085 - Captain Showdown!
Olga Marie Animusphere
"Sure! We'll accept your challenge!" Haku cheerfully accepts Drake's proposal, immediately making Olga relax.
She had been worried things might've devolved into all-out violence. While these pirates aren't much individually, the island is positively swarming with them. There's no telling how things might end up if they all take offense and join Drake's side. But now that it's come to this, there's nothing to worry about anymore.
Haku has defeated Servants in single-combat before. And not just weak Servants who barely qualify for the role, but full-on powerhouses like the terrifying Purple Lancer from the last Singularity. Surely, something like a pirate Servant or two won't even–
"I hope you're ready to face… Our Captain!" Olga's mind screeches to a halt.
"Eh?" There's a vague feeling that her words are echoed by others, but she doesn't quite register it. "What does that even mean?"
"What's wrong, Captain?" Haku has the gall to look confused! "Of course you'll accept the challenge, right? Mano a mano is a sacred tradition, we need to take it seriously."
"What does that even mean!?"
"A Captain is obviously the strongest member of any crew, isn't it?" Haku continues speaking words that make sense individually but become utter madness when combined. "It only makes sense that Captain is the one who fights!"
"Ah, so it's like that." Drake crosses her arms under her -rather impressive- breasts and nods sagely. "That makes sense."
No, it doesn't!
"Anyway…" Haku trails off, a very punchable smile on her face as she pushes Olga forward.
"Don't you dare 'anyway' me, Haku!" Olga tries to protest, but there's only so much she can do to resist a determined Haku. And she doesn't want to end up getting dragged across the floor, that would only make things worse. "I didn't agree to— Haku!"
"Looks like everyone's really looking forward to this already!" At Haku's comment, Olga takes a look around, finally noticing that the crowds have parted around Drake and her, clearing out a wide circle in the middle of the bar. "Anyway, shall we get this party started?"
"The party started last week, Carrotcake!" Drake cackles uproariously, setting down her guns to grab her bottle again. "How about this? Since Captain Fluffywhite looks a bit scared, I'll let her make the first move!"
C– Captain Fluffywhite!? Who does that lawless skank think she is!?
Sure, Haku's latest flight of fancy caught her by surprise. And, sure, she might be feeling a bit… intimidated at the sudden prospect of dueling a legendary pirate. B– But that doesn't mean that– The bitch doesn't need to–
As if reading her mind, the pirate scum sends her an unbearably smug look. Without breaking eye-contact at any point, the bitch goes grabs a bottle, empties it down her gullet and then lets it drop to the side, where it shatters into a million pieces against the floor.
"Did you just…?" Olga trails off incredulously.
"I just did." The sea cow arches an eyebrow, lips curving up into a grin of challenge. "What are you gonna do about it, Scaredy Captain Fluffywhite?"
Olga sees red.
"Scaredy–!?" She splutters in indignation. "Oh, that's it! I'll show you 'scaredy', scarface!"
"Oooooh! The sheep has claws!" The bitch crosses her arms again, without even bothering to hold her guns. "Those are fighting words!"
"Yahooo!" The (adorable) insufferable dolt who got her into this mess in the first place cheers from the sidelines. "Show them what's what, Cap'n!"
"Yes! Do your best Ol– I mean, Captain Olga!" Mashu joins in the cheering, adorably failing to fit in with the crowds of rowdy and stinky pirates around her. "You can do it!"
"Foufou!" Fou… Fous from his perch on Mashu's shoulder. "Fou!"
… Olga is choosing to take it as encouragement, too.
And then there's the huge crowd of people chanting Drake's name. From the floor, from the second floor, from the windows or even hanging from the lamps. But Olga is very pointedly choosing to ignore those. They don't matter. Drake matters. And Drake made the mistake of allowing her the first move.
With a sharp hand gesture, gems fly out of their containers and start orbiting her, glowing with ominous might.
"Don't underestimate me!" Father's indifferent glance stabs right through her heart, and her Magic Circuits flare to life. "[Glintstone Cometshard]"
Once again, the crystalized memories of strange stars are released in a burst of energy. Alien memories born of Foreign logic become destructive energy when they come into contact with Gaia's Texture, and are then channeled into specific patterns through formulas recorded within the Animusphere Family Crest to become a focused burst.
