....
Embers formed in the air, taking the shape of six obsidian arrows tied with orange ribbons, and whose feathers were replaced by tridents. Lancer placed his other hand on the shaft of his rake. As he had planned, Archer's pride was against him, and Pigsy's arguments and banter had bought Chrysaor and Athena enough time to get to safety.
No more holding back.
Each of the arrows flew one by one with a shrill whistle and a trail of orange flame, making their way across various trajectories towards the gargantuan form of Zhu Bajie, looking to skewer him from all side as they moved at impossible angles through the air. Lancer didn't move to dodge, instead seeming to dance with his rake, spinning with gentle steps that betrayed his mountainous body. He stuck the head of his rake into the ground, as if sowing, and, with a massive heave that broke the elegance of his movements, rose a mountain of dirt and rock and flung it towards Archer. Boulders and rocks broke off from the massive clump in a crashing wave of earth that intercepted each of the arrows and buried the Theater of Dionysus, leaving a massive, craterous wake behind it.
Leaping above, like an angel with flaming wings, was Archer, nimbly dodging the wave with his bow drawn and another two obsidian arrows floating on either side of him.
"You think that bulbous body will help you!? All you've done is give me a bigger target!"
The two bolts fired off, and another three avian shadows flew from the bow. Each took a strange and impossible angle, gliding, zigging and zagging towards Lancer in unpredictable motions. He only planted his feet firmly, readying his rake and waiting for the precise moment to strike.
One.
Two.
-Now!
He spun his rake, making a halo of orange-gold energy as he juggled it between his meaty hands. The two obsidian arrows and one of the crows were intercepted, exploding against the makeshift shield, while another burst at his feet and the final one closed in from the side, landing a direct hit on his ribs with a blast of fire and smoke. When it cleared, it became obvious that the brunt of it had been taken by his armor, but red and black burns still peeked out from within.
-Not that he let that stop him.
In his left hand, he pointed his rake upwards like a spear as the head spun, creating a whirlwind around it. Deep within his belly, a grumble rose to a growl which transformed into a mighty roar- a roar deafened by the tearing of a fierce wind, a tornado that blasted forth from the Nine-Tooth rake towards the airborne Archer. The shadow braced himself, covering his body with his arms, the vacuum dragging him helplessly into the eye of the storm before assailing him with winds so powerful that the rocks and grit caught within ravaged him with bloody lashes. The typhoon spat him back out into the open air with its final breath.
A flash erupted in his Mind's Eye, but it was already too late. Still caught in the updraft, Archer couldn't do anything against the head of the rake that shot out on its chain towards him- not to him, but past him, twisting in the air to wrap around his body and bind him fast. Back on the ground, Pigsy hoisted his rake with both hands, casting it downwards and flinging Archer into the dirt with enough force to kill a man ten times over. A plume of dust and smoke rose up from the point of impact- to the West of the theater- as the head of the rake snaked its way back to the shaft with a firm -CLACK-.
Lancer was no genius, but he was no fool either. Though he was always the last man to kick a gift horse in the mouth, especially when that horse was a dragon in disguise, he had planned to test out his different elemental attacks to see which could break through Hou Yi's Solar Mantle. His success, in other words, was unexpected, and made him pause.
He let out a low growl, "You must really think that little of me, eh!? You threw away the only chance you had 'a beatin' me!"
The cloud fell away, and Archer stood in the crater, his wounds already healed.
"I lost my invincibility when I gave up my Divinity. So what? You're bigger, you're slower- you say I've made myself weaker, but what's your excuse-!"
Caught between his breaths, Archer saw in front of him something that even his Mind's Eye couldn't explain. The massive shape of Pigsy- Zhu Bajie- was bearing down upon him, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye and holding his rake like a piston to flatten him out.
"Blackout!"
A sphere of darkness coursed out from Archer's body, but it was too late. The attack he tried to misdirect had already been primed, and the flat of the head shot into his skull like a battering ram, rattling his brain and sending him tumbling back like a skipped stone. The 'Blackout' evaporated a moment after.
Archer dug all four talons, his hands and feet, into the dirt, shooting a glare of pure hatred back towards Lancer.
