One For My Baby

It was rhythmic, expected even. The gentle thudding in the distance, like footsteps in another room set forth in a predictable pattern. He didn't look from behind cover, his face buried in his jacket, his rifle at his waste, his beard fighting the cold away from him cheeks as that soft, patterned thump of soft bodies against mud in the distances reminded him like a whisper in his ear, don't look up. 

He clenched his hands tightly around the Queen, an old fifty-caliber rifle that he never should have had but didn't care to much to let go of even before everything went to hell. The old man was wrapped in thick, dirty clothing. The colors were dark, meant to blend in with the night background. His eyes sat closed upon his old, wrinkled face as his shallow breathing gave life to the mist from his mouth, only for it to float up and vanish in wisps of smoke. 

Yet, the thudding continued. The Demon battalion had captured some of the resistance fighters. A whole lot of them. This town had been harboring a base of operations. The Amaranth, he had noticed, tended to avoid towns and the like without good cause, such as needing food or supplies. For being bloodthirsty monsters they were remarkably sparing to those that they didn't see as potential threats. That seemed to extend to everyone not willing to fight back.

But, the town was not to be executed for harboring the resistance. He didn't understand their language, didn't know what they were saying, but he sat and waited before the bodies began to fall, listening to the leader of the demonic horde deliver a volatile speech. His words... if they were words, in any true sense... they were angry and threatening, his voice deep and uncomfortable like glass and gravel grinding together, causing the old man to grate his teeth in disdain and anxiety. 

Then he stopped speaking as abruptly as he had started. They'd already lined up easily a hundred men and woman, some of them merely children who'd been told to hold a gun, and began to drop them like flies. Roderick had decided it would be better not to count as they fell. It would only make it seem to take longer. The villagers didn't need that hell any longer than they could bear it, and while he couldn't truly change what they experienced, he was trying to shut out his own mortality by considering the bumps just that: noises in the distance, and not corpses hitting the ground limply, lifelessly.

The villagers, for their part in harboring the resistance, were made to watch. The town was as small as most hamlets in Britain were for the time. Maybe a few thousand people, give or take a couple hundred. They were all rounded up by the superior demons, those creatures of tremendous might and fearsome magic, and forced to watch the executions. He'd seen a single Amaranth take out a whole platoon of British soldiers. Even if these people hadn't seen that level of strength, they knew. Deep down, they knew that the Amaranth were going to win.

So did Roderick. This was the end of days, but he had business to settle. He waited for what felt like hours, watching the back of his eyelids and listening while the sun in the sky slowly depressed itself into the horizon, slinking away from the horrific sight like so many of the people wished they could. Then, when the next bump should have come there was silence. He perked his head up. Silence still. A few more moments, and very gingerly he raised his head from his body. He was still listening for something, when he heard a voice. The same, grating voice from before.

The voice seemed to boom, the language indecipherable to his ears, before he could hear the distinct march of the Demons as they began to move. His body sluggishly reacted to him, and he took the Queen into his right hand while the left fell upon the dagger at his side. "Soon, Diana," he told it, as he observed the Demons gradually leaving the town. He began to move from behind his cover, a pile of dirt and rocks some distance from the town square. Close enough that in the silence of the townspeople, he could hear the rhythm of death.

Now, he moved in the darkening corners of the hills with his eyes fixed upon the large group, stalking them as a predator might. Roderick would take at least one of the creatures out this day. It would be one less to deal with in the morning.

The smell of death was in the air, though not of the decomposition kind. A smell that Shirou was somewhat familiar with. He walked through the town that was eerily silent and empty, wearing a cloak that only revealed his head. Sheathed on his back was an old scythe. Shirou walked into the town square to find where the smell was coming from. Corpses laid strewn across the square. Shirou frowned. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash. A figure had moved to the direction of the hills. On a hunch, Shirou followed whoever he had seen.

