Fate/Spring Tonelico (Fate/Grand Order Redux)

Reconstituting my body was not difficult. Not with the excess magical energy that I was granted from the Command Spell. The contract between me and Ritsuka was unusual, to be sure. It was not dissimilar to my bastardisation of the Servant Summoning System. It wasn't a contract to maintain the existence of a Servant, nor was it my contract to maintain the existence of the Fae. It did not make the false real, for the world considered me real.

No, it was a contract between one who needed and one who provided. Initially, I was the one who needed, for I needed magical energy to undo the damage to my body, but really, Ritsuka was the one who needed. After all, she wished to live, and humanity was…

Now that we had a moment, I could start to grasp the situation. In the sky, I could see a ring of light, burning through the fog even though the sky was otherwise obscured. It was a great ring that burned with the light of human wishes, a weapon fundamentally not dissimilar to the Sacred Armament. My eyes narrowed as my senses extended towards it.

No. Not human wishes. Human memory. Human history. Human…

"You never told me about that." I motioned absently to the sky with my hand that now had four fingers. "Is that new, or-"

"No. The ring of light was there the last time." Mash's answer was gentle. "Its name is Ars Almadel Salomonis. The-"

"Some sort of incineration ritual. Its like what I did with the tree on a grand scale." I muttered. "It uses memory? Or history?"

"History." Mash just nodded, leaning down and wiping some sweat from my brow. "You look worse for wear. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I've had worse." I was honestly more upset that my tunic had a nice, long gash in it, revealing my stomach. I lifted up my reconstituted left arm and waved at her. "Plenty of magical energy to fix it with." I glanced at Ritsuka, who was saying… something or other with the Doctor. "I'm sorry. This was very cruel of me."

"Was it?" I blinked. Mash just smiled. "I have the chance to say things that I couldn't say before. I am grateful for it. But…" Her face fell after a moment. "Father can't escape, can he?"

Could he?

Was his death essential to Mash's future existence?

"I don't know." I elected to just tell the truth, slowly drawing my now complete body back to its feet. It was nice to have all my toes again. "You know, missing toes suck."

"Wait, you were missing toes!?"

"Yeah. Burned them at the tree." Mash winced. Maybe I was being callous. "Have you… never lost limbs? Haven't you been doing this a while?"

"No. Never." I winced in turn. That was the statement of a girl who was very lucky. Most warriors did not actually retain all their digits and extremities. Usually they lost one or two.

That was my experience in my kingdom at least.

"You will need to come to terms with that then. Sooner or later you won't be lucky." The look on Mash's face told me she knew that, but only intellectually. I glanced at Ritsuka. "She has, hasn't she?"

"... Yes. Even ignoring last time, Heracles took her left arm." I nodded sadly. "Um… is it supposed to be-"

"Different?"

"Yes." I stared at Mash for a long moment. She didn't look different, now that I thought about it. She should have, she was younger, but no, all that had changed was that the steel wrapping her form no longer had the purple waist cape. "We have, after all, messed with the script. Time abhors a paradox, but by nature of you having an idea of what is coming, you are taking slightly different actions. That butterfly spreads and changes probability, and everything steadily goes of script. Those moments where you can act and everything changes is what I called the script breaking."

"Then fate is real." I just snicker at Mash's response, rolling my eyes.

"In a sense. Its not that you didn't have a choice, exactly. It's that we as living creatures technically have already made all of the choices in our life. That's what it means to be part of the tree of time." I answered. "Singularities try to break free of that by overwriting those choices and introducing paradoxes. Time will try to reshuffle to accommodate the change to a degree, but only until it reaches a period of fixed time. At that point, all important details are equalised."

"Quantum time locks." Mash jumped at Ritsuka's voice. "When all important details are set to the same value. We are familiar with it. Was a bit of an issue in Septem."

"Septem?" I shook my head. "One of the no-times?"

"Yes. We were there about two months ago." Mash added.

"Then you and Mash can ignore time locks to a degree?" Ritsuka sounded almost curious. I shook my head.

"Not quite. Its more a privilege. Mash can re-select any choice she made between when she returned and when she left, so long as she does not invalidate her original choice." I answered. "Normally, if she did so she'd just…" I motioned with my hands. The point was made.

"But your spell protects me." Mash noted. I shook my head.

"It only prevents you from giving away information you shouldn't." I noted. "Nothing says an action you take wouldn't do it. Be careful, is all I'm saying." Really, there probably isn't anything Mash could do, in and of itself, that would immediately obliterate her. Say, plenty, but do, no.

"I will. I'm no use to senpai if I'm gone." Mash decalred, her face set in a line. "But… um…"

She was nervous. Very nervous.

"Is it something here?" I asked. Mash nodded. "Don't bother explaining. We'll have forgotten in five minutes. I'm guessing its something big, something that can't be inconsistent."

