Chapter 48 - Bashmu
Martha had heard from Risei that, among the scriptures that had grown from the mix of her own beliefs and the teachings of the Saviour, there was a bit about not suffering witches to live.
Or, possibly that – there had been, Risei told her, numerous debates about the translation of such a line and what it was meant to mean. This even before the slightly more
select debates, among those of the Church in the know, about what this therefore meant they were supposed to do about a society of magi very willing and able to defend itself. The answers ranged from 'mutual non-interference' through 'cautious monitoring' all the way to 'kill on sight as soon as any magus shows itself'. Risei himself apparently favoured the second response; Kirei's job, until recently, had been to carry out the third.
In the specific case of Fuyuki, Risei was more than happy to let his old friend Tokiomi continue, because Tokiomi was remarkably restrained and kind-hearted by magus standards (so Risei said) and the Tohsakas had generally enforced the same within their area of responsibility. All the same, Risei had asked, towards the start of the War, what Martha's opinion on the matter was.
Which was slightly embarrassing, because Martha hadn't really had one.
She just hadn't come across all that many magi, in her travels. Even back then, they tended to keep themselves to themselves, and certainly didn't mingle with what they might call the 'common folk'. Since Martha had spent the majority of her time in efforts to improve the lot of such ordinary, everyday lives, their paths hadn't really crossed.
There had, however, been a couple of confrontations. One or two, maybe. Martha couldn't really remember…
… because she knew what
real power looked like, and the magics of Man faded into less than dust next to that.
Liquid flame spewed forth from vents in Caster's gauntlet, setting the grass around the Kotomine Church ablaze. It guttered out before it got anywhere near Martha, and she strode forward without even feeling the warmth.
Martha's boot crunched down on something mechanical, hidden in the blaze. Instantly, the flames turned poisonous green and began issuing a vile-looking smoke. As Martha exhaled, the smoke cleared around her, revealing a smiling Caster, rocks levitating around her staff.
When she pointed it at Martha, the rocks shot forward. Most missed, their trajectories dropping off before they hit, but Martha grabbed one out of the air, crushed it in her hand, and hurled the gravel back where it came from.
It hit a forcefield, blue shimmers forming around the point of impact and making their way towards Caster's gauntlet. Caster pointed it at Martha, knuckles glowing blue – and with an explosion that rocked her back on her heels, blasted out a bolt of pure force.
It too dwindled to almost nothing before it got anywhere near Martha, and she swatted the dregs aside with a contemptuous swipe of her hand.
For a moment, there they both stood. Martha, her back to the Kotomine church and the non-combatants, shadow stretching out in front of her. Caster, blocking the gate that led North to the city, two figures standing where her portal had winked out of existence.
"Aww…" Caster whined, breaking the tension. "I've said it before, but Magic Resistance is so unfair…"
Martha was in no mood to banter. "What is the meaning of this, Caster? There are children present!"
"I know!" said Caster. "I brought my own, see?" She gestured behind her, and Martha got a good look at the other two people Caster had brought with her through the portal.
Behind Caster, the young man serving as her Master stood. As he had every time Martha had seen him previously, he seemed slightly frazzled and out of his depth, but nevertheless he stood resolute, eyes watching the battle carefully.
The
other figure stood beside him, apparently sleeping on his shoulder. Martha hadn't seen her before – and she would have remembered, because last time she checked Caster hadn't had a little sister. Apart from looking twelve instead of mid-twenties, she was a dead ringer, from the face to the hair even down to the style of clothes.
"Who is that?" Martha asked. "If you've mind-controlled some poor kid, I swear to Christ Almighty-"
"No, no! Wow, no. Even
I wouldn't go that far unless I was really stuck for options. No, that's Due. Master and I made her together. Well, mostly me."
Martha blinked, nonplussed. Then she caught the implications, and blushed red. "Um, congratulations?"
Caster laughed uproariously, apparently having got the reaction she was looking for. "Not that way! Due's a homunculus, albeit a rather special one. Don't worry about her."
"If you say so," said Martha. "My point stands. If you wish to fight, so be it, but let the non-combatants withdraw first!"
In response, Caster just giggled. "I have
perfect faith in my own control, Rider. If you can't say the same, maybe you should just surrender?"
The gem on Caster's staff started rotating. As it did so, the winds picked up, clouds boiling overhead. Martha, however, stood in her own little bubble of calm.
Caster raised her staff, and lightning struck from the sky with a deafening crash. Once, twice, ten times, bolt after bolt disappearing into the blue gem at the tip. She pointed it at Martha, and what felt like an entire storm blasted forth, all at once.
This time, Martha swung her staff upward to meet it – and, glowing pure white, it deflected the lightning bolt back into the sky. Caster grinned, and thrust her gauntlet into the air.
