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Gilgamesh      The Preserver of Life sits in the Remnant dock. Gilgamesh has been spending a fair amount of time in Remnant as of late, and it's not really much of a secret why.

     The King himself is waiting for her aboard the dark wooden ship. He's standing outside, on the little bit of deck before one has to enter the main hall. He's not dressed in his regal golden armor, nor his shirtless Kingly attire; he's dressed in his simple black coat, his white sweater, his beige dress pants, like he's asking her out on a date rather than waiting for her to show up so he can see her strength firsthand. On him, even the simple clothes look regal and imperious, as if they were the finest of armor, the finest of dress clothes, but it's still a bit of an odd thing to wear to a battle. One hand is in his coat pocket. The other holds a goblet of sweet-smelling alcohol that he's sipping from every so often as he watches the streets.

     He doesn't hate Remnant as much as he hates most places. Yang has some part in that, but also Remnant reminds him more of home than most places. The constant assaults, the way humans live inside walled cities and have to fight for their own survival, is a comfortable thing for the King of Heroes. He likes it. It gives him hope for the rest of Multi-Vars. He's watching the people as they walk past, not with anxious eyes as if looking for her without pause, but with distant red eyes, as if simply surveying a kingdom. Unsurprising; he is the King, and the King is Gilgamesh, and the two are indeed inseparable.
Yang Xiao Long     The distant sound of motor vehicles is a constant background hum, sometimes rising as a vehicle comes closer to the dockyard, most of the time just a steady thrumming, like the sound of blood rushing through an artery, the city's own heartbeat.

    That rhythm is broken as the deep, throaty growl of a motorbike engine approaches, becoming louder and louder than even the most closely passing car or truck.

    The golden vehicle, devested of the Line gear that encapsulated it for so long, rounds the corner, mantles over the dock security barrier and pulls a wheelie before coming to rest beside the moored Babylonian spaceship.

    The blonde brawler astride her mighty steed sits up, kicks out the stand with one foot, and takes off her helmet, shaking out the long shaggy locks of her hair before looking up at the King atop his vessel.

    With all the reverence and honour demanded of a lesser speaking to the King of Heroes, Yang speaks a greeting. "Hey Gil. What's shakin'?"
Gilgamesh      If Gilgamesh has ever been offended by the people who speak to him with such familiarity, he's only ever said so when something else about their actions bothers him. Some kings in history have brutally suppressed such people; the King of Heroes appears to simply not care. He appears to be the sort to understand that spitting at the sky only leaves something on your own face rather than the sort to leap to anger. He simply nods at Yang as she arrives.

     The ship's ramp extends, the triangular prow unfolding and stretching down to touch the Remnant dock. It's an invitation without words.

     "You look much healthier than you did last we spoke," the King observes, looking her over, "I thought perhaps you might be ready to show me the strength you are so proud of. And I had naught else to do, so I thought that I might spend the day in the company of a beautiful woman. There are worse ways to spend time."

     He sips from his drink and turns, gesturing for her to follow him inside. "The Preserver's inside is more than sufficient space for a battle. Without the table and throne, two small armies could battle in its hull." The door opens without his touch, and he walks in.

     The inside of the Preserver is, indeed, massive. What normally looks like a great feasting-hall has had all the chairs, the decorations, the foodstuffs, the entertainment, the throne, cleared away. Instead there are simply the magical lights shining down from on high and a wide, flat wooden floor. It's no surprise; it was made to shelter men and beasts from a great and terrible flood. Why would it not be massive, once all the festivities are cleared away and all that remains is the floor?
Yang Xiao Long     Yang grins that big, devil-may-care grin of hers, getting off her bike and walking up the ramp. She stretches as she walks, working kinks out of her shoulders and back from hunching over the controls of her bike. "Yeah, Hunters heal fast once we get a good few days to rest." she replies, following the King into the ship. "Aura's a hell of a drug like that."

    Lilac eyes look around the interior, appreciative of the sheer amount of space. "Man, I knew this ship was big, but it looks even bigger on the inside." she adds, more a musing to herself than a statement directed at her host.
Gilgamesh      "It is the Preserver of Life, as I have said." Gilgamesh rolls his shoulders slightly, "It sheltered humankind and the beasts of the Earth from the great flood that tore asunder the land. It is huge that it might bear as many souls as possible to safety, to resume the world and repopulate it after its destruction. It's simply something I had lying about in my treasury."

