Tandem the Spoony's Next Adventure [F/SN x CM(D&D)]

The latter; you're not going to drop it that far. And be glad you didn't see the Berserker odds for using Rumor to Reality, cause those were worse.

To be fair it's only Herc, who was already pissed off at you long ago; and Lancer, who you've blinded and have decided 'Fuck it, might as well go all in', thinking that the taunting is necessary to make sure he shows up, as well as get you to not think 'Oh god I'm gonna die'. There might also be some motivation from impressing Rider there, but when you saw his legend...oh boy...

Shinji fucking loves you right now, Shirou thinks you're pretty awesome, and Rider's neutral.

 

Oh my.

Well of course Shinji loves us, but I figured Rider and Shinji would be a wee bit more torn up about us wrecking Rider's NP. Saber would hate us, but she's dead so she doesn't count.

And yeah, like we needed additional taunting to get Lancer to show up, but Tandem apparently needed to work up his nerve. Probably a lot of smarter ways to do it, and he DID still manage to hold of super-Herk so Lancer probably wouldn't be that bad.

But eh, twas funny.

Hmm. Maybe we should consider trying to extract Avalon from Shirou as a grand fallback, keep it on us, and if we use Defiance of Fate then we might end up claiming it too. Especially if Defiance of Fate decides activating Avalon is the best way to save us. It's a pretty hefty advantage.

 

We could pass the check and it would still be completely worthless. Lancer already lost a fight with us.

 

So? We didn't have Kaladbolg, which is what would be needed to invoke the Geas IIRC.

 

Didn't Shinji only want the grail to become a magus? Now that he has magic, I doubt that he gives two shits about the war.

Anyway, we're SABER, the best swordsman in the world, have freaking EXCALIBUR, and have another servant to back us up if we start losing. I don't think we even NEED to cheat to win (and I REALLY don't want to lose that "best swordsman" perk). Besides, if worst comes to worst, we can just use Defiance of Fate.

 

I'm pointing out it would have not been able to work out regardless. Duh.

 

No, Hymn is right; the geas revolves around the blade, not the person. If the wielder of Caladblog is Ulster-born, Cu chulainn must be defeated by the blade.

The fact that you have beaten him once already is irrelevant; the geas is still valid because it revolves around Lancer being beaten by Caladbolg.

 

Wow, Shirou is only useful as a prana battery. Considering he never gave it to Saber in canon and most fics, there is some irony in it.

Plan's time: seeing as using the Geas about Caladbolg can't work because we don't have the sword, plain and simple, let's use some other geas of Cu. Like this:

-He has a geas to never eat dog meat;
-He has a geas to eat any food offered to him by a woman.

We have Rider. The only think we need is a dog (yeah I know this will incite the fury of all animal lovers. I am one too, but this is fiction so bear with it).

 

Bah. If we use Rider, Cuchulainn will know something is up. Still, since we don't know about Sakura yet, we can't really use her instead... Meh.

 

Alex's idea of dog meat is on the table, but oh man is that starting to sink to low levels. If we still qualify as Chaotic Good here, man are we more of the more assholish versions there is. Still, it could work. Cu knowing something is up doesn't mean he's not still bound by the geases. He'll just be doubly pissed and might try to kill Rider.

Hmm, would Rider's nature as a monster possibly give Cu an out on the geas? I'm not sure.

Still, Greatest Swordsman won't stop either ability of Gae Bolg. It'll let us trounce Cu is pure melee (probably), but not for certain. Cu really is pretty damned good with his spear and runes, and probably has tricks with fighting superior opponents in some way.

 

EX ranked Luck stops one NP pretty decetly, I'd assume.
Staying close to him stops the other, as well.

Basically, anyone else has the problem that they can't stay in range for long without risking to be insta-killed and are are targets to be hit by his anti-army NP, if they keep their distance.

We can use the stat boosts to at least get agility to EX, likely others as well, which should make it easy to keep him in CQC and stop him from disengaging (I think his Disengage C only applies to running away and as pissed as he is,I doubt he would do that), while we can make mincemeat out of him with Kojiro's skills and ~3.5 (Luck plus 1-4 others) stats at EX.

 

It doesn't. With our NP active, the best we managed is to make it hit something else. Going by what happens last time, with only luck Tandem and Lancer roll Luck with modifiers. Lancer gets +1, Tandem gets +50 I think. Tandem wins, Gae Bolg does not pulp his heart, but it does probably still hit him because that's just Gae Bolg. We're not going to get a fullblown miss with it.

Melee with the rune magic melee master is not a significantly more attractive proposition.

EX Luck is not a hard counter to Gae Bolg. Winning the contest of Luck when it's invoked just means you don't get hit in the heart. It doesn't assure not getting hit. Not getting hit with, "Your body is now full of unhealable thorns that shred your insides, if you weren't a Servant you'd be dead now."

I would not take Cu lightly.

 

I am not taking him lightly.