He continued to follow these Demons for several minutes, noting the variances in their number. Some of them look human, with strange features like pointed teeth or eyes of unnatural colors. Others were far more monstrous creatures of stone and behemoths of flesh, varying forms and compositions in their ranks. As he set his sniper scope up on the rocky out-cropping he sought out the one that he believed to be the speaker, bidding his time and slowly examining the horde.  

That was when he noted the one that seemed to be standing distant from the others, contemplating something. A hand on his chin he sat separate from the rest of the horde, who had broken off into groups around several fires they had started. He had observed a tubby-looking demon walk about and ignite piles of refuse and wood, before what seemed to be a victory celebration began. 

He focused his scope on the one that was separated from the group, waiting before he fired. The gun would shout loudly once fired, calling the Demons to his position quickly. He would have to be ready. He would have to wait this out. He had a perfect shot on the demon that stood apart, but if it was the wrong demon then he fired for nothing. True, the resulting confusion would buy him time to hide, maybe, but he likely wouldn't be able to do anything else tonight. He expected that much, but he wanted it count.

It seemed that he had finally caught up with the figure he had followed on a hunch. Before taking action, he quickly took note of the situation. In the distance was a group of people, except upon closer inspection, they weren't really human. Not entirely, at least. They varied in appearance and they seemed like humanoid monsters. He then noticed the person he had followed, who seemed too focused on the group of monstrous people. The guy was aiming a gun at one of them. He seemed old, though it was hard to tell how old he was exactly from this distance.

Overall, it seemed like a delicate situation.

Shirou snuck over towards where the old guy was and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Yo, whatcha doing?" he asked, almost innocently.

He was in the process of steadying his nerves now, his finger trembling on the trigger. His mind was playing out the scenario in a thousand gruesome ways, his body locking up. He had done things like this before, but it had never gotten easier. The fear was always omnipresent that he would fuck up, that he'd die, that his memories of a life long since torn away would be lost. Even so, it was thrilling. He felt a kind of excitement welling up in his stomach every time he stared down his scope. It was a sick feeling of satisfaction and revenge, warped and combined into an intangible but nevertheless inspirational feeling.

His haggard breathes gave way to the noise in his head. His heart was thumping and world fell silent. His finger eased on the trigger...

A tap on his shoulder and his blood ran cold. His entire body froze as his heart felt like it had stopped, and even after the voice spoke out oh-so-innocently he couldn't command his body's movement. It took several seconds before he managed to tear his eye away from the glass of the scope and adjust his gaze to meet the boy that stood in the corner of his field of vision. He was youthful with long, straight hair and piercing eyes. He spoke English, too, though that escape the old man for the moment. He was on guard and shocked, but not without his instincts.

After the tense moments of silence the left hand released the barrel of the rifle, darting down towards the knife at is side. In a smooth motion he unsheathed it and swung it at the boy, holding it back-handed as he had long ago been trained. Right not, in this moment, it was life or death. This Demon in human skin, or him. His odds weren't good but he would go down fighting, a wild look in is eyes like a man possessed. He made no noise save for a quite grunt, the sluggish reaction of his body playing off of his nerve damage. The arm moved to stab, but it was weak and slow nonetheless. Arthritis made gripping the blade difficult, as well.

With no time to worry about the demon he'd just slashed at, Roderick ignored the thing that mimicked human words and mocked the human voice. He grabbed at his rifle, attempting to aim at the Demon's down the hill, to nail that son of a bitch that sat alone in the distance before the one now at his back killed him first. It was a second long gap of movement, which ended with a bang. The punctuation on one part of the story, but the beginning of the next paragraph.

Still holding his sniper rifle in one hand, he turned to face the demon behind him that had cloaked its hands in... something. It was black, darker than the night and the black mass on his hands writhed. It was magic, like the things below them used, the creatures that sat distantly from them and down the slope of a steep hill, strong enough to fight armies. Roderick cursed under his breath, realizing that he would die here. The rifle wouldn't come up fast enough, or be aimed quickly enough, or be fired accurately enough. There was just too much he'd have to do, and not enough to do it.