"Can you bless me again?"

Ritsuka frowned at Mash's words. She was nervous, but those nerves would be gone in a few minutes as we forgot what Mash said. After all, time would not allow inconsistencies in such a fashion. Mash's own personal timeline would keep her safe. I had to trust in that.

"I name you Tam Lin Galahad. Hero and saviour. Safeguard our futures." I gently placed my finger on her nose. Her body was wrapped in light for a moment, then her cape and waist-cape returned, as Mash was wrapped in the full steel of her knight self, her Spirit Origin conforming to the power of the hero of the fae. "Just remember that is exhausting. I don't have my throne."

Yet it was probably more efficient then just casting magic. Generally, it was easier to just beat a bastard to death then to use magic. Magic took patterns and energy to use, and generally you expended far less dealing with the problem yourself.

Mash being Super Mash was just easier on me, in other words.

"Can you do that to others?" Ritsuka asked. I nodded.

"Technically? Yes. But even my patterns will run out of energy if I do it to multiple people at once." I answered, letting out a long breath. My skin tingled. It was warm. Magical energy generated heat when it moved. As a faerie, I could very easily burn up everything else about me to make more energy too. After all, I was not really 'here', in a sense. Human's were flesh and blood who lived in the world you perceived. I was a faerie and lived in the world behind the veil. My form was always technically made of magic.

I wonder if I could look like something else? I never really considered that.

"The fog is a problem too." Mash noted. "It's drawing the energy away."

"Nothing we can do about it yet." Ritsuka shrugged. "Got a direction for us?" She looked at Mash.

"Sorry, senpai. I don't remember which way we went. Even if I did…" She glanced at me. "You said Assassin was a boy?"

"Aye."

"That's different." Her hands wrung together at that. "Is that important?"

"Probably not." I mused. "Gender might be important for specific people, but only if their children themselves are part of a lock and the father's identity is important. Otherwise, well…" The Assassin was a murderer. One we'd already forgotten the identity of. "Given I can't remember him very well, I think it's safe to say his gender doesn't matter."

"If I just said his name, would you remember it?"

"I'm not sure. Give it a try."

" █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ █ ( Jack the Ripper) ."

Both Ritsuka and I looked at her and shook our heads.

"I didn't even hear it." Ritsuka admitted.

"I heard it. But it's already gone." Still. If Mash knew who he was, then we had a defence of sorts. That we didn't remember it, though, could have been two things.

I suspected rather then my spell, it was actually some characteristic of Assassin that kept us from remembering him. Mash was immune not because she was remembering him, she clearly was not, but because she had met his alternate and remembered her.

"He has a Noble Phantasm for murdering… well, women." Mash continued. "Just… keep that in mind."

"Human women."

"Huh?"

"I already worked out how his curse works. It must be night. It must be foggy. The target must be a female human." It was actually oddly specific. "Why human, I wonder…"

"If I may interject, it also isn't actually night." Romani spoke up, his little blue image flickering in. "It is almost midday. Only one and a half conditions were actually satisfied."

Good to know, I suppose. Letting out a breath, I glanced at Ritsuka.

"Pick a direction?"

"That way." Ritsuka just picked a street and started walking. I blinked.

"Just like that?"

"Daylights a wasting." Oh god. Was she an airhead or-

"Senpai can be like that. She doesn't dilly dally." Mash noted. "We should go, Aesc." She skipped away from me before I could answer. I just let out a groan.

"She reminds me of Baobahn Sith." I muttered under my breath. So very earnest, but…

Well. It was something to keep in mind at least.

"I hate this fog."

I didn't actually hate the fog, per say. I hated the feeling of my magical energy seeping out, like water through a sieve. Mash just rolled her eyes at that.

"No you don't."

"Does she do that often?"

"Quite a bit. Its part of her saviour complex." I winced at that. Mash cut straight to the heart of the issue in a single word. It almost stung.

"My poor heart."

"Your words, Aesc, not mine." Yet Mash's eyes danced. "Or do you take it back?"

"No. I… do that a lot." I admit. It just stung to get my bad points dragged to the light. The Faerie of Paradise was not meant to have such flaws. Our march passed us through the streets, but there were no humans, no civilization. Just rubbish, metal carts, and empty shops.

My nose crinkled.

"Should we have met someone by now?" I asked. Ritsuka nodded.

"Aye." She mused. "I can feel it. Someone is following us."

"Can you?" Strange. I didn't feel any presence in particular. Maybe the fog was getting in the way? I wasn't quite sure.

"Yes." She paused, thinking for a moment. "They have a grudge. Do you look like someone else, maybe? Or-"

"While interesting, I do need to cut in. You have motion coming from the south-east. I would prepare for battle." Romani cut in. I just groaned.