     He turns back to look at her. The King's red eyes meet hers. He takes a sip of his drink, and gestures for her to strike him when she's ready. It's sort of odd, seeing somebody dressed like that, standing like that, drinking like that, making a motion like he's ready to fight. There's no armor, no weapons, no...nothing. Just...him.

     "Feel free to attack me whenever you like." Perfect lips spread in a wry smirk. "Or simply stand there and let me look at you all day. Either is acceptable."
Yang Xiao Long     Yang rolls her neck, popping a few last little niggles out of her muscles, then unfolds her gauntlets into place. The two little bracelets that dangle around her wrists unpack into forearm bracers that terminate over the backs of her hands, she lifts her arms, taking a boxers stance as she eyes up the King. <He's definitely strong, without an Aura I'm getting a big pressure off him so this won't be easy.> she thinks to herself, shifting her stance just slightly, then kicking off, launching herself forwards for a straight lunging haymaker to start off with.
Gilgamesh      Yang goes for the haymaker. She's powerful. She's used to being the strongest thing on the field, and with good reason; she almost always *is*. She's an unstoppable raging berserker, raw strength applied directly into any obstacle that shatters it with overwhelming force. There's a reason Gilgamesh likes her, and it's not just her appearance.

     So it's probably more than a little surprising when Gilgamesh simply moves his hand into the way of her fist and catches her blow. The shockwave ripples his coat behind him like a vast cape, shaking the Preserver of Life.

     The strength of a demigod indeed.

     The King doesn't even step back. Around him, reality ripples. Actually ripples; it's as if the universe is a pond of gold and a dozen rocks suddenly passed through it. Weapons extend out of the golden ripples, blades and hammers and spears and all manner of things. Even Yang can feel the power surge in the room as the King pours his power into the Gate of Babylon; a blind, deaf, dumb person could feel it, so a trained Huntress certainly can. This isn't Aura, but it's certainly power.

     "Don't die," Gilgamesh says idly, that wry, flirty, salacious smile on his face. "I want to put you on your back, not in your grave."

     Weapons fire from those ripples. There's a lot of them - and Yang definitely has the sense that it's not only not even close to all of them, but not even close to as many as he could fire *at once*. They shoot, trailing magic behind them, each a high-class artifact of the sort that only appears in fairy tales and ancient stories. Each weapon is polished to a shine, perfect and beautiful and flawless in its appearance. There, an unmistakably holy blade leaving a passing trail of light goes shooting at her. A demonic red sword with an evil aura. A spear like a thunderbolt. An ACTUAL lightning bolt. A hammer with an aura of ice. The sheer variety of it would leave any weapon fanatic stunned and staggered, and it just, keeps, coming, pouring out from around Gilgamesh as though he turned a faucet and what came out were weapons rather than water.
Yang Xiao Long     Yang's eyes go wide as her headlong charge is stopped dead in its tracks. The shock of that is plain as day on her face, as she hops back when the entire room ripples around her.

    Gilgamesh, the King of Heros, opens the Gate by a tiny crack, and out pours a torrent of weapons. Yang brings her arms up and braces, her Aura flaring wildly as it desperately attempts to deflect the incoming assault. But it's too much. The golden barrier expands, EXPLODES, and the girl is buried under the mountain of Treasures.

    That is, until she isn't.

    Another explosion scatters the artefacts, causing some to embed in the hull of the ship, or just vanish back into the Gate, depending.

    In the place the blonde brawler once stood is now a blazing inferno. Hair crackles with lightning, billowing out in an unfelt and unseen breeze. Shreds of her Aura 'burn' around her fists, like golden flames. And her face is set in a grimace, an angry distortion of her usual grin. "You're gonna have to try.." she slams her fists together. "A LITTLE HARDER THAN THAT!"

    Yang plants her forward foot, and dents the deck beneath her as she launches herself forward again. Before striking another straight blow, though, she kicks off the ground and jinks around to the side, trying to bypass Gilgamesh's forward guard.
Gilgamesh      She turns gold.

