"Alright, we're about to reach the dock. You ready?" Shiv stretched and rolled his shoulders.
Duncan nodded. "Yeah. The Mirrors on the ship are ready, too." He glanced back at his men, who were also going through their pre-combat warmups. "Ugly as ever, though." He grinned.
Esmeralda raised an eyebrow, having walked up right as Duncan mentioned his last thought.
Shiv shrugged and motioned at the blonde man. "He's not a fan of blondes."
Duncan whipped around to find Esmeralda looking at him balefully. "What?"
Shiv laughed. "You ready, priestess?"
Shiv became the new target for the baleful look. "Yes. I thought I requested that you don't call me that."
"Oh, right. Well then what am I going to call you?" Shiv asked.
"Have you forgotten that I have a name?"
"Nah, that just takes too long to say, y'know? Too many syllables." Shiv made a show of thinking. "How about… Arrogance Incarnate?"
"I wasn't aware that such lengthy words were in your vocabulary." She responded in a manner that could be perfectly described by the suggested nickname. "Still, I veto this one as well… in addition, do you realize that it has more syllables than my name?"
"I vote Spear Girl." Duncan spoke up again, digging himself deeper into a hole he hadn't fully realized he'd fallen into.
When Esmeralda looked at him again, he couldn't help but realize it, though.
"Hey, that's a good one! What do you think, blondy?"
"I think there are going to be two key casualties before this battle even begins."
"Oh, I got one!" Duncan crowed. "How about… Arrogant Blonde B-"
"We'll just make her names on the fly." Shiv cut in and nodded ahead.
All of them became serious when they saw what he was looking at.
Hoods. A lot of them.
They were on other ships, on the dock, on rooftops, and Shiv could swear he'd even seen a few swimming along in the water ever since they'd leveled out after exiting the tunnel into this great cavern that housed the Underwater City. "What is your plan? I would recommend diplomacy, or we'll be fighting for every step we take." Esmeralda asked.
Shiv pointed at Duncan, his eyes searching out every last Hood he could find. "Unfortunately, all of our past attempts at diplomacy have failed utterly, so we are in the habit of fighting first, talking later… if at all." Duncan explained. "So the plan is to obtain a uh, a beachhead, of a sort, on that dock. Shiv is going to go first and take the brunt of the attention away from us, while we are going to come in second and capture or save one of those freaks and question him on our dear Fiery Wolfy rider's whereabouts. When he finally coughs out the location, we'll pass it on to Shiv and help him get there with as few detours as possible." He leaned in, causing Esmeralda to lean away, and whispered, "he's got a terrible sense of direction."
"And what happens once we've located your daughter?" Esmeralda pointedly asked Shiv, who glanced at her then nodded at Duncan before resuming his search.
Duncan simply pointed up, at the ceiling made of ocean water. "Any idea how this Underwater City never drowns?" Esmeralda merely raised an eyebrow with an annoyed expression. "My guess is that it's an artifact. So we find someone who might know where that artifact is, and then we destroy it."
"How will we get out?" She finally posed the question to Duncan with resignation written over her features.
"Ahhh… yes. About that." Duncan laughed awkwardly. "Looks like our chat has to end now, as we're about to begin the fight!"
Several awkward minutes of silence passed as the boat slowly made its way to an open spot in the dock, during which Esmeralda scowled at Duncan, who pointedly looked at anything but her.
There was a loud THUMP! when the boat bumped up against the dock. Several sailors quickly jumped to the dock and tied the boat off while the rest of the world seemed to hold its breath.
"Arrogance Incarnate, Duncan, change of plans!" Shiv yelled and jumped high into the air, grinning when a kaleidoscope of elemental projectiles was sent to meet him in the air. The air was charged with electricity, heated by fire, clogged with stones and ice, and moved by… air. Not to mention the rare aether blast and metal spear to add that extra bit of deathliness.
