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Gives me enough time to run my mouth off about Mechon Fiora vs Emil Ratatosk, then, and what could be done. It'll make things easy later (partly because I don't see much hype for Symphonia in VS for some reason, and DotNW is straight up deprived on VS info).
Relations:
(See previous post)
Premise:
Location: Agniritha (Mechonis), Residential District 2.
[XC1 Party arrives in Agniritha as usual. Terminals in the Central Tower pick up data on an unknown entity in the 2nd Residential District, dawning a blue robe and scarf]
Shulk: "Blue robe? That doesn't sound like anyone I know..."
Reyn: "Me neither. And I don't suppose you've had any Visions as of late?"
Shulk: "No, not since Egil set Apocrypha off."
[Shulk then looks up at Fiora in the Central Tower doorway, noticing her clutching the core on her chest]
Shulk: "Fiora? What is it?"
Fiora: "More low sounds... another Machina?"
Shulk: "Can't be Vanea, she just left. And Egil is on the other side of the city."
Fiora: "Wait, it's something... or someone different. Mayneth seems to have taken an interest, too."
[Fiora turns to Shulk with a pensive look on her face]
Fiora: "It seems to be coming from the 2nd Residential District. Can I catch up with you later?"
Reyn: "I mean, we're going via that area anyway. I don't see why you need to-"
[The core containing Mayneth's presence begins to glow]
Reyn: "...Oh. I mean it's Mayneth, so..."
Shulk: "Are you sure?"
Mayneth: "Yes. I am not sure if this presence is something you are equipped to handle."
Fiora: "Besides, you have Terminals to activate. We'll be back to fight Egil before you know it!"
Shulk: "Alright. Be careful, though."
[Meanwhile, at the 2nd Residential District, Emil Ratatosk is present with Tenebrae. Arms crossed, back to a building wall].
Ratatosk: "What a joke. What are these rust buckets made out of, tin foil?"
Tenebrae: "They seem to have been a result of the civilisation that built this city. Their state is unsurprising, given the time."
Ratatosk: "No different to Martelian dogshit, if you ask me..."
[Fiora walks into the scene]
Fiora: "...And you are?"
Ratatosk: "I should be asking you the same question."
[Ratatosk then takes interest in Mayneth's core]
Ratatosk: "A Centurion's Core? No... it's even more powerful..."
[Emil Ratatosk then lunges at Fiora]
Tenebrae: "Wait, that's not...!"
[Fiora draws both blades just quickly enough to block the overhead]
Fiora: "I guess this isn't the first time I've saw blood in the eyes!"
FIGHT! (Or equivalent here)
Incorporation(s):
Ain Soph Aur being used to kill Mayneth's actual form is the first thing that comes to mind, being a callback to when Zanza did the same to Mayneth in the Mechonis Core. A version of this fight where the 'timid' Emil asking Fiora to finish him off comes to mind (likely with Final Cross), making reference to Ratatosk's attempts to take him over for good near the end of DotNW.
Why (likely) 2D?
I said I was mostly indifferent which animation style this came out in (and for the most part, I still am), and I know it might be surprising that I'm not going to say 3D for this given both characters origins (and the fact that my mind was in 3D mode for making the premise). But after looking back through the cutscenes of DotNW, there's something about Emil's sword drawing animation that makes me think "Sasuke vs Hiei called, they want a word". Is this just me?
(I could find a better example, but I'm not scouring 8 hours worth of cutscenes over minutia).
As for Fiora being in 2D? Well, I understand that Project X Zone is in sprite, so it wouldn't be hard to grab rigs from there.
Note: I also happened to find... whatever this is, meaning that alternating art styles aren't impossible.
Who wins?
IMHO this matchup is a little complicated, and while I think that the victor is more than likely Fiora due to the Bionis/Mechonis Universe scaling; a combination of misinterpreted Symphonia speed tiers and some hax from Ratatosk means that this isn't nearly as one-sided as one might think.
