Fourth Ammo: When a God drops By
"God of Creation?" Eve asks.
"An old title," the Snake of the Festival replies. "One of my favorites, admittedly, and easily the most accurate."
"Why are you here?" Shana's voice is scarily devoid of emotion.
"I'm not allowed to see an old friend?"
"We're not friends!" Shana yells at him. "Why are you here?! He died! I saw him die! You should have died with him!"
"Maybe you can ask Alastor about it?" the Snake of the Festival asks. "I thought that he would tell you about god's being rather hard to kill, my dear Shana."
"Shut up!" Shana yells. "Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! Don't call me that! Stop talking in his voice, stop using his face!"
"Would you be happier with another form?" the Snake asks. Before we can give our opinion, his body is covered in black flames and when it dies down, his entire appearance has changed. "Better?"
"The elf?!" Louise 1 asks.
Not the time, but I feel I should say this. I freaking called it! I knew it! 'Congratulations, what do you want, a medal?' Some recognition would be nice. 'So would not having a conversation with a god, but we can't all have nice things.' Don't worry. I hear gods are actually highly overrated.
"Not a very fun appearance," the Snake of the Festival, wearing the appearance of the elf Bishadal. "Not a comfortable one either."
"Why were you trying to stop us from rescuing Tabitha?" Louise 2 asks.
"I don't care about what you would do with her," the Snake/Elf says. "I saw an opportunity to make contact, and I thought I would take it. Even as weak as I currently am, taking his life and appearance was rather simple. I'm sorry, but if you don't mind, I feel much more at home in my other appearance."
The black flames flare up again, before dying down and returning the Snake to Yuji's appearance.
"I spent a while with this body, so I'm rather comfortable with it," the Snake explains to us. "I'm sure you understand."
"So what's your deal?" Taiga asks. "Why are you here?"
"And don't say because you wanted to see us," Nagi adds. "There's always some kind of ulterior motive."
"Perceptive," the Snake observes with a wry smirk on his face. "And half true. Obviously I have my reasons for being here in the world with you, but I truly did only want to see your group. I've heard quite a bit about you, so forgive me for being curious."
"Heard about us?" Ryuji asks. "From who?"
"Does it matter?" Kinji asks. "I'm more worried about what's directly in front of us."
"Smart kid," the Snake observes.
"You haven't answered Shana's question," Aria notes. "Apparently you're supposed to be dead. Why are you here?"
"Fate has a funny way of working out sometimes," the Snake replies. "Sometimes it ensures that not matter what, those that deserve to come back will."
"Are you being intentionally cryptic, or is that just code for 'I don't know why I'm alive?'" Hayate asks.
"Sounds about right," Fuka says with a nod. "He's just trying to sound all deep and meaningful when he knows about as much as we do."
"Well I suppose you can't all be geniuses," the Snake deadpans. "No matter, I suppose. My business is done. I got some good information, so I thank you for that."
"You think we're just going to let you leave?" Shana asks the god.
"Yes," he replies rather quickly. "Unless you wish to try something?"
Shana's reply was the obvious. Her flame wings let loose, her sword coated in bright red flames, she flies towards the Snake of the Festival and tries to slash his torso in two. If only he hadn't teleported out of the way and right in front of me. Before I can respond, he delivers a palm thrust into my stomach. The suddenness and force of the attack causes me to lose my breath and knocks me down stunning me long enough for the Snake to steal Blutsauger from my grip. 'Aaand now I feel incredibly useless.' It's okay, we didn't expect it.
"Apologies, but I missed my old sword," he tells me. "Now that I'm armed properly, shall we dance, Shana?"
Shana tightens her grip on her sword as she and the God of Creation stare each other down. I ponder asking if any of the other people here should help or if this is one of those "I need to do this on my own so don't interfere" things, but the two of them charge at each other before I could even think of vocalizing that question. It'll be fine. Shana won before, right? He even went out of his way to mention he's kind of weak, right? She can solo him. We can finish this up early and get everyone home. 'Kind of anti-climatic.' Which means she's in trouble. No way this ends so easily. 'And we can't help her because they're now flying around swinging their swords at each other.' ... Yep. He can fly too. Almost forgot about that. Saito, fly after them. Now. 'I'll leave that thought alone.'
"They can fly," Kinji notes.
"Indeed," Hayate agrees. "I feel like we should have expected this."
"This is... completely ridiculous," Aria adds her two cents.
"Agreed. How do fire wings create the necessary lift to keep them aloft?" Eve wonders. "They're not even flapping or anything that would allow them to stay in the air for extended periods of time."
"You poor, imaginatively dead child," Fuka offers her condolences.