     Weapons scatter. They stick in the Preserver. Some of them shoot past Gilgamesh, drawing a bit of blood from his perfect face; even the cut looks like it belongs, the trickle of blood like elegant makeup down his cheek. Some of them simply scatter, falling to the ground. Gilgamesh doesn't bother to retrieve any of them. Time enough for that later.

     There's an appreciative - no, a /greedy/ - look in his eyes as she comes charging in, leaving cracks in the deck as she runs. (It'll sort itself out later; there's a Noble Phantasm for fixing these things in the Gate.) Each step shakes the ship. She kicks around to the side, swinging her fist forward.

     He holds up his hand to meet her.

     She collides with it again, and there's another thunderous shockwave. This time, though, he's not just *standing* there, all the force dispersed. He skids backwards, pushed along the ground. There's a clear *wound* from the impact, a heavy bruise on his beautiful hand. There's clear *damage* as he rolls his shoulder. Moreover, something cracks. Yang gets a glimpse of an earring turning to golden dust and vanishing back inside the Gate of Babylon. Some preparation, some secret artifact. Probably not to bolster his strength. Probably just in case someone hit him too hard without him noticing it.

     The fact that she broke his secret guard /despite him guarding/ does not escape his notice as he shakes his hand, like it's gone numb.

     That hand disappears back into his pocket.

     The Gate of Babylon opens again. His drink touches his lips.

     "Will I?"

     The torrent begins again. Yang can already tell that these are /entirely new weapons/. The room's already full of a stupid number of weapons and yet he just keeps adding more, none of them copies, none of them duplicates, each and every one a new, unique, incredible force. There's a hammer that shocks like lightning. There's a spear as cold as ice. There's a trident that brings with it the force of a wave. It's not just an arsenal, it's a /force of nature/, a power unto itself.

     Really the fact that he can /sustain this/ probably speaks more to the strength of the demigod than that he can block her without killing himself.
Yang Xiao Long     The reaction doesn't go unnoticed, the damage getting through the defenses put in place definitely gets attention, but then the Gate opens once more and the flood resumes.

    This time Yang doesn't hang around and try to tank it, instead she mixes punching some of the Treasures, while using the recoil to dodge others, sending some weapons spinning away from the deflection, and leaving others to just slam into the deck or fly past to hit the walls. Some do hit home, some skim past, leaving weals of blood to ooze down her arms and legs from cuts and gashes, completely unimpeded by her broken Aura.

    When the flood abates, she slams her fists together again, causing her hair to billow out from the dinetic outrush. "Every hit I take makes me stronger. I. BURN!" she announces, then pulls back to open up a barrage of explosive bolts, each one detonating like a lump of C4 on impact with an object. They home in slightly, arching around from the unusual launching style of being literally punched, to aim in at the King.
Gilgamesh      Yang hits aside treasures from the Gate of Babylon. She smashes aside a spear trailing ribbons of liquid death. She rebounds off it to dodge a burning axe. She keeps going, and going, and going, more and more force given over to pushing through the Gate. It doesn't really ever /stop/ - there don't seem to be limits, and Gilgamesh doesn't seem to need to take a breather as he stands there sipping his drink. Eventually, though, she's able to find a gap, and with that gap she pushes aside another blast with a kinetic explosion, and then starts hitting explosive bolts at the King.

     Blades emerge directly in front of them. Several of them cleave right through the bolts, carving through them like shields. Hammers bat the bolts away into the walls (the ship is...surprisingly sturdy. And fireproof. Actually, a bunch of burning weapons are just kind of LODGED into the floor, and it doesn't seem to be catching). Even his aim when he's just sort of casually parrying shots is kind of impressive.

     And then Yang gets him full in the chest with one.

     It was a narrow error, but an error nonetheless. He slides backwards, sucking in a breath. That, in fact, hurt. There's a motion of Gilgamesh shaking his head slightly as he stands and drops the cup, letting it vanish into the Gate of Babylon.

     Evidently he's slightly more serious now.

     He steps forward.

     The Gate's stream now abates. The room is almost more weapons than /room/. A huge chunk of the vast interior is just coated in tools. Gilgamesh, idly, picks up a massive stone axe.