Not so long ago, the price of this spell would've been searing her hand to the bone, maybe her whole hand. But she hasn't stayed idle since that horrible moment when she died in the Fuyuki Singularity, she's worked hard and improved ever since. The excess energy is taken by the gems floating around her in her stead, crystalline lattice bursting under the thermal shock and melting down into white-hot droplets that are sent flying everywhere.
But they served their purpose, a teal comet rushes straight for the cow's face with a blinding explosion that wipes the smirk right off her scarred face. That's right, Olga's starting full throttle. This duel will be over with the opening move!
"How dangerous!" The treacherous scum throws herself to the side, cleanly getting out of the way as she finally grabs her guns and starts firing at Olga. "Let me pay you back for that!"
"Hey, how come!?" Olga protests indignantly, firing off more gems to intercept Drake's bullets mid-flight. "You dodged!"
"I said I would let you make the first move, not that I'd let you hit me with it!"
There's a huge trench in the ground that stretches out the building through a huge hole on the wall until it disappears into the next building over. The wooden floor has been ripped straight out to expose the basement underneath, and there's probably a lot of dead and wounded pirates that Olga doesn't want to think too much about.
Because the bitch dodged, so it was all pointless!
"Fine! I didn't expect a pirate of all things to have any sense of honor in the first place!"
"Ouch!" The skank cackles again, still firing her guns and dodging Olga's counter-fire without a care in the world. "I resemble that remark!"
Just how many bullets can she shoot without reloading from a damn flintlock pistol!?
"Take this!" Olga grits her teeth, initiating her next big move. "[Seeker Stars: Dead Weight]"
A barrage of black gems burst out of one of her pockets. They look like obsidian shards, but reflecting the light with iridescent patterns reminiscent of oil. Of course, the pirate scum easily dodges, but Olga just grins at the sight. She's confident these ones won't be so easily dealt with.
"What gives? They chase me around!?" It's Drake's turn to cry out in indignation when the [Seeker Stars] refuse to give up. "How would they like some lead!?"
She starts shooting down the gems, which shatter under fire and melt into a thick rubbery fluid that rains all over the floor before rapidly swelling in contact with air, rapidly swelling to many times its original volume. The Dead Weight series was originally designed as a form of restraint for unnaturally strong entities, an extremely sticky substance that offers resistance to motion while denying leverage.
Of course, they first need to hit, but the time Drake is wasting shooting them down still works to relieve the pressure on Olga herself. And she's about to demonstrate how much of a bad idea it is to give a magus the breathing room they need to set up.
Much to her surprise, some of the shots miss their targets and Drake gets hit by a couple [Seeker Stars], a mass of Dead Weight ballooning around her hip and another one between her shoulder blades. The pirate is at least smart enough not to try to remove them with her hands -she would just get them stuck on it too- but the Dead Weight will continue slowing her down for the rest of the fight.
Still, it's rare that Drake missed at all. The [Seeker Stars] are fast, but not Servant fast, and they aren't really capable of evasive maneuvers -something to work on in the future- so how come? What's more, now that she thinks about it, Drake's steps are somewhat unsteady too. Is she… drunk? It makes sense, right? She's supposedly been partying for a week straight and she just emptied a couple bottles one after another. Even if she's a legendary pirate, that's a lot of alcohol!
That's why, the fact Olga can't seem to wrap up the fight quickly becomes all the more annoying.
"You're a nuisance!" She complains when Drake shots down the last gem and turns her full attention back to Olga. "[Nebula Shove]"
Thrusting both hands forward, a burst of eldritch mist is violently released from her sleeves. It's purple and black, and an endless sea of stars that never existed can be seen through its roiling robe. Of course, this isn't a natural phenomena at all, and the shove carries enough physical force to send a van flying.
It pounces on Drake right as she was trying to rush into close quarters, her insufferably smug face disappearing amongst the swirling mist of stars. A normal person would be sent flying through the other side and probably get splattered into the wall. But when it comes to something like a Servant…
"Was that gentle breeze supposed to do anything?" The sea cow taunts from inside the mist. "I think it messed up my hair a bit."
But shoving enemies away isn't the only purpose of [Nebula Shove] it's not even the main one. This unfathomable mist, made out of impossible stars, is thick and impenetrable. A veil of darkness more effective than darkness itself, eldritch constellations that never existed playing with the senses of its victims. In here, knowing how to read Earth's heavenly dome will only trip you up even further.
