Highlander

Richie Ryan and the Holy Grail

Chapter II - Explanations and Explosions

Rated: PG-13 for Immortal Violence, Profanity, and Mature Situations

Summary: While Mac is away, Richie will play! Richie is in charge of the barge but when he gets involved with a beautiful girl and the immortal Arthur, and his age old quest for the Cup of Christ, will Rich bite off more than he can chew?

Disclaimer: I do not own Highlander® or any characters. They are registered Trade Mark™ of George Widen and Davis/Panzer™. Nor do I own Arthur Penndragon. This story was written strictly out of the fact I enjoy writing and I enjoy watching Highlander®. I am making no money off of this, only reviews.

Storyline, Plot, Jacquelyn Perault© and Aardwolf Ironsmith©, are all my property. Do not steal.

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At first Richie laughed, sitting there at the end of the great banquet table, listening to a bunch of immortals older than him chat, and suddenly being invited to go after the Holy Grail.

"You mean like Monty Python?" Richie asked. That caused Arthur to laugh and shake his head.


"God I hope not." Arthur smiled. "I like you Richard; you've got a sense of youth the rest of us all lost. No dear boy, I mean a hunt I hold every hundred years since the sixth century, A.D."

Richie was suddenly both intrigued his boyish sense of danger. "Go on." He said.

Arthur smirked again. "You see boy, back in the Sixth Century I was pretty popular, being King and all. And while most of those stories in the movies are all fake." He paused. "Though I did pull my sword out of a stone, I was a tad drunk and --, well perhaps I'll save that story for later."

Richie suddenly realized that this immortal either was pretending to be, or really was King Arthur from all those stories he had read, and by read Richie meant gone out and rented the movies.

"Richard, as I was saying, while most of the stories about myself are just stories I made up when I was drunk. However, I really did once go look for the Holy Grail."

Richie was becoming interested, while also a bit confused.

"Look, every hundred years I and my knights, or the heirs of my knights who have lost their heads continue that hunt."


"Wait." Richie asked. "You mean all of your knights are immortals?"

"Some of them." Arthur said, pointing around the table. "Thought only two of us are still alive after fifteen hundred years. Myself and Ector here." Arthur pointed to the fat, gray haired man.

The man, Ector, nodded his head to Richie and returned to the bowl of soup that sat on the table before him.

"This is Remus." He pointed to the black haired man who looked to be in his fifties, who bowed his head politely to Richie. "And Robin" he pointed to the red haired boy who sat near Richie. "Morris." He pointed to the brown bearded man with the hearty laugh. "Erich." He pointed at the blonde. "And I think you know Conner."

Richie nodded to each of the knights in turned, before he turned back to where Arthur stood.

"Richie, every hundred years for the last fifteen hundred years we have hunted after the Cup that Christ drink from at the last supper. The true cup of Kings."

"Why?" Richie asked.

Arthur blinked. "Well, back in the sixth century we didn't have much to do. It was always one quest or another, but they always ended too soon. So we went on the quest for the Holy Grail. To this day we still can't find it Richard, and that's why we've made a game out of it. We all travel together every hundred years. If one of us dies, his student takes his place."

Jackie was fidgeting next to him, she had brought Richie home because she liked him, and now he was thinking about going off on a quest with her adopted father. She sighed, the date was going horrible.

"Look Richard." Arthur said at last. "I don't like to dwell on long explanations, so now you can join us, or you can return to wherever it is you live."

Richie squirmed, he had a question but it wasn't a good one to ask. "But, well I came here with Jackie an--"

"Richard." Conner said quietly. "It is not a good idea to suggest staying here alone with his daughter."

Richie laughed half-heatedly, hoping it would come out as a joke. And while Arthur was the kind of man who enjoyed laughing, good hearty laughing. But he wasn't laughing now.

"So what say you?" Arthur suddenly said, ignoring the events that had just transpired. "Will you join us Richard?"

Richie turned his eyes around the table, many thoughts on his mind.

On the one hand, it would be dangerous, and he'd be dealing with immortals that were much older than him. The look in Jackie's eyes told him she didn't want him to go, and he knew Mac would hate the idea if he found out.

Then again, it sounded like fun. And if by some chance he did return to the barge with the Cup of Christ himself, he was sure that Mac would be much more proud than angry.

"I'll think about it."

----

A black Mercedes pulled up outside of the Mansion of Arthur Perault and his daughter Jacquelyn. But the person inside the Mercedes knew who Arthur really was. After the car slowed to a stop two men exited it. One of them was tall, his hair was neatly cut, and black as night. He wore a black silk shirt, a very expensive one, and a pair of equally costly pants.

The second man was shorter; he wore an old camouflage jacket and matching pants. Blood stains and bullet holes covered the jacket. It was the type issued in Vietnam, and the man who wore it had served there.


Of course he hadn't aged a day since then. He had bulked up more, and the jacket was a worse fit than it had been before, but he didn't care. He kept that jacket for thirty years. It made him remember the war. The smell of blood and the sound of screams, he had to know that smell whenever he killed.

"Alright then." The man in the camouflage jacket said. "Let's get ready, shall we?"