     "How interesting."

     He shoulders the axe and starts moving forward. He doesn't appear slowed by the axe in the slightest. He moves in, swinging, and in its wake there's the sound of thunder echoing from a distant mountain.

     "Perhaps I should see this up close."
Yang Xiao Long     Yang parries one final weapon, then crosses her arms on front of her, hooking the slides together and cycling the chambers. She then shifts the mechanisms, purging the spent cartridges. The clink onto the carpet of weapons and tools. As Gilgamesh comes walking forward, she reaches into her belt pouch, pulling a pair of new shell chains, tossing them up into the air and slamming them into the open mechanisms, before they slide closed with a satisfying CLACK.

    The axe swing is met with a sidestep and overarm punch into the side of the blade, sending it off it's mark, but still scraping down her other arm, drawing blood and cutting through her jacket. She staggers for a moment, then gathers all her remaining Aura into her left fist, making it glow gold and burn like a comet.

    She gathers and brings the punch up in an uppercut, using all her height to add momentum to the strike, and following it through.
Gilgamesh      She gets a hit.

     It's a really, really clean hit. She actually knocks him off his feet, up into the air just a little bit, with enough force to probably kill a normal man. The shockwave of the contact *does* scatter many of the weapons that have dug into the Preserver's deck, sending them flying all across the room, scattering like dandelion seeds. He goes up, he flips, and he lands, and he's bleeding.

     Properly bleeding, not a little cut. There's blood coming out of his mouth. There's a bit of it coming out of his eye. It still looks absolutely beautiful, that strange, supernatural glory that is Gilgamesh's inhuman perfection making it as flawless as makeup, but he's /clearly/ actually been struck with enough force to hurt him.

     He bends over for a moment. He wobbles.

     Then he rises.

     That he can stand up after that is probably incredible. That he can /still move/ after that is probably astounding. Hell, that he's not /dead/ or /paralyzed/ after that is probably astounding, the fact that he's /standing/ is outright miraculous. The fact that he's rising is even moreso. The stone hammer is tossed aside.

     Those red eyes light up.

     Underneath his coat, underneath his sweater, the red lines Yang has seen tattooed on his perfect torso start to glow. The Preserver of Life thrums. The weapons in the room fade away, vanishing into the Gate once again in a sprinkle of golden faerie dust.

     This is probably not a good thing.

     "Very well," the King says, and now his voice is backed by power, a rumble behind it that is most definitely and thoroughly inhuman, "You've convinced me to try."

     He takes a step.

     The ground shakes. It's not shaking under his strength. It's shaking under the sheer amount of power he's putting out. He's literally glowing, prana shimmering around him as he opens the Gate of Babylon.

     Only one weapon emerges.

     Gilgamesh's lips part as the enormous blade sticks forth from the ripple. "Ig."
     "Alima."

             GREEN FIELD CUTTING THROUGH THE THOUSAND MOUNTAINS              

     It is unreasonably massive. It is too massive even for the god-strong Gilgamesh to lift, a blade big enough to be used as a rampart for a whole army. Indeed the raw size of the thing proves Gilgamesh's claim correct - two armies *could* clash within the Preserver of Life, for the massive blade that hangs above him does not even touch the ceiling. His fingers come out of his coat.

     "Don't die," Gilgamesh repeats, and this time there's an aura of menace behind it, like a divine command given weight, "I wish to put you on your back in far more pleasant circumstances than these, Yang Xiao Long."

     Flick.

     The enormous blade is even larger than it seemed. It's like he fired a building at her, a building not made of stone but made of some unidentifiable /thing/, some condensed divinity fired like a bullet from the Gate of Babylon. It takes up a huge chunk of the room, and it moves /disgustingly/ fast, and there's a trail of magic that suggests that behind that weight is something even more than just a bizarre construct and enormous size. Indeed, whether it hits Yang or not, it actually crashes through the outside of the Preserver of Life, piercing a hole in the vessel and sticking forth like a wound.

     Gilgamesh is not concerned.