"-Bastard!"
Seven obsidian bolts manifested in the air and fired. Lancer turned his back to the attack, seeming to leave an opening while he dragged his rake through the soil. He spun around and the wave of rocks and dirt intercepted the arrows, but he kept spinning. With the scream of a turbine he increased his momentum, winds rising to carry even large rocks and boulders into the air, the force of the tornado ripping them apart and leaving a whirling stream of sand in its wake. Archer called his bow and let loose a murder of crows along with his final two trident-arrows, but each of them were shredded by the whirlwind, a storm of grit so powerful that the trees and twigs caught up in were instantly shredded into splinters and dust.
Archer released arrow after arrow, but each of them met the same fate, absorbed into the vortex which rose higher and higher into the air, reaching the height and girth of a tall tower. His talons dug into the dirt, struggling, even with his superhuman strength, to avoid getting stolen into the maelstrom. The flames that formed his robes were already taken from him, so that, aside from a thin trail from his shoulders, his bare chest was totally exposed. But what could be done? The wind, the earth- his own flames were Lancer's to command. He continued his volley in the vain hope of hitting his enemy, but even his sight which could peer miles into the distance could not discern Bajie's location within the dust storm.
As if answering his fears, a voice as grating as the churning gravel around it echoed out from the center of the storm.
"This was refined from divine ice−iron, -grunk- polished 'til it gleamed dazzling white, the Five Emperors put their hearts into it.
"They made nine teeth of jade and a pair of golden rings to hang under 'em, decorated the body with the Six Bright Shiners and the Five planets, and made it match the Four Seasons and the Eight Divisions. The length between the top and bottom match Heaven and Earth. Positive and Negative were left and right, separatin' the sun and moon."
"Shit!"
Archer managed a step back, barely keeping himself from losing his footing. Lancer was chanting- he was about to release his Noble Phantasm!
He was, of course, aware of the Jiǔchǐdīngpá, it was infamous in Heaven, so there were no surprises about what was coming next, and that was almost worse. The longer the chant, the more powerful the following attack, and he had no means of dodging or cutting off the ritual in the meantime.
This was bad.
"This rake is my imperial office. When I raise it, fire and light leaps out. When I lower it, a white blizzard blows. It terrifies even the Heavenly Sage, and makes the King o' Hell shake with fear. There's nothing like it on Earth; never has been and never will be."
The top and bottom of the tornado began to close in, forming a sphere of churning elements, wind, earth, fire, ice and wood, and, in the middle, the moonlight of Lancer's blue-white armor could be seen, dancing among the winds. Archer tried a few more arrows, but each were blocked in the same way.
"This rake has brought up dragons from the bottom of the sea, and climbed high mountains to smash up demons' dens. No other Phantasm is worth a mention, besides my rake, the best weapon ever. I win my battles without raising a finger-"
The winds gathered around his rake, the elements coalescing and losing themselves in a blaze of pure white light around the nine-teeth, as if a star were being born before their eyes. Along the black shaft, constellations were highlighted with such severity that they lost their clarity, blending together into a single beam of starlight. Archer let loose all nine obsidian arrows, but it was no use-
"-Heaven's Nine-Tooth Rake! Jiǔchǐdīngpá!"
-
It was as if the Milky Way had been sprawled out on the cityscape; as if pure stardust had poured out of the Acropolis's side like a mountain spring. It was a spill of blue, white and purple dust whose beauty belied its destruction. Around this serene sight was a rapturous sound, as if reality's fabric had torn, or a meteor fallen to Earth for a brand new extinction; there was not a soul in all of Greece, its mainland or all its islands that did not hear at least a fading echo of it. And there, in the scene itself, was the tearing of concrete and bedrock, the twisting and melting of metals, everything man had built rumbling to dust while the earth pushed aside from the destruction rose to meet it.
The blast, in total, was only visible for a few seconds at most. It went out from Lancer himself in the westward direction, which had, of course, been planned on his part. The vast majority of the land in the path of destruction were more ruins, but he had no reverence for them, especially compared to the possibility of catching innocents in the crossfire.
