A Hero fights... another Hero

[ZephyrosOmega]

Yknow, I always wanted to do Zephyr vs Zain back during the deviantart days, but holy poopoo this is so much more thematic

Ryn and Zain are both in their 6-C keys, with speed equalized. Who will win?

Ryn:

Zain:

Inconclusive:

 

[ThePerpetual]

What the

This is a thing apparently! I will check back in on this in a short while

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

No prob. Sorry I didn't put it on your wall or anything, but at that point it was like, midnight for me and it slipped my mind.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Well, alright, time to get to this!

...(begins to read Ryn's page)

Oh. Well uh

Right. What's a Ryn do? And, what's his general mentality, strategies, etc.? Because this page is stupidly massive and I don't even know where to start really

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

Alright, so 6-C key is everything up to the dragon civil war, and his Niffin abilities likely won't help him here as they jump tier and he literally has to die to use them

Ryn in this form will probably use CQC with his various weapons, switching between them via magic to try and knock Zain off-guard. If Z attacks with magic, he'll likely either summon crystals to refract and launch it back at him, or try and deflect it with his aura. If Ryn is on his last legs he'll bust out Haiana to amp himself.

Ryn's AP is somewhere between 8 and 76 Gigatons. What's Zain's like?

 

[ThePerpetual]

I forget the exact number, but it should be linked.

What is the measurement for Ryn's AP contingent on? Is it just assumed to be the lowest-balled possible, in absence of a "to Island level+" indicator?, or is there something else at work? I clicked on the link to his "Island level+" justificatio, but all it gave me was just 8 gigatons on its own, which should be just Island level- leaving me to initially guess that this is a typo.

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

He downscales from This guy , who has a casual 76 gigaton feat

 

[ThePerpetual]

If he downscales so little that he has "Island level+" outright- not even a "Island level to Island level+"- shouldn't that be the justification linked to his AP? (And, also, that requires the assumption that at his peak is at an absolute minimum like 52.15 Gigatons or so)

Anyways, Zain scales down slightly from Metenros's about-37 to 44 Gigaton mountain slamming in base form, it seems, and the Inner Truth super modes are some unknown higher amount than that; notably, Tessera's Inner Truth Form generates a 13.4 Gigaton force by just existing. (There was supposedly a x7 per Inner Truth form statement, some time back, but that's always been hilariously inconsistent, and from an era when Zain had five Inner Truths rather than three anyways, so I kinda just ignore it.)

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

I wasn't quite sure what to put for the AP, to be honest, just that it's some level between them and he was already Island Level+ before I actually calced Cryovale's storm

In either case, Haiana can amp Ryn's AP 2x but it also drains his stamina twice as fast. The same goes for Haiana Act 2 and his speed (though it's worth noting that his reactions are multiplied by x20). What does Zain start with?

 

[ThePerpetual]

In pretty much all cases, in Acts I - IV, just using some basic Offensive Spell- or Admixture to combine two of them- and stacking it with Blade Metamagic to attach it to all weapon attacks instead and Chrono Metamagic to steal time from enemies that take (or simply trade blows with) the weapon, before teleporting adjacent to them with his conceptual Lovers Arcana what-not and going to town in melee. He's... not exactly the haxxiest fighter ever at this point, but he's overcome beings that should by all logic probably ought to be more skilled than himself (ex. Metenros, Tessera, both of whom are several millennia old and active fighters; Qliphoth Lords an unknown massive amount older than that) even outside of Tiphareth Soulsborne-style immortality just by being that gosh-darn determined.

...or something. Idk what you want out of me, this is a very Gurren Lagann setting in that the rules are "There Are No Rules except those you allow yourself to work under."

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

what can I say these two are like, the same character on a surface level

How does conceptual arcana work?

 

[ThePerpetual]

The Lovers: Zain's most complicated and versatile unique Armiger Skill, awakened in the same moment as his Inner Truth: via its activation, Zain bridges the gap between himself and his target, joining together as one. What this entails is variable, and largely dependent on the context at hand. By conjoining himself with a distant location, for instance, Zain is capable of teleporting himself to it, and by conjoining himself with a targeted weapon he may take possession of it, effectively undoing it's prior ownership and reclaiming all of the benefits of owning it for himself. Furthermore, with the aid of the Sephira, Zain's ability to perceive and comprehend Idea Fractures makes him capable of truly outstanding things such as bridging the gap between himself and the true state of the object afflicted by this fracture, or of tethering himself to a person so afflicted in order to pull their True Self out or enter the world manifested by their Idea Fracture.

Typically, he just uses it for teleport-spam, as you do as a flashy not-JRPG protag, though with the proper knowledge of the situation it can be used for some really jank shit- effectively copying people's power-ups by temporarily impressing his Archetype Armiger onto theirs for instance, or becoming compatible for bound weapons that "can only be wielded by X person" by merging Archetypes temporarily. It's his signature thing, all the way up through the late game, a manifestation of the whole peace-loving, good guy of justice aesthetic as a power (and his namesake- the Zain path on the Tree of Life, connecting Tiphareth and Binah, correlates directly to the Lovers Arcana.)

...should probably address the elephant in the room- what are the Win Conditions? Do those exist? How does Ryn deal with Soulsborne-style regen, in the instance he lops Zain's head off and he just shows up again an hour later with prior knowledge?

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

Telespam and copying Haiana is gonna be rough for Ryn to deal with.

"How does Ryn deal with Soulsborne-style regen, in the instance he lops Zain's head off and he just shows up again an hour later with prior knowledge?"

Hitting him very hard with Durandal will work. It's got that sweet immortality negation.