     He'll repair it later.
Yang Xiao Long     Yang grins as she connects, she spins once in mid-air, then lands, cross-locking her arms to cycle the chambers again, a satisfying CLUNK-CHAK reporting as Gilgamesh stands back up.

    "That's a big chopper." she remarks offhandedly. "Really going to cut to the point huh?" she adds, just before the thing is launched like a bullet at her. She steps aside, and launches herself out of the path of that massive blade, barely managing to clear the attack before the thing slams through the hull. She's buffeted by the air pressure, and slammed into the hull wall with a sickening crack from something... but she stands back up.

    Slowly, awkwardly, but still getting back up. The Burning Girl continues to burn, her hair lashing about like a living thing, glowing bright as the sun, like molten gold. Eyes flare red matching the King of Heros in all but those red tattoos. "Like I said." she croaks, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth and trickling down her chin before she wipes it away with the back of a gauntlet. "YOu're gonna have to try harder than that."

    She grins. it's that same, easy going grin she always wears. "Lets wrap this up, huh?" she comments, gathering herself down. The colour seems to leach from the world, everything turning a dull monotone, save for the glowing red eyes. She then launches, like a missile, aiming another one of those haymaker punches she started with at the King... this one backed by all the energy she's absorbed up to this point.
Gilgamesh      She hits the King of Heroes hard enough to knock him off his feet.

     That hasn't happened often. He can count on one hand the number of people who have managed to hit him hard enough to knock him off his feet, hard enough to knock him back against a wall. It's not a long list, and it's not a list of /humans/, more often than not. He hits the wall with a dull *thud*; he was a second too slow in stepping back, a second too slow in avoiding the blow.

     For a minute, it seems like he's just.../down/, like he's just /unconscious/.

     He rises. He rises slowly, unsteadily. He's a bit uncertain on his feet. Again, that's probably ridiculous in and of itself, that he's on his feet at all. He coughs, and there's a bit of blood out of his mouth. He straightens. The glowing light spikes, the red light in his eyes grows brighter-

     -and then dies. Gilgamesh shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. From the Gate of Babylon emerges a set of silken cloths. They flit through the air, cleaning blood off Gilgamesh, off Yang. Some of them tie around Gilgamesh's wounds, which are already healing under the strength of his own divinity. Some of them tie around Yang, temporary bandages of the finest and most pleasant silk until she can seek medical attention for the hits she took. They're soft and comfortable and Yang can already feel the wound being cleaned.

     Gilgamesh walks forward. He's got a slight limp from the sheer force of the hit.

     "Well done."

     The King does not lie. He's quite honest when he's impressed, and there is a degree of respect in those bright, beautiful red eyes that Yang has rarely seen before. There's a wry smile on his face, too, a 'yes, I am actually pretty impressed by that' look instead of a 'I totally could've won if I'd TRIED HARDER' look. Gilgamesh doesn't seem to be the type to make excuses.

     "The last time I was hit that hard..."

     Gilgamesh considers. Red eyes dance thoughtfully in his head.

     "It was by a dragon far less attractive to me than you are and a dozen times larger."

     "That dragon's claws now adorn my treasury. Occasionally they decorate my bedchambers."

     Gilgamesh's wry grin turns salacious again. "I've been quite transparently hoping I can say the same of you soon enough."

     He leans in and steals a brief kiss from her lips, then straightens. "Feel free to come by again, while the Preserver is in port. Next time I'll treat you to a meal rather than a brawl."
Yang Xiao Long     Yang straightens after the punch. That strike was literally everything she had left and it shows.

    The glow in her hair abates and the tresses fall limp against her, drenched in sweat. The red glare of her eyes fades back to the pale lilac of normal, and she has to take a half step forward to right herself from the lingering momentum of that punch.

    The bandages are appreciated, and now that the fight's over her Aura begins to 'recharge', helping speed along the wound healing process, but it'll still take a few days, and a visit to a doctor.

    "Well, my name does translate from Mistralese as 'Little Dragon of the Sunshine'... so there's that." she offers, looking back at those red eyes. "Maybe someday, Gil... you still need to come down off that little pedastal and be human first though." she chides, then breaks into that comfortable little smile. "And sure, never gonna pass up a free meal, just remember, I'm not some piece of art to add to your collection."