"Battle? You know what they are?"

"Machines. Sort of like a golem." Ritsuka answered, as a shadow formed around her form, an arm wrapping down and around and protectively rasping her shoulders. It was a male form, but at over twelve feet tall, there was no word for it but 'hulking'. His right hand had a great big stone sword in it.

"Should I use the blunt side of my shield?" Mash asked, hefting the great big shield that was the Round Table. Ritsuka just groaned.

"No more of that."

"But senpai, we have to preserve human lives!"

"They are robots!"

"Girls." My voice cut over them in exasperation. I could see the shadows that Romani was referring to. "If you would rather I just deal with it, that is fine."

"..."

"..."

They both looked at each other. Then they glanced at me apologetically.

"No. Keep your strength." Mash declared, stepping in front of me. "Especially since you're… un… armed…" Her face twisted, like a lightbulb going off. "Oh. Oops."

"Oops?"

"Here." Her hand reached into her shield's face, and she pulled forth my old staff. "I forgot I had this."

My mouth fell open for a moment. I'd forgotten about that too, if I was honest. My hand reached out gingerly to take the gnarled root. It was more a source of comfort then something I needed, but…

"Thank you." The shadows shot forward. White monstrosities that vaguely resembled humans. They were discernibly not human, or even robots. They were…

"Those aren't machines."

I almost answered with an incredibly snarky retort. Mash, on the other hand, let out a groan, having turned the small group of them into a messy splay of paste down the street. If I was real, neither Ritsuka nor I really did anything.

My Tam Lin was strong. It made me proud.

"Then what are they? Some sort of… beast?" Ritsuka asked. Mash shook her head.

"An artificial human." She explained. "A-"

"Homunculus." I finished for her. "Patterns wrapped around a layer of flesh and given a prime directive. Simplistic, but effective. They are basically disposable bombs."

"Yeah." Mash nodded. "But… I don't think I remember fighting these here. Unless…"

"You are human."

"What's that meant to mean." Ritsuka's eye narrowed, but I lifted a hand placatingly.

"It's not meant as offence. I remember everything I've experienced because I can't forget. Humans don't have that luxury." I answered. "You might have just forgotten."

"I guess…" Mash muttered. "But-"

Whatever she was going to say was cut of with a scrambled choke. I didn't realise what was going on until Mash's body had yanked me to the side, into the protective shell of her shield. Steel met steel and rang like a cruel bell down the street.

Then something solid smashed the shield and we went flying.

"Mash! Aesc!"

"Shuddup you bint! Of course that bitch got summoned! Turn it back you asshole!"

We bounced across the ground, skidding to a stop. Mash's breathing was normal. Mine, though… I feel like my chest had been crushed. My spine arced as I scrambled to fill my lungs with air. My limbs flailed out of pure instinct.

It hurt. Greatly. That was the truth in my mind.

"Wait, you're-"

"Shuddup goodie twoshoes! Of course you'd side with that bitch!" My gaze finally found what had attacked me. It was short. Maybe my size. Wrapped in steel and red cloth. In its hand was a sword of pure silver, and her body crackled with red lightning. Its helm was crowned with horns. The voice, I recognised it, in a twisted, demented way.

That was the second thing in human history that had hidden its identity from me. This one used my own voice. How twisted was this place?

"Goodie twoshoes?" I asked. Wait, it was referring to Galahad! "It knows?"

"Mash, shield up!" Ritsuka's voice cracked out. The black, hulking shadow was already moving, but the steel figure did not even look. Its sword slung over its shoulder and caught the descending stone blade. Stone and brick cracked, as her foot smashed through the ground to her ankle, but it didn't slow her implaccable march.

"Get out, human." The blade shoved up. The figure spun. Its foot caught the shadow in the chin, and sent it through a building. Then it kept walking. "Morgan. You bitch. Turn London back!"

"Morgan?"

Did it think I was Morgan le Fae?

…

Was it wrong? Was the other me responsible for this?

I forced myself to stand. Mash set herself between me and the knight. Her shield burned with the flames of that distant star.

I couldn't die yet. But that figure. Just looking at it made me think that it may well succeed in killing me.

Wait.

My eye caught sight of its left hand at last, and I realised that this scene was twisted and wrong. It might have been shattered, cracked and smashed, but it had my discarded Rhongomyniad in its hand. The divine weapon had not faded away.

My breath hitched.

"How?" My lips twisted into a snarl. That was almost offensive. Sacrilige. Heresy. My sacred spears should have been unuseable except by… me…

"What. The spear? It's interesting hocus pocus, mother, don't get me wrong. But you know I can use it. Or did your spell not work?"

Mother?

Who was this?

I don't know who they are. Why don't I? Did Morgan le Fae consider them that beneath notice that I didn't inherit it from her memories?

