Cross Effects 3.0 - The Third Time's the Charm? Colosseum

[Umbra of Chaos]

PARIAH didn't move an inch as his opponent moved above him and struck at his back. Even after his head was removed from his shoulders his body didn't budge.

Then biomass moved and bone was shaped as the child's head grew back in an instant. He turned around and charged at the black knight with enough force to shatter the stone beneath his feet. One tendril snagged his old head and assimilated the biomass while two others were sent flying at the knight's spear to counter any attack. The two blunt ones launched at his opponent's head and abdomen which left the last one aimed at the knight's legs in case he attempted to move away again.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lorenzo smirked at the aftermath of his attack. His plan went off more smoothly than he planned, almost too smoothly...

It seemed victory was on his side, but turning around, he saw a familiar silhouette. Fate was a vicious wench one would say.

Oh blast me.

The pirate winced in disgust, his opponent should have perished from that, and yet he seemed even stronger than before.
Even worse, the enemy was now armored, his rapier would be much less effective. However, Lorenzo had two advantages. First of all, the darkness of the area was something he was accustomed to, he could easily see the armored man even in pitch black dark.

And it was readying. Pyre grew and danced over the two men, fire spread at a monstrous rate as Lorenzo readied himself for a terrifying fire attack.

Swiftly slipping from cover to cover, Lorenzo readied himself for the attack.

[Panda]

Adjutor opens his mouth to invoke Valmanway's secondary ability, when fire spread everywhere on the floor above them, visible through the gaping hole in the ceiling, almost as fast as the Fire Concept's own infernos.

It was obvious by now that this man's specialty was in manipulating fire, likely an art he'd trained continuously ever since he'd gained access to it.

So let's see how you do without any fire to work with.

Hey, whoa, wait a minute, he can make his own, we saw him do so back in the courtyard.

And he's probably limited with what he can do without an active fire-source.

And the maneuver you're planning is going to do the same for us, only with all of the Elementals.

We're not beating this guy in a contest of magic. Not like this.

Adjutor sighs, then gets up out of cover, looking around for the pirate and finding him moving from cover to cover.

Fast as you maybe, we're still faster.

Adjutor dashes forward, a black streak weaving through the cover with on Reinforced and Armored legs as he charges Lorenzo, aiming to grab the pirate and take Lorenzo with him.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Fast...

Lorenzo barely had time to react before he was spotted. A quick blur was all he could see before he was violently grabbed by his opponent.

Resistance was futile, he knew better than to struggle against an opponent of such strength. Instead, he embraced the enemy with open arms, grabbing him in turn.

"I'm not coming with you, you're coming with me!", the pirate roared with a feral rictus.
Grabbing on tightly, Lorenzo focused all into this attack, every flame that stood now moved erratically, swirling faster and faster until the pyre simply... fell.

A literal rain of fire, nothing could stand in it's way. Because both opponents were grappling at each other, dodging would not be an option.

Too late.

And everything burned, nothing could stand in the flame's wake, but even surrounded by pyre, Lorenzo did not even flinch. No flame of his could harm him, he would remain unburned and unharmed by the attack. His enemy, however...

[Panda]

Adjutor grins behind the armor as the fire starts to come down. Too slow. Before it can touch down, he's already moving with the pirate, a task made easier by the pirate embracing him in return. A foot touches the shadow of some of the rubble and Adjutor slips inside, still holding on to the pirate as they crash down in the shadows.

Here, the shadows are the only light and the only ground, and all else is an infinite dark abyss. It is here that the two continue to struggle with one another, while the pyre outside moves the shadows of the rubble, changing the geometry slightly but not destroying it at all.

Welcome to the shadows, pirate.

[Kotomine_Rin]

The whole world turned black.

Lorenzo could but gasp at this sudden turn of events, dumbfounded by it all. Until then, he had carefully tried to plan his way to victory, always staying one step ahead his opponent.

But no man could keep their cool after witnessing something like THAT.

Quickly, he kicked off the opponent with all his might, gaining some distance. Lorenzo now stood baffled by this turn of events. His plan was flawless, it should've-

No. That's not it, I must've underestimated him!

Yes, as Lorenzo glared furiously at his enemy, teeth gnashing and hands clawing, he took a deep breath.
And suddenly, a sickeningly smug smile crawled on the man's lips.

Without wasting any time, Lorenzo dug his rapier into the shadowed ground, and recited words imbued with magic.

As he spoke, distorted words echoing like a deathly bell, the ground began to... shake. It almost seemed as if the shadow seeped with something.

The earth, or whatever the two stood upon, bubbled with heat, waves clashing against each other and circling Lorenzo until it all ended with an enormous pillar of smoke, in the middle of this pillar stood a single flame shaping itself in all oddities.