I am aware that EX Luck is not a hard counter, but having EX Luck, 1-4 other stats at EX and being better than Kojiro is pretty much the closest you are going to get to one.
If he somehow finds the time to use his NP in battle, you can be sure that we are going to exploit that opening and make him pay for it.
And, even assuming he finds the time for runemagic, without us using that to our advantage, it'd be of limited use because of our B rank MR.

No matter how badass he is, we have one of the best skillsets to match him, which means we have pretty good odds against him.

And we can improve those odds even further by adding Rider to the mix.

 

Which isn't very good and even Tandem knows it.

Better Luck is not going to get us a miss, it just makes a lethal hit not immediately fatal. And we'd need Defiance of Fate in order to pull off something truly ridiculous to make Gae Bolg target someone else's heart, like Lancer's own heart.

Hah. We'll see about that.

Never said using it on US. All eighteeen runes at once are a powerful defense, and runes can be used to make Gae Bolg an A Rank Noble Phantasm. Beware the buffs Lancer may be packing.

 

Tandem made that assumption under the impression that GB always insta-kills the target, while he was rationalizing his decision to bravely run away and before he new just how hax being above Kojiro's skills is.
The scene against Herk made it pretty clear just how much he underestimated that.

With Kojiro's skills and multiple EX stats it is quite likely that we get to actually stab him in the heart in return.

And I never said "his runes become absolutely useless".
I said it would be of limited use.
As in "a big part of the stuff he can do doesn't work anymore".

 

And yet Tandem STILL felt the need to trash talk Lancer just to work up his nerve because he felt like Cu outclassed him by a considerable margin. Word of God right there. After all that, Tandem still doesn't feel confident in winning on his own merits.

That's pretty bad.

Maybe, but we're only running on instinct. We don't actually know how to use the skills. Tandem just runs off auto-pilot. In comparison, Cu knows himself through and through, all his ins and outs, how to maximize his ability.

It might work, we might even manage to score a kill, but I am leery of throwing Tandem at Cu and hoping for the best. For reasons we've described.

I'd say even that's debatable myself. Lancer had a hefty Magic Resistance C and he still ate a full Glitterdust from Tandem despite Tandem not being the best mage around.

And Lancer's Rune Magic is Rank B. As far as Ranks goes, it's got equal potency as Tandem's Magic Resistance.

 

Yes, even I see how my plan make us super assholes. Not that Tandem's taunting made it better.

For Gae-Bolg, I think that Lancer will wait to use it. After all, he promised to make us suffer. You can't make a person suffer if he dead. So we can expect some time before he uses it..

What about this: Rider hids, we confront Lancer and when he is about to use Gae Bolg she launches an attack to distract him and give us the opening we need to finish it?

 

Personally, I'd tell Rider to hide and intervene as soon as things are starting to look bad for us or to just wait and cut off Lancer's escape, in case we can manage him on our own.

Lancer has several abiltites to make bravely running away easier and I do not want to fight him only for him to get away once he deals us a couple of cursed wounds.

 

Lancer's not going to run away. He only did in canon become a Command Seal forced him to. As pissed as Tandem's made him?

No, he's going to shove his bumpy dick thorny spear up Tandem's ass or die trying. And if he tries, all Tandem has to do is shout about how Cu's running away, spitting on his friends, validating every word Spoony has said, et cetera.

He won't wear us down. He'll just kill us.

Now, if Cu allies with Herakles? Break down and cry. Use Defiance of Fate too, but breaking down in tears is appropriate.

It's a shame Rider won't tell us what her NP is. If she used her Mystic Eyes, we can PROBABLY tank them better than Cu with base MR. If he puts up Rune Magic, maybe not, but by pure MR we beat him and it gives us a window of opportunity.

Knowing about the pegasus would be nice too. Get Lancer in a grapple or something, teleport us both high in the sky, use Celestial Armor to fly away while Rider swings around at ramming speed to obliterate Cu. He might get off one last shot, maybe. It's within his power. But he would die almost for sure.

Project Image for us alone may work, plus Mislead to get a surprise shot. In the heat of battle it may be juuuuuust enough to nail Cu. Especially if Project Image winds up for Glitterdust round two as a distraction.

Battle Continuation will be a bitch to overcome though.

 

EX rank Endurance pisses all over C rank Endurance an A rank Battle Continuation.

 

Battle Continuation means Cu keeps fighting no matter how badly injured he is. It means that no matter how badly we hurt him, unless it is fatal he'll keep going. It's not about us outlasting him, it's about Cu being obscenely tenacious on top of hating our guts. That's not covered by Endurance. It's also the kind of thing that would surprise Tandem.

We want to kill Lancer. That does not mean outlast Lancer with Endurance, that means kill the fucker. Lancer is hard to kill, experienced, and is going to fight at his body's maximum capacity to the bitter end.

In fact, even if we land a mortal blow he won't stop. It just means he'll go kamikaze and try to take Tandem with him.