The lightning came straight back down, coiling around Caster's gauntlet before disappearing into it. A hole opened in the palm as she took aim at Martha, and Martha made an instinctive guess about what was about to happen.
There was no explosion as the tungsten slug emerged – just a crack as the air shattered before it. No human could have reacted in time, and frankly it was beyond all but the fastest Servants too.
Martha's fist met it head on. She expected the projectile to shatter, but instead it shot back the way it came, cracking a forcefield in mid-air half a foot in front of a very surprised Caster.
"Wow," Caster said, applauding lightly. "Out of all the Servants in this War, I'd have bet on only Archer and Lancer being able to catch a railgun shot like that. That's a
way better reaction time than I'd have expected out of you, actually."
Martha shook her fist out. It wasn't really hurt, but she'd skinned a knuckle. "It's not about reaction. Just like life, it's about taking action, and trusting in the Lord that things will work out." She looked over her shoulder. "No need to be foolish, though. Aoi, Risei, take the children inside, please."
"Sounds like a
great way to have a building collapsed on them!" called Caster with a bright smile. "Here, let me help."
She waved her staff, and that pair of cannon shimmered into existence again. They aimed and fired, almost simultaneously – not at Martha, this time, but past her.
Martha was already lunging to intercept one, staff blurring through the air to strike it from the sky. The other whizzed past on the other side, and she had not a prayer of intercepting it.
Well. That wasn't perhaps accurate. A prayer was
all she had.
She'd always found it more than sufficient.
A blinding white light exploded out of nowhere, sending the cannonball careening safely off to one side.
Most of the time, prayers were just that, even from a holy woman. Martha prayed for the salvation of all, but she still understood that the Lord had
already answered her by giving her the will and strength to make it happen all by herself. However, at some point along the story of her life, when Martha found herself in trouble even her reserves of patience and dignity (not to mention her left hook and right cross) couldn't get her out of, her prayers for deliverance had started receiving more… direct feedback.
Martha landed, robes swirling, and glared at Caster.
The cannons swivelled again, but twin explosions knocked the barrels to one side exactly as they fired. The shots went wide once again, and Caster huffed in annoyance.
"You know, for a magus like myself it is rather galling to be so…
thwarted by a mere psychic with nothing but a blasting Mystery and an enhanced sense of timing," she complained, watching Martha closely.
Watching for a reaction? Martha didn't rise to the very obvious bait.
"Hmph," Caster said, pouting. "Well, physical rather than magical force does seem to be the way to go regardless. And fortunately, I've recently acquired a rather good tool to apply it!" She raised her staff, crackling with golden lightning, then slammed it on the ground.
"
Uomo Universale: Age of Florence!"
This time, what rose from the ground were not just cannons – although there were certainly a few of them. There were smaller guns, whirring devices rising into the sky, two colossal conical shapes that trundled into action. The blue was now the blue of lapis lazuli, and from every surface shone the dull gleam of glazed pottery. The technology was unfamiliar to Martha. The style was not, and her eyes widened in alarm.
"You…
stole Lancer's Noble Phantasm?" she said, eyes darting from weapon to weapon, each more deadly-looking than the last.
Caster laughed, high and excited, and waggled her hand in a 'so-so' gesture. "Not quite! More a copy, or perhaps a reflection realised through my own Noble Phantasm. I had the opportunity to copy Lancer's fascinating technological trick, although I
have put rather my own personal touch on it."
If everything she'd summoned fired, forget the children, the entire church would be annihilated. Martha swept her staff from left to right, and a blinding series of prayer explosions left Caster flinching.
The summoned weapons were left without a scratch.
"Yes, it'll take a little more to shift even a copy of something like Lancer's Age of Babylon. Well, unless you have something a little more robust to defend yourself with, I guess this is goodbye? I hope those darling children got out of the way…"
Caster, still laughing, raised a hand. The weapons behind her took aim.
Martha's eyes narrowed. Caster wanted to bring Noble Phantasms into this so soon? Well, Martha was just fine with that.
She raised her staff high.
There were two ways to invoke Martha's Noble Phantasm. The first was how she'd started this War, in fact. She could summon the shell of the dragon she'd subdued as an invincible shield – it had even held up to Archer's own Noble Phantasm. It was very useful, especially when you needed to simply withstand a blow.
In this case, however, the best defense was definitely a good offense, and for this the second mode was required. It was similar to the first in that it summoned the dragon's shell.
It just brought the rest of the dragon along with it.
"
Tarrasque!"
The air tore, and Tarrasque ripped his way roaring into the world.
He charged, six legs kicking up great clods of earth. (Martha made a mental note to apologise to Risei for the state of his front lawn.)
"
Finally," Caster said.
Fire roiled in the back of Tarrasque's throat, casting bizarre needle-teeth shadows in the dusk light. He roared, and dragon fire blasted towards Caster and her toys, only barely outpacing the dragon bearing down on them in furious wrath.