His body already ached from the hurried firing of the bullet. He didn't need to stay secret anymore. Now that one of them knew where he was, it was kill or be killed, and he'd already left his message in the night. He brandished Diana, and moved into a stance befitting an old warrior like himself. Hunched and low, his arms in tight. This was now his time to act. His defiant eyes locked onto Shirou's, accusing and angry. All ye monsters hae done since ye 've got here is slaughter those who've stood against ye." The knife flipped over his hand in a motion meant to intimidate though he had figured it to be pointless. "Yeh 'll not hae me without a fight, demon."
_______________________________________________________________________________

The gunshot resounded in the distance, and the Amaranth leader perked his head up, before a fifty-calibur bullet nailed him square on the forehead. His head was bounced upwards from the force, and for a moment he stood silently. He was a large, stone-looking fellow. Nearly seven feet in height, it's round and neutral face bore eyes of a solid, electric color. They almost seemed to glow in the darkness, the creatures lack of features like hair and simple, statuesque appearance lending itself to a more eerie aura than a menacing one. Atop the gray skin were veins of electricity that seemed to accentuate the mysterious, if threatening creature's size.

A few of the Amaranth nearby approached the large, bulky one, with one of them exclaiming at Krieg that is had heard a gunshot. He lowered his head, a bruise upon his forehead and stared at the one that stated such a thing. He glared as if saying "obviously" with his expression before he moved his head towards the source of the bullet. He pointed at the two behind the first, indicating them. "You two. You're accompanying me." They nodded, and he pointed at the one in front. "You stay here. Keep watch." He nodded, and Krieg began a slow advance towards the source of the annoyance, the other two in tow.

The first he had chosen was a lanky, strange creature with yellow skin, orange hair, and bulging, yellow eyes. It was something out of a cartoon to be sure by human standards, but an agile and skilled creature in the art of using fire. Genetically, even if not magically, it could produce the flames from it's own body as needed. It was small, maybe only four feet in height with a rodent-like body. Yet, it carried itself proudly, as most Amaranth are prone to doing. Beside that one was another who looked quite human. Long, black hair traveled past her shoulders, while upon a fair face sat icy blue eyes and a terrifying expression. 

Her form was fairly average by human standards rather than lanky. She looked young, but in reality was dozens of years old. Her cool and vicious demeanor lent itself to the appearance she emitted of a seasoned veteran. While hidden from view at first glance, a diagonal scar traveled the length of her face by her small ears. The ears themselves were pointed, and if she had smiled a fanged grin would have made it's debut in this realm. The Amaranth were coming, and they would arrive soon.

Shirou frowned when the old geezer shot at something in the distance. "Hey, you old geezer, don't ignore me and start shooting randomly into the distance," he snarled. He dug his heels in the dirt and then rushed forward. He feigned a right-handed punch before sending an left-handed uppercut towards the old man's side. The darkness shell on his hands provided more damage with punches and more protection.

The old man couldn't even react in time, having just turned on his own heels to face the young man. Even being ready, even brandishing his knife he wasn't ready to fight him. Not only was he younger, but he was much stronger than Roderick. Roderick fell right into the feint, trying to counter only to stumble and receive a devastating blow to his right side. He sputtered and grunted in pain, falling back against the the rocks and letting out a silenced howl, a rock jabbing into the left side of his body. He clutched at it with the arm that weakly held the knife, not even bothering to stand as he glared menacingly at Shirou.

He sat against the ground, defeated but defiant while wincing in pain. "Shag yeh, yeh dingy daemon git." He was still breathing those heavy breaths, but in between them were what seemed to be laughs. "I put a bullet in yer leader's blooming head! I won anyroad yeh mosey!"

