imperial_stage | It's Time to Duel

Entry tags:

garviel,
signum

It's Time to Duel

Who: Signum, Garviel, and any spectators for the peanut gallery
What: A friendlier battle
When: During Summer Court
Where: On a list amidst the festivities happening in town

Signum hadn't been back to the capital since the previous Court - thinking back, it had been an eventful one. Meeting Shamal, having her first face-to-face encounter with Berserker, and that whole bloody coup that had come close to starting a war. Still, the parts she had actually been involved in she could almost look back on fondly, and coming here again with Hayate before her courses started at Onylith was certainly a pleasant experience. Especially since the theme for summer seemed to be much, much more sensible than the one for spring.

After some time wandering around enjoying the spectacle of people fighting and competing in various sports (and making sure Hayate stays shaded and hydrated in this heat), Signum spots someone she knows.

"Ah, if it isn't the dictator of Rome," she said, tone much more familiar than the title as she greeted Garviel near a large, open park that was playing host to one of the sports tournaments.

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Garviel pauses, having been observing a Ferinus Aer demonstration match. He looks at her, stone-faced for a moment, and then a slow, and somewhat secret smile spreads over his craggy visage.

"Signum. I have heard tell that you and Mamzel Yagami will soon be taking up residence in Onylith?"

Signum nods. "Between the two of us, Avenger left a fair bit of power behind...she's going to need the training."

She looks over the other knight's shoulder (somehow.) "Aren't you playing in the tournament for this sport?"

Garviel nods his head, and looks down at Signum, "I am, and... I welcome you both. Hayate is very dear to me, as..." He looks as though he might say a bit more, but stops himself, just holding her gaze, expression stony, though there is a gentleness about his gray eyes.

"A thought occurs to me. In all our battles, we have either fought side by side, or I fought only to lose, and in so doing convince you of my ideals. You and I have never gone blade to blade, without noble phantasm or the use of Tarot. It would be a great honor to test myself against the skill of a Wolkenritter."

"Challenging me to a duel? Aren't you a century or two too young for that?" Signum asks with a smile. Nonetheless, she looks almost eager, and looks left and only slightly down at Hayate, her expression asking for permission.

Garviel waits until that exchange is over, and says, "Even if I am something of a puppy to you, I still wish to test my strength against the ideal. To face someone with honor and worth."

He looks her in the eyes, a mix of emotions, all of them fairly positive, in his own. He shifts, and briefly brings a fist to his chest, the old symbol of Unity. It is not as old as the Wolkenritter's iconography, but it is the most ancient show of respect that he knows.

Signum returns the salute, and bows slightly to say she accepts the challenge.

"Alright. My sword against your tools, no magecraft except for protection, and no unlocked Noble Phantasms. Are those satsifactory conditions?" she asks, stepping back and transforming Laevatein into its sheathed sword form. "I think these people are about finished, so we can use this court if you like."

"Indeed. But I'll not be using my bolter. Just blade against blade." The way it was in the Vengeful spirit's sparring cages. Like the old days, really, he muses to himself.

He moves to the court, drawing his chainsword and taking a two-handed grip. Waiting for her to take her stance, almost statue-like in his stillness. The Berserker curse far from him, now, not because of suppression but because of the utterly ritualized nature of this challenge. He clings to the old ways because they are his anchor, what he knows. He clings to these connections to his old life. In a way... Signum is one of those anchors, though he'd never admit it on a conscious level. A bridge to the time of Legends and larger than life demigods.

On some level, Signum's aware of that hero-worship. Even with her more complete memories of her past now, she still rejects it. She and Garviel are both just soldiers. Beloved by their masters and the people they protect, maybe, but just soldiers. Still, as a warrior, it feels good to be able to let loose and test her strength against an honorable opponent, now and then.

She stands herself a dozen paces away from the other Servant, unhooking her scabbard from her belt. Without the unfair advantage of flight, she'd have to be ready to defend herself from heavy attacks directly.