"Who are you?" Something was obscuring them. My eyes could only see a hole in the world where its form should have been. My hand wrapped around the staff. I had to-

"... Fuck you. Was I that unworthy?" The helmet snapped away, folding out of sight. My own face stared back at me. Naked hostility graced every one of her features. Her sword lifted to heaven and erupted in a column of fire.

Oh.

Oh no.

"That's not good."

"No! That which heals all wounds and-"

" Rhongomiant!( Life Hunting Spear Heartbreak) " The girl who looked like me thrust the spear forth. My Rhongomyniad shattered as soon as the stab reached its apex, lancing forward in an arc of light. Mash barely caught it on the surface of her shield before it struck her heart. She hurtled away into the distance.

Two buildings collapsed under the force of her body.

My breath hitched. She was so damn strong.

A part of me wanted to call it incredible. She was not human. She was a Faerie( Dragon) compressed into human shape and wrapped around the possibility of mortality. In a word, an abomination on nature. Yet at the same time, she was beautiful.

After all, I could appreciate twisted existences. I loved Barghest and Baobahn Sith, after all. I offered them that love freely, even if I'd been terrible at expressing it.

I-

" Clarent Blood Arthur!( Rebellion Against my Beautiful Father) "

The column of red fell. Calamity. The end of a nation compressed into red lightning, blood and rage. The magical energy was radiant, so strong that its mere approach was singing the hairs on my flesh. I lifted my head and grit my teeth.

I don't know why she hates me.

Maybe this was my penance for refusing the call.

I don't want to fight her.

She reminds me too much of Barghest.

But if I don't act I'll die.

This weapon can kill me.

This weapon can kill Britain.

There was only one option.

If I dodged, Mash would get hurt. I couldn't bear to see her hurt for me.

" Ronmiant Around!( The Bones of Salvation You Pilgrimage For) " I slammed my staff forth. There was only one option, cruel as it was. The air was filled with ash like snow. The blizzard blew. The blade fell, and I tore at it with every pattern I could direct its way. I could only protect everyone if I drained it of its magical energy.

If it had 10000 units of magical energy, I only managed to eat 1000. All I really did was slow down the descent of the blade.

"SABER! STOP!"

The blade was already falling. I saw a shadow lunge in front of my doppelganger, but his hands could not stop the descending blade. Only slow it down.

This would hurt.

I had eaten about 2000 units of magical energy now. Enough that I would at least survive. This was going to hurt so much.

" Lord Camelot!( Now is a Castle of Hope) "

The shield of the Round Table smashed down in front of me. I blinked. The name had changed. Slightly.

The star I chased blazed into existance. Eternal walls and gates erupted in front of us, forming seven layers of battlements. The falling calamity struck.

The first battlement was incinerated. So were battlements two through four.

Battlements five and six crumbled apart.

The blade finally tore through battlement seven.

Red blade of light smashed into the shield of Galahad, and was held still.

My lungs were about to explode, but I couldn't bring myself to speak or breathe. I was alive, but only because Mash had come to my rescue. Having seen the damage that blade did, no, I'm pretty sure I was wrong. I'd have been killed in that swing. My body had small wisps of black energy leaving it, drawn into the red blade. Eaten away.

I don't know what that is. I don't-

"Get out of my way, Jekyl!" 'Saber' snarled, shoving her compatriot aside and lifting her blade again. "Clarent Blood-"

Whoever had assisted in her creation was incredible. Her patterns could refill themselves with energy from burning light almost immediately. Her blade was already lighting up for a second swing. Already-

"MORDRED! STOP!"

"-Arthur! DIE MORGAN!"

She'd called me mother.

She must have been Morgan le Fae's daughter. Faeries were not meant to have children. Yet-

There wouldn't be a second block. We'd-

"Lancer! Durandina!"

Blood splattered. Ritsuka's command had been absolute. The Noble Phantasm spear of hope had struck before any of us had known what was going on, sticking out of the knights side. She blinked.

"You-"

She swung.

The shadow of a man bearing the spear of hope was incinerated in a single slash, carving away the building behind him as well. Ritsuka panted. Just once, her left hand gripping her right wrist. Blood dripped from her arm, where her arm had exploded.

She was actually talented. She could convert her body into magic.

Very talented.

"... You dare." 'Saber' snarled. Ritsuka's lips twisted into a smug grin.

"I dare. Mordred. Knight of Treachery."

"What of it?"

[ ] "How about we put the weapons down and talk." Ritsuka was in more control then I thought.
[ ] "Lancer. Gae Bolg." Wait, what? Gri-
[ ] "Saber. Stop killing them before they can help us!" The man that was with Saber is… maybe more calm then her.
[ ] "Linking Divine Patterns." Now was my shot.