The old man went down easily. This was going to be easy, though he preferred a challenge.Shirou cocked his head in confusion, standing up straight and not moving to attack again. "Leader? I don't have a leader," he said, raising an eyebrow in curiosity. "I'm also not a demon. Or a git. I don't know what a git is, but I'm pretty sure I'm not it. I just followed you here to see why there were a bunch of dead people in the town." Though Shirou wasn't one to admit it out loud, he had also wanted to get rid of the people, or things, that killed those people. A recent change in behavior where Shirou had decided to take action for the greater good, or something like that.

The beleaguered man's expression changed from one of defiance to one of confusion, and then cautious curiosity. His pained expression remained but he covered it up to the best of his ability, staring defiantly at the man before him. The realization came in waves-- he spoke English, which should have been his first clue. He sounded American, which should have been the other. Fear had clouded his judgement and he clutched a hand to his face, shaking an ironic sense of failure from his beard.

At the same time, could he trust him? That was definitely magic on his hand, but he seemed to have almost no idea what was going on. Even Americans weren't this stupid or ignorant. They had to know that something was happening at the very least. And how would an american know magic anyway? There were questions building up in his mind, but at a time like this, curiosity was dangerous. "Yeh mean to say yeh aren't one of em?" He motioned to the beasts behind them around the fires. Some of them still danced, but others were looking towards the place where they were. Three of the advanced up the slope, now plainly visible to Shirou perhaps, but not the old man whose back was turned. "I wish I knew that much before I sacked," the man announced as he stood cautiously.

Without even turning around to see the demons on the hill he announced, "We should probably leave before they climb up here and see who capped their guvnor, then." If Roderick didn't have to fight this man, he wasn't going to. Sitting here like this had already wasted precious time to be spent running. He moved from his spot, picking up his rifle and slinging it over his back while still holding the knife, and pressed forward to Shirou's left. "I mean right now."

Shirou rolled his eyes. "Old and senile," he muttered. He glanced behind him to see others approaching. "And a coward."

"Okay, gramps, you got two options," Shirou said. The air around Shirou began to crackle with electricity and grow warm, but only so slightly. He was gathering his magic. It had changed for some reason and he was unfamiliar. Only basic magic for now. "Run away liek a coward, or stand and finish what you started."

The old man paused, looking at Shirou. About a million little thoughts bounced through his eyes revealing his anger, indignation, sorrow, shame, and guilt yet out of all the thoughts and all the things that crossed his mind, he picked something that best summed up his philosophy. "Ave yeheard the ol' saying thah cowards live longer?" He looked into the boy's eyes. No, the old man didn't start this. He wouldn't finish it either. He'd probably be dead long before this war was over no matter how you cut it. The only question left was, what in the hell was the young man doing?

Using magic, obviously. Charging up, it looked like. Which raised another question in it's stead: to use on him, or on the creatures below? "Those bloody daemons sacked that whole resistance," he concluded. "One bloke doesn't make an army. Not an old ripper with a rifle, especially." He was still some distance from Shirou He wouldn't get to make his exit, though. It was far too late. He heard something crunch behind them, and his face went white, much like it had when Shirou first tapped him on the shoulder. "Bloody ell." He turned to face the three, the architects of disaster.

The large, gray one stood with a massive presence, flanked by the mousy yellow one and the young-looking veteran girl. It stared at the old man and then the other focusing magic, raising it's brow in a combination of amusement and surprise. Then, it's fell upon the gun the old man had. "You two can have sparky," it indicated to them in it's foriegn language and they advanced forward to his sides, the rodent with bulgy eyes cracking it's knuckles and girl simply remaining silent.

"He'll be more interesting than these human soldiers, that's for sure." The ratty one seemed to address the big one in the same, unintelligible tongue. He looked towards the girl, frowning. "Come on, get excited." She simply turned towards him and sighed.

"Best case scenario, he's like us. Which means two on one won't be that much fun." The rodent just shook his head, returning his attention to the sparking one. They moved around Roderick, the rodent casting a menacing glare at him with it's freakishly large eyes, and the girl just surveying him with an empty expression. They focused their attention back to Shirou, a grin spreading across the Rodent's face. He splayed his hands, as if daring Shirou to react. The girl simple stood, waiting. They were confident, and with good reason: an Amaranth was several times stronger than a normal human as a rule of thumb. A single one could decimate a military unit. Provided, that was because of the confusion in the numbers, but their being a weak species didn't help them much.