The man in the silk shirt sighed and reached back into the car, where he pulled a long Claymore sword. It was beautifully crafted and by far an antique.

"No, no, no." The Camouflage jacketed man said. "Get the guns out of the trunk, will you?"

"It's against the rules." The man in the silk shirt said. The other man laughed.

"Do you want Arthur's head or not?"

The man in the silk shirt sighed and nodded. "Fine. What's you're plan?"

The man in the camouflage smirked broadly. "I have a few boxes of wine in the trunk. We're going to make some Russia Cocktails and smoke them out of the house. Once they're out, we shoot them, and once they're all down, we cut ourselves some heads."

The silk shirted man had to admit, it would work. There was just one problem. "Don't shoot Arthur. I want him to be awake when his life ends."

The second man merely shrugged. "Whatever. You can fight him unarmed if you want, as long as I get paid. Now get the guns out of the trunk."

----

Arthur and Conner stood in the study of the house. The once King of Britain and the Scottish Warrior were standing around a small table. They were in the midst of a reasonable, yet heated discussion.

"It is Richard's choice." The once-King said simply.


"And it will be your head when Duncan finds out." Conner replied quietly. The British man laughed.


"I doubt it. You always described Duncan as an understanding person."

Conner shook his head. "He is. Duncan is a good lad. But he is protective of Richie, as I was for Rachel."

Arthur remembered all too the occasion when he met Rachel, the adopted daughter of Conner MacLeod. He had said some things that had made Rachel, who had been just a child at the time, cry. And Conner had not taken it well.

"Well it is the boy's choice, one way or another. Besides, this year we have an even better clue." Arthur said with a firm smile.

"What?" Conner asked skeptically.

"A letter that a friend sent to me." Arthur said, and with that he reached into his jacket and pulled out an old piece of paper. Conner was no expert on dates, but he could tell that the paper in the elder immortal's hand was much older than both of them.

"Darius sent it to me a year before he died." Arthur said. "He was a good man."

Conner nodded. "Yes, Duncan knew him better than I did. What is it?"

Arthur's face broke into a wide smile. "This my good man is a map made by Joseph after the Crucifixion. It's a map of the road he took. And as the story goes, he took the Grail with him."

Conner looked down at the aged and worn paper and his eyes scanned it quickly. He studied it for a long time before he finally spoke, and when he did it was in a quiet voice.


"This looks real."

Arthur laughed. "Darius wouldn't have sent it to me if it was fake! I was in Berlin at the time; I wondered why he didn't just wait till I returned to Paris but when I learned what it was I knew. This is it Conner. I've waited years for this quest, our last quest."

Conner shook his head. "You should not dwell so much on this my friend. It could be --"

Suddenly Conner stopped speaking. His natural warrior instincts that had been building for over 400 years kicked in. He heard a sound that worried him, while he did not know what it was, he knew it was trouble.


In a flash the Scotsman had whirled the Katana of Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez from beneath his jacket and held it fast in his hands. Arthur took the message and withdrew his decorated broad sword.

Then the window shattered and something fell to the floor. Conner didn't get a chance to see what it was, but he knew it was on fire.

----

Richie was sitting in the living room, his arm around Jackie as the two of them spoke about his possible joining of her father's quest. She had only known Richie for a few hours, that was true, but she liked him very much.

"I dunno Jackie, it sounds like fun. Goin' out with a bunch of old immortals. Besides, maybe I'll pick up a few tricks to keep my head on."


Jackie sighed. "I know, but still--"

Their speaking suddenly was drowned out by a loud noise from the next room. Richie stood and ran to the door, quickly, he opened it and found Conner and Arthur lying on the floor, their bodies on fire.

"Jackie, get upstairs!"

He yelled as he reached down for Conner's katana. He had left his own sword in the backseat of the Ferrari and he had a bad feeling that he'd need one.

He felt the buzz then and he prepared himself, but it was only the fat, gray haired Ector, who held an Ivanhoe sword in his hand.


"Hurry!"

He vanished back into the darkness of the hallways and Richie wondered what was happening. Then he felt a second buzz, it was coming from outside the wall. Richie quickly ran to the door and opened it, only to find a broken wine bottle on the porch and flames burning around it.


"Hell!"

Suddenly Richie saw a man in a black silk shirt. He held a Claymore aloft in his hands and wore an evil smirk on his face.

"You must be a new one." He said with a smirk. "But you'll soon be dead."

Richie held the Katana in the stance he saw Mac take so much. He wasn't as skilled as the Scotsman, but he'd still fight.

The silk shirted man swung with his Claymore, but Richie was faster than him, blocking the massive attack. But before Richie could strike back himself, the other man had regained his footing.

And yet the fight was to be over before any of them had a chance to strike again. Three shots rung out in the night and Richie Ryan felt his life drain away once again. It wasn't the first time he'd been killed with a gun.

The man in the silk shirt turned around to where his camouflaged partner stood, holding an AK-47 assault rifle in his hand.


"We're on a time schedule." He said simply as he turned back to the mansion, which was now being engulfed in flames.

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Sorry for the delay between chapters, not my usual speed, but I promise to have the next one up as soon as I can.

Thanks for the reviews guys, I'll be making more story soon.