When Garviel looks ready, she draws her sword slowly and sets herself in a defensive stance, waiting to see if the man would make the first move.

He does make the first move, leaping forward in a full-tilt charge, the tip of the chainsword shrieking and spinning with adamantine teeth as he goes for a lunging thrust, a somewhat unorthodox motion with the chainsword which is primarily a slashing weapon.

Something she'd noticed in their first duel, even if he wasn't fighting seriously, was his speed and sheer mass. Combined with that slightly terrifying mashup of a sword, Signum knows she can't block a charge head-on. At the volcano, she had used her magic to keep him back on his heels and unable to charge, only to find that fighting wasn't his intention. Here, in a straightforward swordfight, she'd have to adapt her style differently.

Maintaining her focus on Garviel, rather than his sword, Signum sidesteps, slashing across her body with both sword and scabbard to send the chainsword and the man behind it wide to her left. As Garviel's momentum carries him forward, she hooks her left leg out in a snap-kick toward his knee to try and break his balance. Signum has seldom fought humans larger than herself, but that doesn't mean she hasn't learned how, either.

Garviel is sidestepped, and the slash and scabbard forces him to defend himself with a clumsy sweep of the chainsword, out of place and extended from the earlier thrust. Combined with the bad angle of the defensive sweep, he's easy enough prey for the staggering effects of the snap kick, his footwork briefly baulked by the strike, though he doesn't look to have been harmed by it. His blade dips as he turns, briefly out of position due to the desperate defense he just attempted, leaving an opening that Signum may be able to exploit.

Normally, Signum would be able to make a decisive strike right at that moment on an opponent as slow as Garviel...unfortunately, his armor is very good, and she's not about to claim victory by clanging Laevatein off of whatever monstrosity his plate was made of.

Besides, she knows that he knows that in a serious fight, this opening would be enough to cook him alive in there.

Instead, with a spin, she brings Laevatein's hilt around to crash in through the opening Garviel left with enough force to dent steel, hoping to knock the once-Berserker fully to the ground so she could feasibly put a point under his helmet.

Loken is almost bowled over by the strike, and his helmet flies free, seals tearing loose and gouging his face as they tear away, helmet making a bell-like sound as it clatters across the stones of the Imperial City.

The force of the strike sends him into a controlled spin, backhanding a blow at Signum with great force at about her midsection, the chainsword ripping. Garviel is trying to tear into her barrier jacket and knock her down.

The only sound he makes, aside from a brief grunt as his helmet is torn free, is the low gasps of his breathing, obviously lost to the moment of the fight, his eyes narrowed as he watches her movements.

Signum didn't see the desperate counterstrike coming, and she's knocked aside by the sheer weight of Garviel's gauntleted arm.

That would be why I wasn't supposed to let him hit me..., she thinks.

The teeth of the chainsword tear a shallow gash through her magically-projected armor, not enough to give her more than a scratch on her flesh, but opening a dangerously long gap in the clothing across her upper stomach. Meanwhile, she does her best to land gracefully without abusing flight magic, coming to rest in a low crouch several yards away. She pauses there for a moment, ready to spring, and staring back with violent intensity at Garviel's revealed face, trying to read his next move.

After he recovers from the spin, he bulls towards her, his face bloodmasked and set in a look of stern concentration. The movement of his eyes indicate, if only briefly, and overhand chop from the chainsword, and that is indeed what comes. Against a human it would be inevitably deadly merely based on transhuman speed and strength. Against a Wolkenritter there was enough time to defend, much as if he were facing off against another Astartes.

For the barest moment, his eyes flicker down to notice the gap in her clothing and armor. A mental mistake! he chides himself, as he tries to finish the fight with the chop, hoping the millisecond distraction hasn't destroyed his technique entirely.

Signum sees an opening, if only just. She brings her sword and scabbard up in a cross to stop his chainsword, not caring in the least what it might do if it got through that defense - it simply will not. Matching his gaze, she proceeds to give a hard, straight kick to the other knight's chest to break his momentum and, should she break the bind like that, to whip her sword loose and whirl it just far enough to scratch the tip of his nose.