"It's magic, it doesn't need an explanation!" Nagi retaliates.
"I understand, don't worry," Eve assures the other little blond girl. "I was just curious about the mechanics behind the magic. It's interesting."
"As interesting as a girl fighting a god on relatively even footing," Ryuji notes.
Even footing? She's going to lose. 'Ignore your instincts and be a little optimistic.' Dude. Come on. Look at the actual fight.
I look up at the two fires being thrown around in the sky. Flares of black and red clash together, illuminating the grey toned sky. Sparks accentuate the flames as their swords clash off each other. They're too high up to make out things like facial expressions, so that's out. Still, there's nothing that makes it obvious that either fighter is winning. Wait. You saw it too? 'Yeah. I think so.' Shana's fighting incredibly recklessly, there doesn't seem to be any thought behind any of her strikes. Yuji knows it too. The Snake of the Festival knows it too, don't get the two confused. Whatever. The point is, he knows that he's winning. He's barely trying and Shana still can't hit him. This fight is horribly one sided in favor of Shana getting utterly destroyed. It hasn't happened yet because he's having far too much fun with it.
"We need to help her," Aria says.
"She's doing fine, she's fighting a GOD and doing good, see?" Louise 2 tries to assure her.
"No, she's losing," Taiga says.
"He's letting her win," Louise 1 notes. "This should have ended already."
"Oh good, I was worried I was the only one who saw it," I remark. "So. Anyone here able to fly up there and help her out?"
"I can fly," Eve adds. "Should I go help her?"
The answer comes with a thud, as Shana hits the ground, nearly forming an impact crater. She pulls herself up just as the Snake lands next to her. She faces him down, still holding her sword ready.
"Come now, do you really wish to continue this farce?" The Snake asks.
*CLANG*
"Oh? What have we here?" He asks as he blocks mine and Aria's swords with his own. "Another two to join the slaughter?"
"AAAH!" Shana lets out a yell as she tries to take advantage of his distraction to swing at him. He pushes us two away, before taking swinging and parrying Shana's strike. He swings at her, but she jumps back to avoid it.
"Three on one hardly seems fair, does it?" The Snake asks tauntingly. "Perhaps the rest should jump in to even the odds."
Cocky bastard.
"Or would you prefer one on one?" the Snake of the Festival asks. "Please, give me a moment and I'll be right with you."
Aria and I try to hit him down, but he blocks with Blutsagur. He swings his sword like a baseball bat and the flat of the blade sends us flying back. Kinji raises his guns and opens fire, and the Snake spins his sword like a fan blade, blocking all the shots.
"Milady, perhaps you should assist?" Hayate suggests.
"Oh! Right! Here we go," Nagi says as she readies her gun. She pulls the trigger and lets the gun do it's work.
The Snake decides it's in his best interest to dodge and leaps to the side to avoid the hail of gunfire. He raises his arm and a column of black flame rises out of the floor in front of Nagi, who gives a startled scream and falls backward.
"Really, I was almost expecting more from you people," Yuji says with a sigh. "I was told you were all quite formidable. Looks like she was mistaken."
"Still not willing to say who told you about us?" Taiga asks, gripping her sword tightly.
"It really isn't that important, is it?" the Snake asks. "At this rate none of you will even be alive to do anything with knowledge like that."
"Isn't that usually the excuse bad guys give when they are going to tell you something?" Nagi asks.
"Indeed. It appears to be inverted here," Hayate points out.
"Are you going to at least tell us your plan?" Fuka asks. "You gotta play by some of the rules here."
"Do I?" Yuji asks, a smirk of what could almost pass as contentment on his face. He's enjoying this. That's rather worrying. "Very well. My new plan is rather similar to my original plan, with one key difference."
"That difference being?" Ryuji asks.
Shana doesn't wait for an answer and charges Yuji. He smirks, then turns around and slices, separating Shana's arm from her body. Shana doesn't react, and instead tries to hit him with her free hand, only for him to slap it away, and run her through with Blutsagur.
"Less obstacles," the Snake tells Ryuji as Blusagur glows, causing more wounds to appear on Shana's body. He removes the sword, and Shana collapses onto the ground. He turns to the rest of the group and smiles. "Now. Anyone wish to jump in now?"
"EXPLOSION!"
There's a loud boom as explosions form in front of and behind the Snake, throwing up dust, and making it hard to see. Neither of the Louises waste any time, and start getting another explosion spell ready. Unfortunately, the Snake appears directly in front of them and bisects their wands with a swift swipe of Blutsagur.