It almost looked... like a ship.

And watching the world from the soaring ship above stood Lorenzo Remei, a great grin formed on his bloodied face.

[Kaze]

The spear cleaved through his opponent's neck with ease, leaving the severed head to fall to the ground. Lancelot relaxed his stance with a mix of relief and disappointment.

Except the rest of the body didn't follow. Dark grey matter flowed up from the hole between the shoulders, forming into yet another head in less than a second. Another tendril reached out from the boy's body and snatched up the severed head, breaking it down into more of that same grey-black substance and absorbing it into himself. As the monster turned to face him, Lancelot's lips parted slightly in an expression of shock that was hidden by his helmet.

Then it charged, it's very footsteps shattering the stone tiles as it sprinted at him. The dark knight backpedaled as fast as he could, reacting to the incoming tentacles almost before he perceived them. With a twirling motion, the tip of his spear sliced at the two closest to him, cutting off the tips, but that barely even seemed to slow them down. The tendrils closed in, going for his head, his feet, his midsection, and Lancelot furiously cut them away only for them to grow back and keep coming.

Suddenly two tendrils, one from each side, grabbed onto both ends of the spear with an iron grip, locking it in place. In the milisecond it took to let go of the shaft of the weapon, the boy - whatever it was - closed to point-blank range and hammered the former Knight of the Lake with a lightning-fast tentacle strike. While the armor was unaffected, the man beneath it felt as though he had just taken a direct hit from a lance in a jousting match. The sheer force of the blow sent him sailing backwards through the air before his back slammed into a stray tree.

Rattled from being so viciously thrown around, Lancelot staggered for a moment before he regained his balance. With no weapon in hand, he reached down to pick up the two largest stones on the ground within reach. The stones immediately blackened and criss-crossed with glowing red lines of supernatural power. One after another, the dark knight threw both rocks at the abomination with all his strength, launching them with speed and power comparable to tank shells.

[Panda]

A ship. A fucking ship. Holy shit.

Best. Pirate. Ever.

Not even wanting to bother with that level of ridiculousness, Adjutor leaps out of the shadow to find himself surrounded by flames.

Where on earth?!

And then a tiger made of fire tried to pounce on him.

Okay, fuck this noise. We're finishing this.

With that, Adjutor finds the shadow he fell out of and leaps back into it, falling...onto the deck of the Pirate's ship. Not wasting any time, Adjutor draws Rahab and Tyrfing and charges straight for the man, Armored feet pounding across the deck as his Reinforced speed carried him like a black, red, and icy-blue blur, swinging with Tyrfing and stabbing with Rahab as soon as he got in range.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lorenzo stood on the deck of the ship, grinning wildly as his opponent vanished.... only to appear right in front of him.

Welcome to the fiery fortune mate, try the fires of hell for me will ya.

The pirate didn't even flinch as his opponent charged towards him with insane speed, one unlike what he had ever displayed prior.
Not even drawing his sword, Lorenzo looked right at his opponent's eyes as he let out a dry chuckle.

Suddenly, countless cannonballs emerged from the deck's wooden floor, forming cracks as the projectiles flew towards Adjutor from below. No matter how fast or hardy, one wouldn't be able to avoid so many cannonballs at this range, deadly projectiles approaching from all sides.

[Panda]

This was a bad idea.

The hell are you talking about?! We're fighting a pyromancer pirate on board his awesome pirate ship while cannonballs come out of everywhere to try and smash us! What part of this isn't awesome?!

Realizing that he probably won't be able to avoid this many cannonballs, even as fast as he is right now, Adjutor takes a different route. Quickly plotting out the trajectories of every cannonball he can see, he jumps and kicks off the nearest one. With Reinforced speed and strength and with the Armor protecting him, Adjutor kicks off cannonball after cannonball, still coming after Lorenzo like a shot cannonball himself, Tyrfing and Rahab prepared to rend the pirate limb from limb.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Wha?

The spectacle Lorenzo Remei now witnessed defied all reason.

This is absurd...

A feral rictus spread on his face, his heart danced like never before in the past. Instinctively, the man drew his rapier and blocked the blow with all his might. Sparks flew in the air as he was violently blown away by the force of the clash, hitting the edge of the ship.

Touching his chest, he felt something wet. It took him but a brief instant to realise the crimson liquid was blood, his own blood.

The pirate grunted, glaring madly at the enemy with the ferocity of a tiger. One couldn't tell if he was smiling or cursing the heavens.

A loud crunching noise broke the dead silence of the soaring ship.
"Sorry, but I'll have to cheat a little, boy." Lorenzo snarled before charging at his enemy, this time much faster than ever before.

At the same time, countless cannonballs flew towards his enemy from all sides, zoning the opponent.