Hopefully that would draw blood and end the duel, because she was sure that even with his grip broken she couldn't hold that chainsword back one-handed for more than a couple of seconds.

Garviel is stopped cold, struggling, having chopped down one handed, and when kicked, he grunts, the servos of his armor screaming as they attempt to compensate for the force of her blow and keep him moving forward, making his movements awkward and ugly. The whirling blade scythes in towards his nose and.... his brings his left arm up, trying to deflect the blade off his vambrace at the last moment, sparks and ceramite flying free from the force of the intercepted strike. He actually withdraws a step, disengaging, weaving his blade in a wall of adamatine teeth to present a formidable defense as he attempts to re-assess the fight.

"I suspect you are my better." He rumbles, his first comment in the fight proper.

He waits for her attack, clearly switching strategies now. He needs to learn her pattern, and break it, just as he did against Lucius.

"A reasonable suspicion, but you're doing quite well. I'd gotten to used to fighting fast, fragile swordsmen," Signum admits, thinking back to her fights with Saber and Assassin. Those weren't even that long ago, were they...?

Signum slips her scabbard back onto her belt and takes Laevatein in an overhead position, seeking a gap in Garviel's defensive weave. Without the ability to move around it or shoot through it, that would be slightly problematic. She lunges forward, testing, thrusting into the middle of his defense to see if she can shake his pattern.

His defense is very, very good, but for a moment he seems to lower his guard, inviting a thrust. If she takes advantage of it he'll counter her thrust with a turn away from the incoming thrust, his right side swinging back like a gate as he unleashes left-handed back knuckle intended to smash her hard in the nose, the same move he used to best Lucius, his better in blade to blade combat amongst the Emperor's Children. It will only work once, and probably less well against Signum, who has already changed up and used a few kicks and non-traditional strikes instead of being blindly obsessed with sword-work as the Captain of the Emperor's children was.

A true swordswoman knows that her body ~~is made out of swords~~ and her blade are one and the same thing. She recognizes it even more for her opponent when he is covered in spiky adamant.

Signum lunges in, unwilling to leave a stalemate and lose her rhythm, and is parried as she expects she probably will be. Seeing his movement, she does her best to ignore her shock and spins over her right shoulder to disengage and get out of the path of his strike, taking only a glancing hit on her cheek that was likely to leave a bruise. The sudden evasion, though, leaves her too off-balance to do anything but put her guard back up.

Loken closes, sweeping in a right-handed slash across her midriff to try to force her into a clearing parry, then follows up if she does sweep the blade away with a charging shoulder-rush, trying to smash her to the ground with his bulk, and put his blade at her throat if he can.

His face is grim as he closes, eyes showing little but intense concentration. Gone is the psychotic destructiveness of a Berserker, instead, he fights with technical skill, physical strength, and an aggressiveness that was the hallmark of Horus' own Legion, a ferociousness on the attack that made them masters of the speartip, the shock assault. Close combat, and going right for the throat. Not for him the slow attrition battles of the Imperial Fists, or the patient war of the Salamanders. No, this exchange will be decisive, one way or another.

Edited 2012-08-03 19:11 (UTC)

Signum, knowing where her armor had been compromised, parries as Garviel expects and is smashed by his followup shoulder rush.

There's not much she can do as she goes down under the sheer mass of the Astarte and his armor, but there's only two things she needs to do. First, she falls back along with the weight that's toppling above her, setting herself to fall on her back with both legs and an arm up to stop him from smashing completely into the ground.

Second, as Garviel falls on her and puts his blade across her neck, Signum takes Laevatein in one hand and, with the care only possible for a veteran swordsman, brings Laevatein up so that the point rests under Garviel's exposed chin when they're finally both on the ground, face-to-face and stuck in a position that would be fatal to both of them without careful control.

She did have to give him credit for the sheer intimidation value of the buzzing chainsword, and the fact that he'd managed to get on top, though.