He disappears again, just to reappear right in front of me. He brings Blutsagur down in an overhead, and I bring up Derflinger to block. The two swords bounce off each other, so the Snake instead resorts to punching me in the head. It felt less like being punched, and more like being hit by a speeding cement truck. I hit the floor, with my head bouncing off of it rather painfully just to add more insult to injury (or would it be injury to injury?) and my vision gets incredibly fuzzy, and it becomes incredibly difficult to think, let alone get back up. I try to get back up, but a sharp pain through my arm manages to send me back to the ground as well as shock me back into thinking clearly. My first thought? Having a sword through your arm hurts. Yuji refrains from saying anything this time and just smirks as he lets go of my sword. If you're going to stab my own sword through my arm to pin me to the ground can't you at least come up with some snappy one liner to seal it? Not the time for comments like that! 'Well someone's got to make them if your not going to!'
The Snake flash steps over to Aria, who has her guns out and is trying to shoot him. The Snake blocks the shots with Blutsagur, but that cover doesn't apply to the hammer that Eve just blindsided him with. The Snake flies back a few feet, but regains his footing far too quickly for my tastes. Eve leaps forward and keeps the pressure on him, having transformed her hands into blades. Aria and Kinji provide backup by placing some well placed shots. Nagi not helping is probably for the best in this case. I don't think Eve would appreciate being perforated by 6 million rounds a minute.
Speaking of whom, Eve is doing pretty good. She's not doing any noticeable damage, it doesn't appear that the Snake's taken any noticeable wounds, but she's also not dead. She seems to have realized that staying in contact with Blutsagur isn't a good idea, since tries to keep the amount of blade-hand/Blutsagur contact to a minimum.
"Forgive me," the Snake says, "but you just aren't as fun to fight as Shana. Would you mind if I ended this quickly?"
Instead of waiting for a reply- Seems to be the theme for the day. The snake warps into the air, and unleashes a stream of hellfire upon Eve. Eve brings her hands together over her head morphing them into a shield to stave off the flames.
"Versatile, aren't you?" The Snake asks. "But how long can you hold out?"
*Boom*
The Snake is taken by surprise and falls to the ground. He looks at the source of that explosion, Fuka holding a baseball bat and tossing a bomb up and down.
"Want some more?" she asks.
The snake gets up, but Fuka starts batting bombs at him with reckless abandon. The Snake can't even do anything, he keeps getting blown up when he tries to stand up. ... How many bombs does she have? As if she heard me, Fuka reaches into what I guess are her pockets to get more bombs, only to come up empty.
"Out of SP already? Stupid level reset!" Fuka complains.
... Excuse me? Ignoring me because I have nothing important to say, Fuka gets her brand new axe out, and gets ready for the Snake to respond. He retaliates by charging her. He swings, she responds in kind, catching the sword with her axe. Nagi opens fire on the Snake again to provide cover, prompting him to jump backwards to dodge the fire. Backwards where Taiga and Ryuji were waiting to intercept him. They both attack him, but he notices a single second too early and teleports to a safer place.
"Good setup," he compliments the group. "Unfortunately, my time is wearing thin, so I'll follow through on my earlier suggestion and end this quickly."
When he finishes, he teleports away again, appearing in front of the Louises. His sword flashes as it swings, and Louise 2 is cut in half, the blade slicing through her waist, the two halves falling to the ground, with two resounding thuds. The Snake spins around, slicing again, and Louise 1 is cut off at the knees. As she starts falling to the ground, he bicycle kicks her, his foot connecting with her face, sending Louise 1 spiraling through the air before hitting the floor. He moves quickly, going for Fuka next. He grabs the handle of her axe, and then rotates her arm into a position arms shouldn't be in. There's a snap and a scream as Fuka's arm breaks, and she loses her grip on the double bladed axe. The Snake grabs the axe and plants one blade firmly into the ground before picking up Fuka and tossing her onto the axe, the second blade firmly digging into her back.
Hayate and Aria charge the Snake simultaneously, and he responds by erecting a wall a flame, that forces them to stop. Aria switches to her pistols and starts firing through the wall. The Snake appears right next to her as she pulls the trigger and redirects her aim. The fired bullet proceeds to hit Kinji in the stomach, sending him reeling. Luckily he still had it in him to fire his gun and successfully shoot the Snake of the Festival in the head.
The problem with that? Yuji's a cheater, that's what. I mean, what else do you call a guy who gets shot in the head and it does little but faze him? Gods are cheaters, I'll say that much. Kinji doesn't act surprised at this, and continues to rain bullets into the god. Nagi follows suit with her gun, paving the way for Eve to come in with a blade hand to the god's gut.
