Here's a little snippet I worked on while trying to get into the MPII writing groove again. It features one character you all should know real well by now, plus someone who will make an appearance a while later in the story, with a very interesting role to play. I think this alone should stir up some interest in the guy, at the very least.
And so, without any further ado...
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The innumerable lights of the stars above were the only illumination for a long strip of concrete on the edge of Washington, D.C. It was a lonely place, devoid of any activity, its only visitors pale scraps of paper scattered by the midnight breeze. The air was cold, the ground was cold, and the only sound was silence.
Yet, there were two people there, their figures vague in the very dim light that stretched over the defunct airstrip, almost invisible in the night. It wasn't pitch black - in a big city, nowhere this open to the sky could get nearly that dark - but the bare hints of visibility had a foreboding all their own. One of the two figures stepped forward, a heavy hand lifted to his brow, and he tossed a mane of thick red hair behind his shoulder. The silence was, to him, absolutely perfect. Any enemy that came here, far from the battles in the core of the city, would be at his mercy. He'd made this place his territory, scouted it out and ensured that both he and the shorter person following him knew this old tarmac from end to end.
The man gripped a quiver that lay tight to his belt, and he squinted his eyes to get a look at whatever might have been coming through the darkness. He'd stand his ground here as long as it took, so long as he captured some foe in his vast net. The more attentive he required himself to be, the greater the chance that he could bring about a crushing, decisive victory. For that was what he wanted, to face a foe worthy of being fought, and seeing that foe's life extinguished like a candle's flame.
Then, it arrived: a bolt of gold and blue in the twilight sky, traversing the heavens like mere property, with a view of the city even the man on the ground could admire.
"There it is, Master!" Said the big man with a laugh, pointing up at the speeding object. "Someone worthy of my power, I'd hope!" A wide grin could be seen on his face as he watched the light streak across the blanket of stars, swooping and descending near the river, turning and coming into view. The man stroked his beard, gazing on at the spectacle with cheerful curiousity.
The light flashed once, revealing an even greater, radiant hue than what it seemed to possess before; a set of finely groomed horses could be seen galloping onwards closer and closer to the ground, the beating of their hooves on the air making no noise until they hit the concrete at a high speed. They touched down at the end of the landing strip, and their momentum carried them further as the wheels of a royal chariot rattled along the paved ground, and the hooves clacked in perfect harmony. Just a few metres in front of the man and his Master the lead horses stopped, their feet giving one last, triumphal beat against the ground as the whole machine came to a halt.
Behind them, in the chariot itself, were two people: one was a woman in a sleek gown, holding onto the side of the vehicle and trying to steady herself; the other was a figure so tall and grand that he radiated greatness and power with just his appearance alone. Standing on his chariot he was the tallest thing around in the bare airfield, his chariot producing a brilliant light that enveloped the whole area. In his hand he held the haft of a mighty axe, its scalloped blade reflecting the light along its edge. The face of the man couldn't be seen at first, as he wore an exquisite, golden mask striped with blue, the edges of the eyes marked with a black paint like makeup, and the lips and brow unmoving.
With a calm sort of elegance the man removed his mask, revealing dark skin and a neutral, serene expression like a statue come to life. His beard was long and tightly braided , descending from his chin and perfectly groomed; on his head remained a crown like cobalt and gilded hair, inscribed with ancient symbols and centred by a coiled snake, looking ready to strike. His armour was light, the lower half mostly a white silk robe over gold greaves, and his chest protected by matching, slender plates all connected, with a story seemingly written into them; only pauldrons and heavy, leather-backed gauntlets protected his hands and arms. He wore all the trappings of a peerless king, and his gaze and demeanour seemed perfectly appropriate for a man of that stature.
His lips curled into a cold sneer. "Is this all I must face? I had hoped for more, but perhaps you will surprise me with hidden depths or ancient mysteries at your immediate command." His off hand dismissed the reigns of his team of horses, and he leaped gracefully down from his perch to stand on the same level ground as the man he had noticed from far off.
Their eyes met, and immediately the man who had been waiting here felt some contempt for his foe.
"A man's worth should be in the skills he has, not what treasures he owns." He scoffed, indicating with a nod the chariot and its radiant glow. One hand began slowly working its way towards his quiver, and he readied his posture to allow him to more easily slip his bow off of his back.
The very form of the grand king seemed to flicker in the night, as if it wasn't all there. "We are heroes, are we not? Our worth is in the legends told about us, our fame that grants us these treasures and these skills. Above all, those are the makings of a true hero. An entire country owes its golden age to my illustrious rule, and I was more than compensated."
"I can say the same."