[Panda]

"Don't be," Adjutor says, dodging the cannonballs with ease. Before, when they were being fired to block his path, it would have been damn near impossible to deal with this. But now? With all the cannonballs aiming for one target, one man at one point in space? Child's play.

The reinvigorated pirate, however, was something new. Something fresh. Something-

Exciting? I've never felt excited on a hunt, before.

We're not on a hunt, dumbass.

Hooking Laivatain's hilt with Rahab and Valmanway's hilt with Tyrfing, Adjutor meets Lorenzo's charge by finally using Switch Hand, the style he'd developed specifically to make use of the full potential of four separate weapons. Through Rahab, Adjutor pulls Laivatain out of its sheath, meeting the man's charge with a downwards diagonal swing while Tyrfing flicks Valmanway out of its sheath, sending it speeding towards the man at melee range, and following up with a slash from Tyrfing and a piercing stab from Rahab, all four blows intending to land almost simultaneously, all four of them killing or severely wounding blows.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lorenzo's eyes opened wide, every ounce of every fiber of his being was focused on the man who stood before him.
Such speed was simply... inhuman. He saw it all unfold before his eyes, the man dodged the barrage of cannons as if it was nothing at all.

...nothing at all.

There was no time to think, all the pirate could see was a blur, a constant blur charging towards him like a tearing gale. His heart stopped, his breath ceased, and for the first time in his life, Lorenzo truly saw.

Four blades came at him from four different direction, each was to tear his body almost simultaneously.
Had it actually been simultaneous, Lorenzo would've died there and then.

The blur, he could see the afterimage of each slash, only so he could guess the trajectory of the swords for a split second. In an instant, he swung his blade with speed that shamed all previous blows he ever dealt in his life.

His rapier moved madly, almost taking a life of his own. It didn't matter what happened afterwards, what he needed was to reach the four blurs. The four blurs...

The clash lasted less than a second, Lorenzo bled profusely, having barely managed to parry the attack, four gaping wounds gashed with blood. But these cuts were diverged by the rapier, none of them reached deep enough in his body to cut the bone.
Pain shot trough him, but he had no time to feel it.

In a rush, his rapier struck the armoured opponent with incredible speed, an insignificant spark burst as the blade simply bounced off the armoured body.

Lorenzo smiled, for at that very instant, the opponent's body caught fire. Instantly, the man drew his gun, taking a defensive stance to prevent any further attacks to an extent.

His leg would go numb any second now, but that was unimportant.

The man pulled the trigger, the whole sequence of events that occurred lasted but an instant, a flurry of prana shot from the gun, concentrated energy shot from the flintlock at a point blank range.

[Panda]

That was sloppy.

You haven't used Switch Hand in a while, of course it's sloppy.

The flames burst to life on the armor. Thank goodness he held on to that Unfocusing.

"Enarkseom!" Adjutor shouts blasting away the flames and the pirate himself, in addition to disrupting that damned gun, before charging in once more, dodging any further cannon fire on his path to the pirate, attacking similarly to the last one each time. Each time all four swords strike at the pirate almost simultaneously, and each time each of the of the swords is going for a fatal blow. It was this almost literal rain of swords that fell upon the pirate, each attack intent on taking his life.

[Kotomine_Rin]

The pirate was blown away by some alien force, everything he threw at his opponent was simply pushed away. Flung like a ragdoll by this force, Lorenzo violently hit the foremast's wooden edge.

This is ba-

His opponent rushed at him faster than ever, a rain of steel befell upon him, the sound of clashing metal was of such might it'd drive the crows away from a battlefield. For every succesful parry, three cuts appeared on his body, barely avoiding Lorenzo's vitals. What was but a short exchange resulted in countless wounds covering every inch of Lorenzo's body.

The man's demonic technique were surley a result of a rigid training that amounted to the perfection of such skill. Lorenzo couldn't help but be impressed at such a thing, but he had no time to ponder on his awe, thinking wasted far too much time.

Moving around the foremast, the pirate used the ship itself as cover in order to avoid fatal blows. Unlike his opponent, he knew the ship inside out.

I just need to make it... to that place.

And the Fiery Fortune suddenly shook, the ship leaned to the left. The opponent would lose his balance, but Lorenzo was used to fighting aboard.

Without wasting breath, he took a run for it, moving at a mad pace towards the secret passageway that stood away from his reach. Of course, he knew his opponent would follow him there, he always would.
But the cannons, they would shoot from every direction, be it on the deck or inside the ship itself, countless cannonballs blocked the enemy's path.

To follow Lorenzo would be no easy task, but he knew such a thing would only buy him time. Just to make sure, he aimed at him with his flintlock and shot countless times at him in order to keep him at bay, still running towards the trapdoor.