Behind him, he thought he heard Duncan say in a sad tone, "See? This is why we never tell him the actual plan. He's allergic to following them."
Shiv was too far away and too busy to even think of responding to the unfair accusations leveled at him.
He cast Freeze(Ranged) and began twisting and contorting his metal-skinned body to get hit only by the slowed down attacks he knew wouldn't do much damage, like the flames and rocks.
And then he landed, and the entire world blew up.
Or that's what the people at the harbor felt like. Tendrils of flame and waves of lava were everywhere, and a mighty storm was spewing an incredible amount of lightning down at the masses of people, killing frozen civilians and Hoods alike.
At the fulcrum of this destruction, Shiv stood from the kneeling position he'd landed in and began walking, his eyes invisible due to the flames that seemed to have replaced them. He simply walked into the city, causing mass destruction as he went. He knew Duncan and Esmeralda would provide him with a specific direction soon, so at the moment he focused purely on causing the most destruction in the least amount of time.
Far sooner than he expected, he came into contact with a truly powerful opponent, and was forced to cancel his massive area of effect skills to focus on defense. He summoned a wall of earth in front of him whilst simultaneously going underground and moving forward as fast as he could till he figured he was behind his attacker. At that point, he launched himself out of the ground and glanced at the location the powerful Hood had been at before, only to see the cloaked man lying on the ground with a green javelin in his face.
"Say my name." Esmeralda stood in front of the body while gripping another limp cloaked man.
Shiv blinked. "Woah there, Browneyes, somebody's got a petty side."
"Say it."
"Ok, Ok haha. Calm down, Esmeralda." He ducked the javelin that was launched his way and caught the unconscious man that was also violently thrown at him. "Thanks, Cranky."
"A battle is no place for jests, Shiv. It is a place for death and sadness. The moment you take joy or pleasure in this is the moment I stop you, regardless of whether it is possible or not."
"Duly noted." Shiv replied as he checked the pulse of the unconscious man, then slapped him on the cheek. After several seconds the man came to with a start, and found a knife held a finger's breadth from his eye. "That was close. Just a little bit farther and you would have taken your own eye out before I ever got the chance to." Shiv grabbed the man by the back of the head and pushed him toward the dagger just a little bit, causing the man to scream and ineffectually attempt to scrabble backward. He went nowhere. Shiv was too strong. "Alright, now that we've established that you're not happy with this situation, let's talk about how we can get you out of it. You ready?" The man nodded with wide eyes while Esmeralda dealt with several Hoods that attacked Shiv, who ignored them. "Alright, listen closely, because-unlike somebody I know- I prefer to say things only once, cool? Right, so… where's Blaze?" The man only looked more terrified. "Uh, the girl you caught. She's short. Has fiery hair-"
"She's at the church!" The man responded as soon as he figured out just what he was being asked.
"Great! Now one more thing… do you know where an artifact that might be keeping this city from drowning-"
"She's at the church!"
"Well, yeah. You already said that. I'm asking about-"
"The artifact, she- she's at the church!"
"Oh. Well thanks, I guess." He glanced over his shoulder and called out, "hey Cranky, anything else I should ask?" He abruptly threw himself backward just in time to be missed by the green javelin thrown at him.
The captive was not so lucky.
Shiv got up and brushed his pants. "That was a very definite 'no', I take it." He surveyed the field of dead bodies that surrounded him, most of them having something green sticking out of them, and frowned. "You didn't catch Duncan in this slaughter, did you?"
"Hah! Like she could catch up to me in anythi-" He ducked the javelin thrown at him and laughed awkwardly. "I think our gorgeous warriorette here has anger issues."
Shiv caught the next javelin and shattered it with just his grip. "Enough. Duncan, lead us to the church… why are you looking at me like that?"
"Uh, I've actually never been here before, so I'm really not sure where the church is…" another awkward laugh.
Shiv turned to his spear-wielding defender. "Cra- Esmeralda?"