He fell back to the ground, surrounded on all sides by rent earth that didn't at all resemble the well-kept garden he had entered only a few minutes ago. Ahead of him was his own doing: a trench a mile long, a thousand feet wide and more than fifty feet deep at its lowest, if you included the rubble. Much of the crater glowed with warm embers, and a severe heat rose from it in the form of steam that clouded the vision and caused the whole sight to disappear from the landscape, as if white paint had been smeared across the city from above.
Pigsy rose one hand to the end of his snout, thumb against his lips and fingers pointed upwards.
"If anyone was caught in that attack, take my apologies and my blessings -grunk-. I meant no harm to you. I pray your losses are returned with interest in the next life."
He opened his eyes from his prayer and searched with all his senses- his sight, his smell, his hearing- for any sign of Archer. He had cheated death once before, after all. But of course the steam clouded all of these senses, filling his nose with moisture and even his ears being stuffed by the pressure. There was no sign, but he was far too pessimistic to assume that even his most powerful attack had been enough...
-Movement on his left.
He switched his rake to his left hand and made a wide swing, catching the obsidian bolt with a burst of fire and smoke, at the same time-
"-RAGH!"
One. Two. Three. Four arrows, all into his right shoulder in the very moment he struck. They didn't explode immediately, no, they left just enough time for-
Five. Archer leaped out of the fog in a blink of an eye, sinking a straight blade into Lancer's shoulder, straight into the socket.
"I told you before, Lancer.
"You're too slow."
...
From out of the white steam, a flash of orange light and a pillar of black smoke broke through to the open air above.
A woman watched from the distance, though her mind was elsewhere. The pouring blue-white radiance reminded her of a dream she had the night before. It was in the dark of a forest at night. There was a beautiful clearing, overflowing with wild flowers, and in the center was a gorgeous pond with water that seemed to glow from within, and yet, at the same time, it was like a mirror, reflecting perfectly the world around it, so that it was as if you were looking through a window into daylight.
Lazing by the pond was the most beautiful person she had ever seen, though she couldn't tell whether the person was male or female, but she knew, even though she hadn't met many people, that this person was the pinnacle of human appearance. She felt a strange flush when she thought of him, and, although it was so foreign that she couldn't know what it was, a more educated observer would note that it was the closest thing to desire she had ever felt for a person.
He laid at the water's edge, his neck dangling precariously over a steep shore and gazing, helplessly entranced, into the eyes of his own reflection, his long, sleek hair draping into the pool past his face and into the water. It was perfectly obvious that there was nothing he could ever want more than to live in this place forever. He was his own lover, and the satisfaction brought by the meeting of their mutually loving stares never ended as it so often did with others. No, he was granted the wish that all lovers make: to spend eternity in the moment of their greatest passion, and he was content. Perhaps too much so.
There, beside the enamored self-lover, was her friend, the only one she could call her friend. She, Echo, sat on her knees beside the beauty, rubbing his back with a soft hand. Her gaze said all that needed to be said, "I will never leave you. I will stay by your side, and you'll never have to be alone." That friend had made the same promise to her, but had been unable to keep it.
The woman called 'Massiah' by her peers opened her eyes. The city of Athens spread out before her, blanketed in clouds of white, indigo, violet and black. There, atop the Acropolis, was the golden pillar, and the voice, the voice which led her wherever she went, was calling out to her again, bidding her forward.
Her friend had left, not by her own volition, but she was gone regardless. The only one who could understand her. Even what few other companions she had left had abandoned her, and she stood on the balcony alone- not another soul in sight.
No, there was nothing keeping her here. There was nothing left to do. If 'home', the place she had been chasing her whole life, lied just beyond that horizon, then there was no reason not to seize it.
She took a deep breath.
-
A sundress fell, as if plucked from a clothesline. Before it could hit the balcony, it was stolen by the wind and taken into the night. In that moment, and for every moment after, the Master of Assassin was forgotten by the world, never to be remembered again. There was no reason to be remembered. Her home, after all, was elsewhere. It always was. The greatest accomplishment she made in her time on Earth was to leave it behind.
....