"What class are you, Servant?" Asked the king, a hint of curiousity in his voice as he began to regard this man differently, though he was by all appearances was a barbarian: fur-lined leather made up the bulk of his armour, with the only hints of power or wealth being a shirt of silk underneath a lamellar breastplate, and pauldrons of the same make.
The man pulled his heavy coat close to his body as a nightly wind ran through the flat tarmac. "I am Rider."
"Rider?" The king gripped the length of his axe more tightly, not letting the wind rattle it away from him. "I am of the same class, Rider, and I will be so magnanimous as to tell you my name: I am Ramesses II, the greatest pharaoh of the ancient civilization of Egypt, splendid, divine ruler and a man beloved by his people. Your land, whatever it may be, could never match the grandeur of Egypt at its height, when I paved the streets with smooth sandstone and crushed the enemies of my gods and my people under my heel." He stamped the ground in emphasis as he ended the recitation of his glorious past.
"You came here to fight, though, didn't you?" Rider narrowed his eyes as he checked for any advantage the pharaoh could have been hiding, on his person or in his chariot. The radiance of power that he exuded couldn't be overstated, and that he seemed almost like a spirit was more than suspicious even without examination.
Ramesses let the head of his axe slip forward, biting into the ground with a clack of solid metal. "Indeed, I have. Shall we begin, then, my esteemed opponent? I wish that I knew your name, but perhaps it will be more satisfying to wrench it out of you as you are forced to use every last one of your Noble Phantasms to stop me."
"I won't be merciful, if that's what you're asking." Said Rider with a shrug. He glanced once at his Master, who knew to stay out of the way, casting an illusion to disappear from immediate detection. Rider smiled, looking back at his opponent.
It was Ramesses who made the first move: he rushed forward, taking up his divine-forged axe in both hands, preparing to cleave his foe right in two as soon as was possible. He put a great deal of strength behind the blow, yet he showed no strain nor effort; his expression was still calm and understanding, as if this all meant nothing to him.
His downward slice struck concrete as rider slipped out of the way, drawing an arrow and readying his bow simultaneously and with remarkable speed. He notched an arrow just as Ramesses was spinning about with his axe, facing Rider once again; the arrow was loosed in just a fraction of a second, but Ramesses would not be taken down so easily. He laughed at the incoming projectile, and swatted at it with the bare blade of his weapon; it split in two and harmlessly struck against the ground, and Ramesses only laughed more when he heard Rider clicking his tongue in frustration.
Another missed swing was so close as to blast Rider with a sweeping gust of air, tossing up dirt and junk from the ground and throwing it about recklessly. The blast was hot, as if the very air itself had been heated by the friction of the axe's blade.
Ramesses struck the blunt end of his axe against the dirt. "Isis. Ra. Ptah. Horus. Osiris." His words had a power all their own, reverberating in the very ground. "Grant your loyal servant the power that he deserves, to destroy this foe and end their very existence." The ends of his axe blade extended, and hieroglyphs on the shaft shimmered with a golden light as the blade's edge glowed a royal blue. Raw magical energy crackled about the weapon and Ramesses' hands, and a cruel smile broke the veneer of calm he held.
"Mercy is not a tenet of Ma'at."
The weapon he held burnt the air with each swing, making the cool, natural scent of the night air vanish into a strong, heady smell like a burning forest, thick and choking. The swirling blasts of wind that followed each swing were amplified, smoldering the very air around and sending it out in a torrent of heat and vicious power. Rider could hardly keep up, and he knew that nothing he had on hand could possibly match this Noble Phantasm that Ramesses held. Still, he wasn't the kind of person to merely give up when faced with an impossible foe. No, he would retaliate regardless of the odds, and with overwhelming force. That was his strategy.
Firing one last arrow at the King of Kings, an arrow that struck his armour and bounced away ineffectually, Rider made a daring move: he ran, pounding his feet against the cement below him, his legs propelling him forward and past Ramesses, moving with an elegance that the pharaoh didn't expect of a man that appeared to be little more than a barbarian. Rider dived forward, rolling and striking the ground, but narrowly dodging a hot gust of air that tore up the tarmac like brittle glass; he whispered something to himself, quiet enough that Ramesses couldn't hear over the crackling of his axe's own energy, and where he was once striding on his own two feet, he now rode upon a horse, galloping at an immense speed. Ramesses nodded, understanding the nature of an ordinary Rider's main Noble Phantasm, and just as well understood that what appeared to be a simple horse may have had something sinister and powerful lying in wait.
He stood perfectly still, watching Rider rush to one end of the landing strip, then do a half-circle turn to face him again, an almost maddened look on his face. Ramesses kept up his casual sneer, and readied the edge of his axe to catch the man as he rode by.