With a dull
thud, he came to a stop, so suddenly Martha didn't realise what had happened at first.
Due, the 'special homunculus', was holding the giant dragon back, single-handed. As Martha watched, she raised her other fist.
When she struck, Tarrasque
yelped.
She didn't stop. Each hit slammed into Tarrasque like an avalanche, driving the enormous dragon back by inches, and while Martha knew from experience that he wouldn't be deterred even by something like this she was still stunned to silence.
Just where had Caster found something like this?
Eventually, Due skipped back to gain distance, pulling her fist back for another blow. This time, her whole arm changed subtly, runes writing themselves into existence – and, like wet clay, her whole arm took the shape of some piledriver-like tool.
The tiny homunculus flashed forward, and dealt a blow unlike any before. Tarrasque slid a full ten feet back, howling in agony. Due followed, but was slapped to the ground by a titanic blow from Tarrasque's lashing tail.
Tarrasque set about the fallen Due, scrabbling with four paws at the dirt like a dog trying to find a bone – even Martha found it hard to keep her feet as the shockwaves ripped open great rents in the earth. Eventually, Tarrasque roared flame at the pit, apparently more in frustration than anything else.
The torrent of flame was cut off with a
snap as Tarrasque took a thunderous blow to the jaw, and Due came up swinging. Tarrasque snapped at the girl, but she disappeared, blurring along one side of the dragon, leaving deep wounds in her wake that bled freely.
It was only when she stopped that Martha noticed the thin rapiers each of the girl's index fingers had become – and even as she watched, she changed again, forming some kind of spear crackling with power. Tarrasque turned, but Due thrust the spear into his side, and with a strange synthetic noise discharged every ounce of energy into the dragon.
While Tarrasque writhed, she hopped nimbly on top of his head, then flipped herself into the air when he thrashed trying to shake her off.
Mid-air, Due pointed her arms down – and in the blink of an eye twin chains embedded themselves deep into the ground on either side of Tarrasque's head. Martha realised what was about to happen an instant before it did, and she winced as Due accelerated herself straight back down feet-first onto Tarrasque's skull.
This was horrible. This was impossible. But worst of all, this was
familiar. Martha knew those chains.
She lifted her staff, to attack, to intervene, to do
something – before her vision was obscured by a thick steam emitted from Caster's gauntlet. Before she could react, all sight and sound was muffled, and she was alone with Caster in a blank white world.
"Ah-ah-ah," Caster said, wagging a finger. "We'll just let those two work things out. And no firing blind, either – I'm not saying I've interfered with space within this mist so that anything you do will hit the church and those squishy squishy children instead, but I'm not
not saying that, either."
Martha gave serious thought to trying anyway, but eventually stopped and lowered her staff. Miracles worked best when you didn't rely on them. She'd just have to trust that Tarrasque could defeat… whatever monstrosity Caster had made. Until then, she'd just have to stall – and she did have questions.
"Caster…" she said, hoping her suspicions weren't true but knowing they were. "What did you
do? Just what is Due?"
Caster grinned, as if she'd been waiting for Martha to ask. While the rest of her weapons remained, she no longer seemed in a hurry to fire them, and instead seemed very pleased to tell the world just how clever she was.
"Oh, Due is my masterpiece. My ultimate countermeasure for Lancer – if you can't beat them, join them, right?
It's a funny story, actually. It started out as the False Lancer Project, and then I had planned to call the final product Gran Cavallo – my unfinished horse sculpture, you know. However, my Master, who has
way worse taste than I do and thinks he's really smart, started calling her Enki-due, or Due for short, and now she won't answer to anything else. It's certainly odd, but I wouldn't dream of trying to force control over her. All art takes on a life and nature of its own, if it's good art – and all my art is good." Caster preened.
"As for the how, well, that was rather trickier. I tried and tried to recreate Lancer from first principles, really I did. Surely some dusty old gods couldn't be better than
me at sculpture? But, alas, it seems Divine Constructs of that level are beyond me after all… that was, unless I had a template to work from. Say, a significant chunk of the original Age of Gods clay, separated from the main body? She was sadly ineffective in the end, but Berserker was good for that, at least."
"You're not serious," Martha managed. While she spoke, she strained her ears. Although she could feel vibrations through the ground, there was no sound from the battle Tarrasque was fighting just out of sight. She hoped he was okay. "There's no way you planned
that far ahead."
"I do think you're rather underestimating just how well I plan, dear… but yes, Lancer was honestly a nasty surprise. This is really me just taking advantage of good fortune: I remembered Berserker knocking Lancer's head off and went back to check what had become of it. And, wouldn't you know it, there it was, just begging for some beautiful genius to come along and reverse engineer it!
