back but once the tenth had hit me I couldn’t help but step back. After that I could barely get a single movement in, every second without fail I was hit by a minimum of a dozen Finn Shots that would push me back just the tiniest bit.

   

  “Varn – CARVE, EARTH”

   

  A single slash towards the ground was all I could get off, but the unique ability of Varn allowed me to carve a massive chunk out of the ground, supplying me with enough cover to completely ignore Luvia’s weaker attacks. I could hear the battering of her spells as they continued to pointlessly collide with the shelter I’d created, none of them could pierce through the thick wall of earth. A minute passed with the spellfire refusing to let up, nothing had changed in that minute, just the constant pounding of the earth with no pause, no end in sight.

   

  Damn, something strange must be going on. Even if they are weak, I can’t take many of Luvia’s Finn Shots to the head and stay conscious, but…I can’t just stay here and ignore everything either. Let me think… Gae Dearg is ineffective for defence, the only reason I managed to use it earlier was because she’d shot them in a straight line. Varn is many things, and a powerful defensive weapon but it’s not going to be able to block every attack.

   

  That, was my first mistake of this duel. A blur of blue appeared above me, the sounds of the Finn Shots still going off but somehow Luvia was here, right above me and charging up a spell.

   

  “Take this Emiya, feel the wrath of my GANDR!”

   

  An orb, twice the size of my fist flew from Luvia’s outstretched palm before smashing into me, and…nothing, I couldn’t feel a thing. There was no wave of sickness, no pain or detectable change it must. Regardless, my fist lashed out on instinct, knocking Luvia out of the air and sending her flying into the closest barrier, shattering through the first and stopping just at the second. Even with such a serious blow, Luvia stood straight back up, dusting herself off and using a small water and wind spell to clean herself of any dirt.

   

  “It’s over Emiya, you’ve lost. Well perhaps not now, but in 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1.” Luvia’s expression was positively gleeful as she counted down, waiting for whatever it was to happen. 10 seconds passed and nothing had changed, nothing except her smile was slowly dying down.

   

  “Eh, Emiya. Why haven’t you collapsed yet?”

   

  “Uhhh, I really have no idea Luvia, was I supposed to just collapse after a Gandr Shot?”

   

  “Well, no not really but that was a specially made one. I poured more than twice the usual amount of Mana into it and altered it to knock you out after 15 seconds. But your fine, when you shouldn’t be” Luvia paused, before yelling “Damn you Emiya, you must’ve gotten some sort of Anti-Magic protection somewhere or at least something to counter my spells. Well fine, if you're going to go and counter my Gandr Shot then I’ll just have to use something a bit more powerful”.

   

  All I saw was a flash of blue as Luvia’s hand suddenly brought forth a collection of gems, sending them flying towards me, leaping out of the way I attempted to dodge the half dozen gems she sent out but that’s when she triggered the spells contained within each gem. Snakes of pure water were spawned from each gem, eight in total and all as long as large as I am. Dealing with them should be simple enough, a single Gae Dearg would be enough to dismiss them all.

   

  Summoning the blood red spear I jumped from snake to snake, piercing each one with the tip of my spear before quickly moving on to the next one. Each of the familiars took less than a second to deal with, so what on earth is Luvia…

   

  The fifth snake, that was when it all went wrong. Three explosions at point-blank range enveloped me and then…nothing

   

  World Cycle - Table of Contents

  Chapter One - Fly, Stormfang

  --------------------------------------Author’s Notes--------------------------------------

   

  Yes, I, Dragonborn, am a mature man. Sure the entire chapter is essentially based off a piece of innuendo, but I couldn’t help it :D It’s not even that original, but hey, now I have a great little joke to use more than it’s needed.

   

  Anyway, the idea here was just to show off parts of their fighting styles, and kind of experiment with something new. I don’t think I’ve written a full combat scene before, and Magi have a rather interesting style that mostly focuses on observation, analyzing and outsmarting their opponent. You see, if you figure out how an enemy’s magic works, you can counter it. And as opposed to TES where them using the Fireball spell is rather obvious, with World 17 you can never know whether it’s a Fireball, or something that just looks like a Fireball but using a water spell will actually make it more powerful.

   

  Shirou, lost because he had no idea that Luvia could create what’s essentially a Gandr Shot Turret that could auto fire, and he had no idea that some of her gems were exploding snakes. In a fight to the death, Luvia would lose 999 times out of 1000 because she isn’t a trained fighter. Here, Shirou could have instantly killed her with a dozen different weapons, popped a Stormfang off at her, or just carved her in half with Varn. But for a friendly fight? Yeah, it’s a lot more even at that point.

   

  --------------------------------------Extra Reading--------------------------------------

  
  [1] Varn is one of the most powerful Noble Phantasms in Shirou’s arsenal and one of the most powerful ‘Holy’ weapons ever created. That is, in the hands of a true devotee of Akatosh, in Shirou’s hands it’s certainly a powerful weapon but his lack of faith restricts him from using it’s full power, and the only reason that he can even use it is a combination of his own powers and goal in life. Varn’s abilities are two-fold. The first ‘Heaven-Piercer’ manifests for Shirou as a B ranked Anti-Unit effect, by sending an incredibly thin beam of light that can pierce through anything that the wielder considers evil. It’s unfortunately a rather easy effect to get around, anything inanimate cannot be considered evil so it cannot pierce through armor, shields, weapons or even cloth (at least, any further than a normal sword) and against anyone that Shirou considers ‘good’ it is less effective than a regular sword. However, it’s higher rank was given because if Shirou considers his opponent to be evil, then a single blow will end the fight almost immediately and it can be used as a fairly effective ranged weapon. The second ability ‘Carve the Earth’ is more of a passive ability that gives Varn the ability to carve through just about anything that’s inanimate. This includes simple things like walls, the ground itself, rocks but can also include the armor of his enemies. It cannot be used in conjunction with Heaven Piercer but that makes it no less powerful.

   

  [2] Gae Dearg, the Crimson Spear of Exorcism is a near two-meter long red spread that has a single passive power. It can disrupt any magic that connects with the tip of the spear. This makes it incredibly potent when Shirou fights an opposing mage, but has several weaknesses. The first is that the spear-tip is the only part that will disrupt a spell or magical effect. If Shirou attempted to use it to pierce through a barrier of some sort, it’s likely that it would close as soon as the tip had moved through, unleashing its effect on the rest of the spear.

   

  Originally the spear belongs to the famous hero, Diarmuid Ua Duibhne, an ancient spearmen who was said to be related to one of the gods. Diarmuid used it in conjuction with a spear called Gae Buidhe which is said to have the power to cause wounds that cannot be healed as long as the wielder is alive (this is less useful for Shirou since his weapons are temporary, meaning the effect will only last until he has to dismiss the spear from existence).

   

  [3] Finn Shots are relatively like Gandr Shots in theory, they’re both small relatively low powered spells that can be charged and fired at a faster rate. They differ primarily in effect, while the Gandr Shot is technically a non-damaging one that can’t be used to inflict direct damage, the Finn Shot is a purely physical spell that can be used to batter an enemy or used defensively to counter other spells of a similar nature (anything explosive really). The power output of the Finn Shot can be modified, though the more powerful they are the slower they move, meaning most Mages prefer to focus on the smaller, quicker and weaker versions of the spell.