Rider now had no bow in his hand, replacing it with a vicious, spiked flail, a weapon dangling loosely from its chain and held not far from the rumbling ground below. He closed his eyes, listening to the thump of his horse's hooves upon the cement like a heartbeat, and he took in one deep breath. Galloping even faster, and heading straight for Ramesses, he appeared utterly reckless, even suicidal. He began swinging the flail around, its rhythm uninterrupted and its weight audible as it struck the air. It was nothing like the axe Ramesses wielded, but it was a powerful weapon in its own right, and one that Rider had great respect for.
Just as Rider passed on his powerful steed, Ramesses' axe struck the man straight in the chest, connecting in a perfect blow that could have leveled an entire building without any effort at all. Yet, the rider on the horse was completely unfazed, the axe blade cutting a massive gash in his torso that nearly no one could survive; his grin didn't fade, and the only indication that anything had happened was a bloodied cry from the horse itself as it tumbled down to the ground in an inelegant, painful writhing of hooves and hair. It was lifeless in an instant.
Yet, something more had happened in that tiny window of time, just after Ramesses had cut into Rider with his unstoppable axe: the flail, much more than it appeared to be, struck Ramesses right in the leg, ignoring his armour and shattering his bones as if they were unprotected and flimsy as twigs. The king was forced to one knee, his face contorting in pain that he had rarely felt before. This was an insult, an offence to his glory that he had never expected even though he had felt himself prepared.
Rider was on his feet again, bow in hand with an arrow already notched. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air, and Rider was slowly stepping backwards. He wasn't without injury: each step he took pained him clearly, and the deep, bloody wound he'd suffered wasn't entirely healed yet.
"You... you dare?" Ramesses clutched his axe so tightly that his palm began to bleed as his fingers dug into his flesh. Now, his axe was as much a weapon as it was a crutch for him to lean on while his leg knitted itself back together. Yet, a fire still burned in his eyes, and it was clear that he wasn't going to stop just now. Still he wanted blood to be shed, and he locked gazes with Rider for the final time.
Mustering all his strength, he raised himself up to his feet and lifted his axe all the way up and over his head, glancing just slightly to the left of Rider, at seemingly empty space where aircraft once landed and took off. The concrete there was untouched by the battle, but there was something off about it, something that Ramesses noticed immediately and was more than willing to exploit.
Instead of bringing the weight of his axe down onto where Rider was standing, the pharaoh struck the blade upon the length of the airstrip, letting the weapon's weight bring it crashing into the ground with a sound like a thousand claps of thunder roaring over in the clear, starry sky above. The ground shook, nearly knocking Rider off of his feet, and concrete splintered apart and flew into the air, exploded out from the impact of Ramesses' great axe. Nothing could stand against Ma'at when it was blessed with its fullest power, and when Ramesses put all of his strength and ancient rage behind one solid strike. The ground was torn up, dirt and cement mixing in a hail that rained down for nearly a minute, as if the whole place had been bombarded by heavy artillery.
In the long, thin crater that was left behind in the wake of the blow, there lay a mangled, broken body, its life utterly extinguished as soon as the power from Ramesses axe was unleashed on that space. Only Rider was left there to gaze with empty eyes at where his Master, who had been hiding away from the whole battle, was inexorably dead. Rider felt their spiritual connection sever with a decisive, jerking snap, and he knew that his time was limited.
Before him, the mighty pharaoh laughed at his dire misfortune. "I will leave you here, my subject, to die a painful and meaningless death. I hope you can find some enjoyment in your final moments before my gods, the true pantheon of this world, claim your soul." Without looking back even once, he walked over to his chariot and jumped in, disappearing with a rocketing blast forward, tearing up into the sky to rejoin the heavens. He had to reason to stay any longer.
Rider was exhausted, and nearly fell over at the weight of this occurrence. He had been entirely ruined by that one King of Kings, and he rested against the corpse of his favourite horse, supporting himself with a weakened arm as the creature disappeared on the air, returning without a sound into its essence as a Noble Phantasm. It wasn't destroyed, but it was still a marker of the psychological blow that had been dealt to Rider in just a short period of time. He felt empty, and just as Ramesses had so callously stated, his very existence felt painful and meaningless.
He had lost nearly everything to that King, who hadn't even tried to win.
Yet, there was one thing Rider knew that Ramesses did not:
The man rising up to his feet despite all that had happened, was a king himself.
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Oho, who is this mysterious new Servant, and how was he able to put up a fight again Ramesses? Well, you'll find out... later in the story~
I hope you all found it interesting, though. I couldn't let you see any of his real Noble Phantasms, though, which is a bit of a pity. That just would've made guessing his identity far too easy, though.
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Originally Posted by food