 

[ThePerpetual]

...to what degree? Because like,

It's kind of a big deal that nothing in the ordinary verse can just up and shut off the Tiphareth, being of a higher Sephira than the Paroketh and all that jazz. It took more or less 8-D BFR to manage it in canon, and even that was undone eventually.

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

Arks are weapons that possess divinity, which is 11D in scope.


Though keep in mind he has to actually land a fatal blow (Heart stabbing, decapitation, etc), as it's not an insta-kill through touch and the damage can be healed through external means, just not regenerated from.

 

[ThePerpetual]

...how do Ark Weapons define "Regenerationn" and "external means", I feel I should ask? That seems like a really finicky/arbitrary distinction if it's not pinned down properly

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

Essentially, anything that's internal/passive doesn't count as "External Means", while things cast actively would. To put it as simply as possible:

Having Mid-Godly regen wouldn't be able to heal you from getting stabbed by an ark.

Buuuut casting Curaga would heal you just fine.

If Zain has healing magic that he can cast on himself, that can heal wounds.

 

[ThePerpetual]

(goes on rant about "Well, since all powers are actively derived from the Will, in particular the Tiphareth, all effects it generates are subconscious exertions of Will over time rather than simply passive")

Okay, so as to not be pedantic and dumb, for the sake of argument let's go with "Yes, Ark Weapons do in fact shut off the Tiphareth for good if they land a killing blow", kinda in the vein of his battle with Ruin or Tessera's Requiem-

Running down each individual advantage, one at a time:

> Offense: Jay. On the whole, he has just, a lot more ways of generally attacking people, at least far as I can tell, what with his dozens of unique weapons, and slightly superior AP to boot.

> Defense: Probably also Jay, but by a smaller margin, and only really on account of being 6-C+ instead of (a high) mere 6-C. Zain has a lot of the same defense techniques or things like them- Attack Reflection in Justice, for example, various relevant Resistances, and so on.

> Mobility: Probably Zain. Hero's Path seems to make Teleportation and general transportation a lot easier than what Rynild has up his sleeves, and its very spammable.

> Range: Also Zain. Hundreds of Meters vs. Thousands of Meters is pretty cut and dry as a comparison point.

> Intelligence: ...Tie? Rynild doesn't have a descriptor as has been made popular on FC/OC in recent times, but the description at least sounds like the upper end of Gifted, which is also where Zain is at this point. I can see giving Rynild a slight edge here just because his entry is more detailed in how it can be applied.

> Experience: Zain's been actively fighting and studying for the better part of his life, on top of all of the actual events of the canon proper, the Accelerated Development that the attunement to the Kether has, etc. Rynild, meanwhile, is 13 (or 16? It's hard to tell at what key Vol. I ends and Vol. II begins) to his 20, and spent most of his life actively fleeing war, trying to live a peaceful life in Alice's manor to avoid it, instead of going to magical-super-soldier military college programs, explicitly for the purpose of making a career out of putting swords in people. I would be very surprised if he had more applicable combat experience.

> Strength: Zain to such an extent it's not even funny, really. Class 5 vs. Class T means that, if it comes to blows/CQC, the poor kid's going to get rag-dolled if he makes even one mistake. If he were more prepared/specialized in it, or had the right tools, I imagine he could add "Incap via Swole Wrestling skills" to the list of Win Conditions, but as is it just makes Melee a better prospect.

> Endurance: Zain's "can live & keep fighting as strong, if not stronger, than before with multiple blades embedded in his torso/limbs/neck, withstand poisons more painful than anything organic known to Mankind, etc." >>> Rynild's "'only' Above Average"

> Equipment: Rynild for certain. Which... sounds weird, given the Sephiroth exist and are among the few objectively smurfy elements of his kit, but they don't really apply here aside from blocking hax that Rynild isn't liable to use in the first place (or, in the case of Ark weapons, just gets over-run.) Exempting weapon variety, he just seems straight-up more prepared.

> Special: Notably, the arch-villain of Act II, in Hero's Path, is a geokineticist, with multiple moves very much in the vein of some of Rynild's nastier Earth/Crystal Magicks (and on top of that, coincidentally, calls on spiders/webs/poison for back-up.) That is, to say, he literally just got done, at this point in the story, getting a hardcore crash course on how to go up against earth-element specialists.

...I might be missing a key ability or haxxorz power somewhere, but as far as general capabilities that seems to be everything (I almost certainly am missing something or other for Ryn, but that comes with the territory.)

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

bruh did you just call ryn Jay in the offense and defense area


Alright, in all seriousness, most of this seems pretty legit. I wouldn't quite count Ryn out in terms of experience, though.

Yeah, Ryn is 13 in his 6-C key, which is during the Dragon Civil War. I'll clarify that Ryn himself didn't try to live a peaceful life. His mother brought him to Astiria as a baby and gave him to Alice, who never disclosed why she brought him there.

That said, ryn's no slouch. He's been training with a blade at least somewhat for most of his childhood. It was to the point where the day after he pulled Durandal out of the stone, he was able to beat Finch. Finch is a Holy Knight of the empire, meaning he's by virtue one of the best fighters and mages in the country, and despite his autonomous defense, Ryn was able to pinpoint the weaknesses in it and win. Just a week after (After training with a tribe of kitsune warriors, kitsune having some of the best sheer melee prowess in the world), he was able to defeat Steelhide, a centuries-old enforcer who on his own was able to keep the entire country in a state of terror. In the Dragon Civil War, he was able to fight several similarly old dragons and win despite their passive damage negation.

While I agree that Zain has more experience, Ryn is a skilled fighter in his own right.

 

[ZephyrosOmega]

Also a thing worth noting is that while Ark wounds can be healed by healing spells, doing things like speeding up time to make it heal faster will not work. I know that's not what Zain is trying to do, I just thought that was a little fun fact.