Firstly: Power. While (again) it's easy to call it a day at "Fiora has a greater power range (5-B - 2-C) due to Mayneth", there are some interesting anecdotes towards the end of DotNW that indicate to me that Ratatosk's peak goes beyond the 5-B (planetary) scaling on the VS wiki. If I'm not mistaken (at least, in the context of DotNW), the Great Kharlan Tree is often compared to a planet in it's ability to destroy and/or create life, it's death being the inciting incident of the war in DotNW, and being the impetus for Lloyd's supposed planetary peak (I am not familiar with the OG Symphonia, so bear with me. My only source for it is the VS wiki pages).
This is important to note, as Richter was actually able to box Lloyd to a standstill in the later half of DotNW, all without the use of his Sacred Stone form that gave him his fire amp form, that form being what allowed him to take on the demonic realm (as far as I'm aware, a parallel to the earth in question). This form would put Richter at likely multi-planetary, and given the relations between Richter and Ratatosk, they both directly scale to each other (or at least, a version with all 8 Centurions scales to Rhicter's true form). See, the nature of Ratatosk seems to imply casual life-wiper abilities when he commanded the Centurions to exterminate all of humanity in order to restore the Mana balance in the flashback near the end of Chapter 7, and if Ratatosk is commanding both the human and demon realms, than Occam's Razor states that this more than likely dual or multi-planetary in power tiers. The possession of the awakened Centurions also gives rise to the possibility of a version of this fight that Emil actually wins, when considering their ability to separate Ratatosk from Emil's body at the end of the game (which I interpret as a literal '2nd life' kind of thing, and the standard Emil actually scales to Ratatosk at the very end of the game), one form of the hax I eluded to earlier.
All of this would put Emil's power range anywhere up to 4-C (small star level) due to the distinctions between creation and destruction energy. Not quite Mayneth's 2-C peak, right? Apart from looking at the circumstances that got Mayneth's god form killed, those ranges above large planet (5-A) are actually a lot harder to justify (as funny as it is that Fiora without Mayneth was able to trade hands with True Form Zanza, whereas Mayneth died to an attack from his form that had only just reawakened on the Mechonis Core).
"However, I had no idea that I would defeat her so... easily" - Zanza, explaining his intent to do battle with Mayneth.
Keep in mind, if Zanza and Mayneth truly do scale to each other because of the Bionis and Mechonis fighting, and them being the arbiters of those respective worlds, then where is Zanza's true form actually accounted for outside of Universe busting when considering the stalemate would imply that a version of Mayneth does actually scale?
Next: Speed. Fiora being Light speed is a very easy thing to come by, given not just internal scaling to the likes of Mayneth (and to a certain extent Zanza), but also the nature of Machina technology. An interesting anecdote bought up by Paradigm and Erico in their Xenoblade videos was the notion of a Machina navigator having access to light speed technology, as revealed by a Eryth Sea heart-to-heart between Fiora and Riki. It's not unreasonable to assume that some form of this technology was implemented into Fiora when making her a Face Unit.
Now, I know what you're thinking: "Symphonia verse is only Lightning Level! Emil can't touch that! This is a complete blowout!"
Um... did we just completely forget that Raine Sage Photon is a thing? A Light construct? Might want to get your writers to double check that...
Finally: Hax. As well as the life-split mentioned earlier being but a fraction of Ratatosk's ability to destroy and create life through Mana, it turns out he also has the ability to govern the laws that allow him to do so, being what allowed him to create a new seal for the Ginungagop (however the hell you spell that word, it's the weirdest thing to say). How applicable to combat this is, I'm not sure (the '1000s of years' quote comes to mind), but the fact that he has this ability should be looked into. And of course, I won't leave Fiora out to dry here, as what she has through arts (phys/ether drain, Zero Gravity para etc.) gives her just as much to work with. Anything marked as possible with gems, though... you should already know my stance on that.
I'm pretty likely going to note that since as much as dumb or ironic it would sound some characters wasn't fully or even discovered by me. So the work would be tough kek. Gladly I can pretty much work with Scourge and Goku Black which I'm currentluly doing(I guess I'm totally f***ed cause that means also I would have to make Kyle vs Simon, the fact that I really like Simon as he's one of my most favorite anime characters, and that I want him to win hurts me making a script where Kyle is the winner).