The large one advanced towards Roderick, who brandished the knife. That's when the big thing actually spoke English. It spoke English, and Roderick's eyes widened. That deep, grinding of gravel and glass that grated on his nerves. It spoke so flawlessly, with the absence of an accent. No slang terms, just English words. It seemed to smirk as it spoke. "You are a noisy little mouse." It touched a hand to it's forehead. "That hurt, like being flicked. Painful," it began to clarify, "but far more annoying." It lowered it's hand to it's side and pressed it's large figure forward, imposing itself over the man. "I'll do my best to end it quick."

Roderick braced himself, and readied for his last fight.

Shirou rolled his eyes. "Time isn't relative to living, contrary to popular belief," he said. "I've lived quite a bit for a twenty year old." He had even died once, but that was another story for another time because three of the "demons" had found them. One was a rat, one was a girl, and the other was an...elephant? But he didn't have a long nose. Oh well...oh whale?

The three demons talked to each other in an foreign language that sounded like gibberish and clicking. Then, the rat and the girl approached him. Shirou grinned. "So, a girl and a rat walk into a bar," he taunted, "and by the looks of it, only the girl ducks."

He held out his hands, where two small, marble sized orbs of hardened darkness formed in each hand. He flicked them both at the two demons, imbuing them with lightning magic to increase their speed tremendously. If they hit, it would like being shot with a bullet.

Shirou's fast attack caught one of them off guard. The rodent looking one took the bullet straight to the center of it's body. Underneath it's fur the skin broke, the "bullet" being partially embedded in the creature's flesh before dissipating, the rodent wincing as the pellet of energy sent a jolt of pain and electricity coursing through his body, but ultimately still not stopped by the action. The rodent raised it's hands and exhaled, simply blowing a column of fire from it's mouth, and using it's hands would spray fire in the directions that Shirou moved.

The girl was markedly less phased. In fact, even with the speed of the bullet she merely stepped aside, almost as if predicting future though she only just barely managed to evade it. In reality, she just had remarkable fighting sense and great reflexes, in addition to the basic physical attributes of the Amaranth. She simply observed the man's hands, and decided how to move based on that. Provided she didn't under her opponent and realized that every estimation was a risk in and of itself. Her skills were not flawless, but they were far from novice. Her skills were honed over decades, and though the speed of the spell surprised her she would make a note of it, and watch for similar attacks in the future.

The gray one merely extended it's hand and leaned in towards the old man, who roared as the arm neared jabbed at it with his knife. The blade simply deflected off the thing's body, and it's arm grabbed the old man by the same appendage that held the knife. "Resistance means that you must die." In smooth motion, the titan twisted the old man's arm and the crunching and snapping of bones could be heard as he pulled away, screaming. The giant tugged again, and the old man's arm separated from his body. Blood gushed as arteries were severed. The old only had a few moments more left to live before he bled out.  

Krieg picked the knife from the man's still clutching arm, snapping the blade as though it were nothing of note. In the same instant he tossed the arm away, extended a foot, and went to crush the man's head beneath it. A crack. A squish. It was over. Months of survival, ended by mistake in a single, terrifying instant. Krieg looked up at the boy that the other fought as the rat engaged him. His eyes gleamed stoically as he observed the events before him. The Amaranth crush resistance. It is the way they operate. He lifted his foot from the ground, pieces of bone and flesh sticking to it and scrapped it along the dirt.

The rat blew a stream of flames toward Shirou. He made a circular motion with his hands, creating a spiral of green flames in retaliation. He used his own flames to cancel out the rat's. He then breathed in deeply and exhaled, emitting a large, emerald fireball that flew straight towards the rat. He then turned his focus on the girl and threw up his hand, sending four tendrils of razor sharp darkness towards her. Out of the corner of his eye, he say that the old man fell to the whale. He gritted his teeth. He may have not liked the old man, but he certainly didn't want him to die.