"I think this is a draw," she admits, looking up at Garviel and praying that there wasn't any temporary slip into bloodlust to cause that chainsword to dip.

Loken spends a moment looking into her eyes, chainblade still churning, then the weapon shuts off, unable to nod his assent, he simply withdraws his own weapon, and stands up his left arm slipping almost too naturally around Archer's waist to help her up as well.

"Indeed." His hand lingers there for a few seconds longer than it has to, and he steps back swiftly, aware there are people watching, people that will likely be mocking this.

"I think we'll have to do this again in the Fall, until a clear winner can be determined."

He turns away a bit as he says this, as if to conceal some embarassment on his part. Or maybe to conceal the fact that he desperately hopes she'll agree to it.

Signum's taken by surprise herself at immediately being swept up onto her feet - enough for a brief blush - but she quickly regains her composure enough to clear her throat and agree with Garviel.

"Yes, definitely. I'll be sure not to underestimate you next time."

[Well, this looks exciting. Lancer is just gonna stand here and watch the fight and/or drool at Signum.]

Garviel notices, and stares at Lancer.

"What are you doing?"

He almost snarls, chainsword still churning.

Ah? Nothing, of course. I ain't gonna interfere in any possibly belligerent and possibly sexual tension you guys have.

Garviel just growls, "Go away."

What? I never knew you had to pay money to watch.

"If we have an audience, we have an audience. It's not like it's worth chasing off one boy when we're in the middle of a city in broad daylight," Signum says, more annoyed at being interrupted than anything else.

Loken nods, turning back to Signum, saluting her again with the chainsword before launching himself back into the fight.

[Lancer grins at Signum.]

Didn't take you to be the understanding sort, but thanks.

[He looks back at Garviel.]

Hey, Cerberus! You better do pretty good if you want me to cheer for you! Or else I'm gonna be cheering on this lassie over here.

[ Oh. Now this should be fun to watch. Not that I-No is particularly good at just watching. ]

Cheating on me already? I'm appalled.

Loken responds only with a quiet glare.

She winks back at him. "Don't worry, honey, I won't object as long as you promise to share."

"Do you mind?" Signum calls across the field. "We're in the middle of something here."

"Then don't let me interrupt. I can just watch for now."

Loken waits for Signum to return to the fight, and rumbles to her during a blade-lock. "She's been a pest for about a week now, trying to sneak into my bedroom in the Domus Aurea for soome reason. I thought she was an assasin but...."

He breaks the lock, sweeping back into the fight.

"Ah, ah."

Levin nods his head in approval as they spar. "In terms of looks, a stellar showing from the secretive Signum. Fighting technique, unparalleled. Personality, sharp, but even the keenest of blades will dull after wear. Aaand... well, no need to be as lewd as to mention assets in a situation like this.

"Wonder if I can get my hands on something she wrote..."

This would all be much less awkward if Levin wasn't playing one of Dagaria's most well-known love songs as loudly as possibly. (It was called the Cicada Lovers and it was about a man who waited 17 years underground for his lover only to die a week later.)

Loken, all snarling hostility towards their other watchers, instead simply shifts his body slightly as Levin approaches, a certain suggestion of amusements from the big man's partially concealed body language.

Levin is nothing if appreciative of an audience. Once he sees that Garviel is watching, he flashes two thumbs up and a ridiculous Cheshire cat grin.

The music softens a little into a more delicate part of the melody.

"Your friend has a very odd taste in battle music."

That's Signum's only comment as she continues trying to find an opening in Garviel's defenses.

"Levin is interesting. A drunken, womanizing wastrel."

He seems to be playing hard to get, as far as openings go, however, feinting, his blade moving so fast it looks almost like a flickering flame.

"And a truth teller. My best friend, I suppose."

"Ouch."

Levin's harp simultaneously breaks all its strings at this description. Way to throw your best pal to the wolves, Garviel.

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It's Time to Duel

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Well that was bound to happen eventually.

LOL I was hoping I'd get the megablush emote too, darn.

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