But Servants are an impossible existence who pull off impossible feats in the regular, Olga knows better than to get overconfident and leave herself open to the unexpected. She has one more card to play.
"You tell me, scarface… Where am I?" She taunts from outside the mist. "[Orreries Solar System]"
"Here!"
Drake's response is almost instantaneous, a twin shot aimed straight at the source of Olga's voice. Even though the mists should distort her senses, even though she's drunk, even though there should be no way for her to know where Olga is standing anymore… The shot was fired with pin-point accuracy the moment she got serious. As expected, Servants are incredible.
But not incredible enough.
Eight orbs of different sizes and colors have taken shape around Olga, protectively orbiting around her like planets around the sun. They will block any harm aimed at their star, drawing both mass and energy towards themselves with the relentless surety of a planetary gravity well. This is the Animusphere's [Orreries Solar System].
Well… There's only seven orbs after that shot.
"Congratulations, you just killed Jupiter." Olga claps in amusement. "Where are you aiming, you drunkard?"
Even though the shot was perfectly aimed, even though she should've just been hit, she will shamelessly act like nothing's wrong. Once the planets start orbiting in earnest, they'll bounce around her own presence, obscuring her real position even further. And, no matter how well Drake aims, she's guaranteed to 'miss' at least seven more times.
More than enough room for some mind games.
"How interesting!" Drake cackles from inside the mists, not sounding intimidated in the slightest. "Bring it on then, Captain Fluffywhite!"
"You are insufferable, scarface!"
A strange form of battle begins. Olga can clearly see her opponent caught inside the mists, while Drake herself is blind. Olga can shoot freely against her opponent while Drake needs to break through a seven-layered protection to even start making progress. Olga is sober while Drake is feeling the intoxication more and more with every passing minute. To top it all off, the terrain is a mess with half the flooring missing and sticky traps scattered all over the other half.
Putting everything together, Olga would begrudgingly acknowledge that she's still at a disadvantage. That's how ridiculous of an existence a Servant is. That's how much further she needs to reach to catch up to Haku.
… But she's not at so much of a disadvantage that there's no way for her to win.
Besides, she's pretty sure she's identified the reason why Drake can still keep up in spite of the many advantages piled against her. [Pioneer of the Stars], a unique skill given to heroes who became the turning point in human history. It's sometimes considered the ability to turn 'impossibilities' into 'events that can be realized', but that's not quite it.
Rather, [Pioneer of the Stars] is the ability to walk down a path that's 'considered impossible' and still 'achieve success'. In other words, it's an acknowledgement of the feats they achieved by straying from well-tread roads to find their own way through the unknown. In other words, Drake can always find the right path to travel, but that only matters insofar as a right path exists.
Olga just needs to force a mistake.
And the eight extra chances bought out by her family's [Orreries Solar System] just barely granted her time to do exactly that!
She's been carefully maneuvering the sea cow into a position where there's no way out. It wasn't easy, and she's not sure she could've managed with a sober opponent -not that it would have mattered when a sober opponent wouldn't have given her the chance to try- but she has Drake cornered!
"I got you now!" She grins the moment the pirate bitch makes… no, the moment the pirate bitch is made to make her last mistake. "This time, with feeling!"
Crystalized memories of strange stars are released in a burst of energy. Alien memories born of Foreign logic become destructive energy when they come into contact with Gaia's Texture, and are then channeled into specific patterns through formulas recorded within the Animusphere Family Crest to become a focused burst.
What's better than one terrifying display of overwhelming firepower? Two of them!
"Tsk, that again? I can just dodg—!" Drake makes her own taunt, only to cut herself off when she realizes something vital. "Oh."
She's just stepped into one of the Dead Weight puddles. And the wooden planks under her are Reinforced to hell and back to keep her from simply tearing them off. There's no dodging this hit.
"Oh, indeed!" Olga's smirk turns downright vicious. "[Glintstone Cometshard]"
It's with extreme satisfaction that she watches the sea cow take her spell right in her dumb face. When the burst of focused energy finally petters out, her eyes have rolled up her skull and her hair looks like she just went through a wind tunnel. She's not dead, of course, because Servants are bullshit, but this is her victory.
Indeed, the moment the force of the spell stops propping the woman up, she collapses face first on the floor.
… Is this how Haku feels every time? Because Olga might get addicted!
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