Shirou managed to cancel out the beings fire, but that didn't stop it from pressing forward after it launched it's attack and running towards him. Even after Shirou fired the emerald green blast it simply coated it's own body in flames and darted through, placing itself within arm's length of Shirou as it shot another massive burst of fire, it's own body still coated in the protective flames.

The girl moved elegantly forward, moving through the tendrils with immense grace and precision. The spiraling, thread-like strands of darkness surged forward at her and she fought through them, but not without suffering some cuts. The tendrils were wild and difficult to predict, through not impossible and after a few moments her great fighting instinct led her through, drawing her closer to Shirou.

The big one was ready to act as well. Extending a hand out, Krieg presented his own skill with lightning magic and a brief crackled around his arms, the short intensification of his glowing veins, and a bolt of lightning emerged from his hand, moving the speed of it's namesake.

Shirou's eyes widened in surprise as the rat resisted the flames and executed another stream of flames towards him. The girl effortlessly dodged his tendrils. Shirou crossed his arms in front of his face in reaction, the tendrils disappearing, as he was engulfed by the fire and struck by the lightning. He was sent flying back into a tree. His clothes were steaming and burnt.

"You guys are tougher than I gave you credit for," he said. "Though, to be fair, I never gave you much credit in the first place, so anything that exceeded my first attack was a surprise."

The girl was the fastest out of all of them. As soon as Shirou hit the tree, she was already working on closing the gap between them actively attempting to either kill or restrain-- whichever presented itself to be the most useful. She almost seemed to be floating, charging forward as though gravity were a mere inconvenience to her. While she surged towards her prey, the other two moved towards Shirou as well, walking slowly as though they were in no rush. They weren't either. The woman would obviously get there first, but she was usually never one to kill. Just one to incapacitate.

While the rodent kept his fur ablaze, Krieg stepped forward and spoke at Shirou, like he did the man. Only, his tone was far more curious. "You would be the first human to use our power. How was it you managed to do so?"

Subtly, Shirou's dug his fingertips into the ground. As the girl neared, tendrils of darkness shot up from the ground all around her, surrounding her and creating a cage. Electricity crackled on the tendrils, and if she touched them, it would give off extremely hurtful shocks. The same happened to the other two demons present, except the tendril cage that surrounded the whale was ablaze with green flames.

Shirou stood up without staggering, as if unhurt. While his clothes were burnt, there were no burns from the lightning or the fire on his skin. Two elements that wouldn't really work on somebody like Shirou. At least, in this iteration of him. He cracked his back and then his neck and looked up to eye his trappings. He smirked.

"Let's just say I'm not really from around here," he said. "Which actually leads into what I want from you guys. Who and what exactly are you guys? And what's up with all of the dead bodies back in the town?"

As the tendrils shot up after the girl, she launched into the air and landed outside of the "cage", avoiding the entrapment and continuing on her path towards the man. She would deliver a stone shattering punch towards his elbow, attempting to shatter it and disable him with pain. Should the blow miss, the stone behind Shirou would crack and give as her knuckles became just barely embedded in the stone. She would chain if her attack was unsuccessful, pursuing Shirou without relenting.

Krieg and the rodent were both entrapped for the moment however, and as the rodent went to charge it's flames Krieg raised his hand. "One moment." He was waiting to see if she could handle the situation. At this point, Krieg had no intention of killing this one. No, Krieg wanted to know about this one. Until Krieg knew everything he could, this was the most valuable specimen he'd ever encountered. A human, who could use their magic? And so effectively? Provided, he didn't come close to the mastery of the Greater Amaranth, let alone Orion herself, but he was good. Great, even.

And that made him worth taking alive.