A burst of black flames emanates from the Snake's body- No fair bursting! Stupid ASW boss types. Aaaanyway, the fire knocks Eve back, and stops the gunfire as Nagi and Kinji shield themselves from the flare. The Snake takes advantage of the opening to grab Eve by the throat and lift her up off the ground. A column of black flames sprout up from the ground, coating Eve completely. She screams in pain as the fire burns her body. The torture last only a few seconds before the Snake simply discards her body, tossing her to the ground.
Yuji wastes no time and warps over to Aria. She raises her guns to fire, but he responds faster, delivering a roundhouse kick to the face, that spins her around, then kicking her feet out from under her, causing her to fall. While she's down, The Snake stomps down on her head. Hard. A brutal crunch resonates through the air, and Aria stops moving. He dashes over to Kinji and drives the hilt of his sword right into Kinji's stomach, making sure to hit right where Kinji had been shot. Kinji's stunned, and the Snake ends that fight by headbutting Kinji.
Hayate, Nagi, Taiga and Ryuji are the only ones left now. The Snake charges Nagi, likely to get rid of the last gun wield and reduce the number of people who can used ranged attacks to zero, but Hayate intercepts. Their swords bounce off of each other, and Taiga jumps in during the clash and swing her katana, successfully cutting off the Snake's arm. Unfortunately, it wasn't the arm holding his sword and he retaliates, this time with Ryuji coming in for the save. Blutsagur bounces off of Ryuji's sharpened chunk of metal, and Ryuji retaliates. The Snake catches the blade with his hand. The hand that was just cut off.
"You can regenerate? So not fair!" Nagi complains.
"Forgive me for not much caring for concepts like that," the Snake says, shortly before kicking Ryuji's leg in with a cringe inducing snap. ... Well, maybe it's me but I'm starting to get desensitized to all these bone crushing snaps. They're just not doing it like they used to. Dude. Not cool. That's his leg that just got snapped into an angle it shouldn't. 'I know! I just... I've gotten far to used to those kinds of things. It's a little sad.' Not the word I'd have used, but I'm not the one talking. Now get up and do something! 'Like what, pull the sword out of my shoulder and fight through what might be a concussion?' YES!
Ryuji, unable to stand on his broken leg, falls to the ground and is swiftly kicked in the head by the Snake.
"There's far too many of you. I'm running out of creative ways to do this," The Snake comments before raising his sword as if to strike. "No matter."
He brings his sword down and a tidal wave flows forth. It coats Hayate, Nagi and Taiga completely, burning them. When the flames die down the three are on the floor sporting third degree burns on over 90 percent of their body.
"There. Done. Really disappointing. Perhaps I had hoped for too much. Wouldn't you say, Saito?"
The Snake of the Festival stares me down as I use Derflinger to support myself as I get back up.
"I'm impressed. I'll be honest, I don't recall having to pull a sword out of myself. Perhaps you can enlighten me on how it feels?" He asks.
"Hurts like a bitch."
"I'd be shocked if it didn't," he replies with a smile. "You think you could fight me with that shoulder wound and that horrible, horrible headache?"
"No. Worth a shot though, isn't it? I hear gods are actually kind of overrated."
"Shall we find out?" He asks, readying Blutsagur. I respond by tightening my grip on Derflinger.
It ended in a few seconds. I was back on the ground, with the Snake standing over me.
"Now. Let's make sure you stay down."
There's a sharp pain in my head before everything does to black.
*Scene Break*
"Sigh. Didn't I tell him to hold back a bit?"
Louise stood in the greyed out courtyard and surveyed the aftermath of her proxy's work, pondering to herself.
"Is proxy the right word? Is handler even the correct term to refer to myself as? Having him call me master would just be weird. Handler and proxy work just fine. Now. What to do with this mess?"
Louise examined the multiple bodies scattered around the courtyard, all of which had varying levels of injuries. The blood coating the grass contrasting with the greyscale covering the world.
"No choice, I suppose."
She reaches into the pocket of her dress and pulls out a cell phone. She presses a few buttons and brings the phone to her ear.
"Hey, little sis? Yes it's me. No, I'm fine, thank you for asking. I was just wrapping up some work and was just wondering about something. Do we have any room at home? What? No! I just need to bring a few people in for medical attention. Um... one, two... eleven people, I think. Really? Awesome! No, I don't need help bringing them, thank you anyway. I'll bring them all over and be over right away. See you then."
Louise ends the call and puts her phone back in her pocket.
"Alright you guys, and don't you dare say I never did anything for you."
The girl with the mismatched eyes disappears from sight, followed shortly by the remaining bodies in the courtyard. Color returns to the academy, and life continues uninterrupted. Almost uninterrupted.
"H-huh? Wh-where did everyone go?" A very confused Ariana asks the nearby bedsheets.