 

Endurance isn't about outlasting the opponent. That's Mana.

Our EX rank has a value of 500.
C rank is only 30.

 

The correct answer is that it's both. Mana means how much you have in the tank, Endurance is how much damage you can take. The more blows you take, the more prana you need to get fixed up afterwards/continue existing. So having high Mana means you get healed really fast; like Saber Alter in HF, while Endurance means you tank blows like a motherfucker and give no fucks.

Hymn is right here; Battle Continuation means you need a killing blow to end his ass, and even then he'll probably have enough time to get another blow or two in. Lancer's all about not dying when killed, it's in his legend.

Edit: Also, Rune Magic; so don't assume he can't do any self-buffs.

 

I meant outlasting in the sense of who can take more damage, not who has more mana. Although given that Shirou isn't giving us any prana, Lancer still beats us there. IA just reduces our upkeep. How that works out in net use, beats me.

Gae Bolg is a 'sure-kill' that can kill anyone. EX doesn't matter, Gae Bolg would kill Aruceid and she can survive Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. We might be able to SURVIVE multiple 'normal' stab wounds, but our body will still be riddled with wounds and unlike Cu, Tandem lacks something like Battle Continuation. Eye of the Mind is good for analysis and danger, but once we start getting hit we're gonna go into a vicious spiral.

Especially since Cu is going to be applying cursed wounds as much as he can this time around, and he doesn't need to invoke GB for that. See Fate route.

Winning this fight is not about who can take more damage. It's going to be about Tandem avoiding damage and dealing enough to finally put Cu down. Dealing that much damage is liable to be very tricky as nothing short of a fatal or crippling blow is going to hinder Lancer.

Annnnnd Ender swoops in as I post. Well, validation is good.

 

This is gonna need some elaboration; I thought the curse was only invoked with the heart-stab. The can't heal from curse I mean.

 

Nah, even normal wounds heal really slowly as long as Lancer still lives.
Not quite sure where to find a quote for it, though.

 

I just looked at Spoony's character sheet. I am surprised.

We have Eyes of Petrification?

As in, we can wear them and use Petrify on Lancer as a sneak attack and slow him down? That would be useful. Also attract Rider's interest. I doubt it makes US immune to Petrification, but it is a nifty bonus and will confuse the hell out of Cu.

Well, if it works. Cu being able to save against that attack is feasible, so we'd probably need to work him down to try and make it stick as a surprise prelude to a finishing blow.

We'd have to take out our Eagle Eyes though, not sure how much we wantto have better spot checks versus a Petrify gaze attack.




Still, I'm liking the idea of Rider being ready on her Pegasus, us teleporting Tandem and Cu into the sky, Rider makes her charge, Tandem holds Lancer's attention, and then Tandem Dimension Doors away while Rider obliterates Cu.





Ender, sure, I can do that. Here's one scene from Fate route. Lancer stabs Shirou without invoking Gae Bolg's name out loud like he did with Saber, but making sure to miss the heart. Next scene, Lancer and Saber talk. Gae Bolg's abilities are discussed.

So apparently Cu can apply that curse if he decides he wants to.

I suppose you can interpret it how you want, but it does sound like Cu can inflict cursed wounds if he wants to. He also utterly fucked up Shirou's body here; I think he ripped it apart internally with thorns, although I can't find the line at the moment. Hmm.

 

Your Eyes of Petrification =/= Medusa's Eyes. Consider them a rank lower in terms of power; as for the Petrification, you have B-Rank Magic Resistance and B-Rank Mana so you can fight off the effects if need be. Also, apparently once they've been used on you, the next time Rider would use them your body is ready; so the effects aren't as bad.

Discussing options with Rider is an option, yes. Just keep in mind the possibility that she might not be able to interfere; directly, at least.

This is tricky, but I guess he can do it. Luck'll play a part in both avoiding the attack and the potency of the curse, however.

 

Torn between lulz and ouch here for that reference. But huh, really?

And yeah, I was pretty sure they weren't equivalent. What were Rider's, A+? Even a Rank lower is fairly potent then, so it's valid against Cu.

If we were willing to roll dice and use the lesser invocation of Defiance of Fate, we might be able to restat or gain more stats. EX Mana would be pretty helpful if Rider turns up the eyes and we throw in our own Eyes at the same time. Might slow down Cu just enough at the right time to land a cleanly fatal blow and keep him from making his own. Maybe. It's a decent plan, I think.

Worrying. Hmm.

Well, as a fallback we could kill Kotomine and let Lancer fade away. Dick move and unsatisfying, but possible.

Fair enough.

 

Well, Eyes of Petrification only existed in the Nasuverse during the Age of Gods; so they're actually pretty useful here, even if they're aren't on Rider's level. Since Rider's are:

Yours are pretty much the same, only a rank lower for each description. As for Defiance of Fate; roll for it, you can use it without the greater invocation if need be.