The girl was fast, but so was Shirou. She sent a punch, which Shirou managed to dodge. She was apparently strong too, capable of shattering stone. She sent a barrage of attacks on him, where he focused on dodging them. The air around the two began to get hot, the source coming from Shirou's body, as if their fight was causing the atmosphere to heat up. With every punch that Shirou managed to dodge, his skin grew one shade darker.

As the woman delivered her flurry of blows, she noticed the man's skin growing darker with each passing punch. It was already frustrating enough that he was somehow predicting her movements, even as she was predicting how he'd dodge. He must also have some experiencing fighting like this, but rather than press the issue she dug her foot forward and shoved back, sliding across the dirt and away from the man as she recalculated.

In the same instant, Krieg decided that now was as good a time as any. He looked to the rodent. "Move." The Rodent nodded, a pulse of fire escaping his body, and in an instant he had dug under the earth and was already tunneling several feet below, before leaping out from under the cage and presenting himself as fine. Krieg simply grabbed the bar of the cage, and while it did burn him he shattered the darkness by applying his own destruction making, dispelling the cage and walking out of his previous confinement.

The rodent pulled back as Krieg punched the ground, and once more with the speed of it's natural counterpart lightning arced through the earth, shattering it all in an instant as it raced towards Shirou.

The girl withdrew as the other two pests escaped their cages. Shirou sighed. So much for taking his time, one pest at a time. But, his defense was completed, and Shirou's skin was now a deep shade of purple, showing a layer of hardened darkness that acted as pseudo-armor. It was about time Shirou got serious and start wrapping this incident up.

Shirou saw the whale go to punch the ground. Shirou himself smashed his fist down into the ground. He created a wave of lightning tainted with darkness that fractured the ground around him and went in all direction, destroying and shocking everything in it's path and cancelling out the whale's lightning attack. Without waiting to see if his attack had any affect, Shirou ran towards the whale at a speed that equaled the girls'. His fist was a light with black flames, representing an intense hotness as well as the destructive properties of darkness, and he sent a punch to the whale's stomach.

As the lightning from the male surged forth, it quickly knocked the rodent on his ass, though not out. he was stunned for a moment, but not down. He was definitely hurting, through, and laid there on the ground for a while to gather him composure. Who was this human? This was unreal for him. The rodent wasn't a pushover. Sure, he was relatively new, having only been in the army a few years as opposed to a decade or even a century, but how in the hell was he that strong? How was he that skilled with this magic?

The girl had similar thoughts. She saw the lightning coming though when the boy hit the ground, and immediately leapt. The dodge was too narrow, and the lightning grazed her, sending a coursing shock of tense energy through her body. As the shock gripped her she fell from the air like dead weight, recovering in enough time to catch herself on the ground but still have her body reeling from the jolt.

Krieg stood relatively unphased, that same expression he'd had since the beginning draped across his face. The girl had been in the army for a few decades, and the rodent a few years. Krieg had been in the army for centuries. Over one-thousand years of combat experience and he'd seen hundreds of strategies, been hand selected by Trayi himself as a personal guard and member of his war council. Shirou's power was nothing intimidating, and the giant decided to show why he was called "Storm".

As Shirou rushed forward from the debris, Krieg clapped his hands together. A crack of thunder erupted from his hands and the shock-wave surged forward, tearing up the ground as lightning crawled towards Shirou. He wouldn't be able to break through the shockwave, and it would force him back. Jrieg would follow up by changing his stretegy somewhat. Yes, Krieg was a being that thrived of lightning and in fact preferred to use that school of destruction magic. It wasn't the only kind he could do though.

He opened his mouth, face unmoving, and belched out a beam of raw energy at Shirou before advancing. Krieg's major weakness was his slow movement, but he had learned to compensate for it with his magic. Even if his blows were too slow, the after effects had become something to fear. He lurched forward, moving with surprising speed for being so large and delivered a slow combo to Shirou, which would be dodged easily. The last punch would carry energy on it however, interacting with the wind and  launching some, shaped by his fist into an invisible object that would impact Shirou as though it were actually Krieg punching him with his infamous stone-shattering force.