"So, I had the body incubating, but I had two more problems: combat data, and power supply. The first was, well, both easy and hard at the same time? Basically, all I had to do was provoke a fight with Lancer, and then copy what I learned there into darling Due. Without that, she'd not be half as effective at using that Transfiguration skill in combat as she is now. Sadly, provoking a fight with Lancer offers a lot of difficulties, number one being, you're provoking a fight with Lancer. Still, thanks to Assassin kindly acting as a decoy for us to test our countermeasures, we made it out of that okay… broadly… which meant the final problem was power supply.
"Fighting on the level Lancer does is
very thirsty. Now, they seem to manage by drawing power directly from the Earth itself, and theoretically Due should be capable of the same… except Lancer seems be hogging it all for themselves, the big jerk. There's no way Due can interfere with a connection six thousand years deep, so I had to turn to alternative methods. Namely, the leyline!"
Slowly, way too slowly, things were beginning to come together in Martha's head. "And through that, the people…"
"You got it! Now, don't glare at me like that. I was very careful to only take the tiniest sliver from everyone, not enough to hurt, just enough to make everyone sleepy. I even fine-tuned it so that I wouldn't take it from areas covered by roads, or on staircases or suchlike – I
did think this through, and I'm certain no-one got so much as a bruise through their generous donations to me. Aren't I kind?"
Kind wasn't how Martha would put it. She ignored the feeling, though, because something wasn't adding up. She was no magus, but she had at least an idea of how much magical energy she was using at any given moment – for example, she was now using more than she ever had in the War before. She was honestly surprised that Tokiomi hadn't felt the increased drain and gotten in touch… unless, of course, he was trying even now, and Caster was simply blocking the connection.
The point was, Servants weren't something you could power so easily by just skimming extra energy off the top of a population, even of a whole city.
"There's more to it, though, right?" she said. "If the goal is to have your doll fight Lancer, just sipping from the leyline isn't enough. What's your plan?"
Caster applauded, looking impressed. "Very good! Yes, leylines are great, but even with all the efficiency upgrades I could make, it's hardly sustainable unless you're willing to really dig deep. So, I needed an alternative. That's where
you come in, dear." She looked off to one side, apparently seeing through the impenetrable fog. "And, what timing! I think we're about ready."
Good, because Martha had heard all she needed to.
She thrust her staff out, and twin prayer explosions lit up the fog in pure white – not centred on Caster's image, but somewhere to the left.
The illusion faded, and the real Caster stumbled back and into sight, blinking. "Ow! Honestly, that Miracle ability of yours is complete nonsense… time to put a stop to you, I think."
She snapped her fingers, and a net of golden chains dropped on Martha before tightening painfully.
Martha struggled, but the chains were too strong – and, worse, when she tried to simply blast her way out, she found they somehow interfered with her prayers.
That, theologically speaking, was terrifying.
Caster waved her staff, and a stiff breeze blew up out of nowhere, clearing the fog in moments. There, not ten feet from them, was Tarrasque, and the sight of him brought tears to Martha's eyes. His shell was cracked, he was missing teeth, and there seemed to be not an inch of him that wasn't covered in blood and bruises.
"Good job, Due!" called Caster. "I'll need to access the chest, I think. If you would be so good?"
Due darted in between Tarrasque's legs and took hold of one side of his shell, one-handed – then heaved him onto his back, where he lay struggling weakly.
"Thank you, darling!" Caster held her hand out, and her staff disappeared. In its place was some kind of contraption, looking like two clay rings interlocked at right angles to form a kind of hollow globe. Intricate circuitry covered every inch, to what purpose Martha could only guess.
With a light hop, Caster leapt up to land on Tarrasque's belly. "Now, Rider! Not sure how up on dragon lore you are, so, quick quiz: what organ do dragons have that allows them to generate endless amounts of power just by breathing?"
And, because Martha had indeed learned a little about her friend, she understood immediately.
Caster laughed, plunged her gauntlet up to the elbow into Tarrasque's chest, and withdrew his core.
Tarrasque's roar died to a gurgle, and Martha scream of fury rose to match it.
The core looked like a simple orb of light, glowing the exact same shade of pure white as Martha's prayers. As soon as Caster held it in her hand, she thrust it straight into the globe contraption, where it stayed, lighting up the circuitry.
Around Caster, Tarrasque's corpse began burning and flaking into nothing, like a book thrown into a fire. Caster hopped down to the ground, and Due fell in at her side, looking up at her creator expectantly.
"Yes, yes, darling, you've done very well," she said. "Just needed to check that the Core Stabiliser was working properly. And it is! Even without the dragon…" she turned to watch the last of Tarrasque fly away on the wind, "The core's existence is guaranteed. Good! Turn around, then, darling."
Due did so, obediently, and a hole opened up in her back. Caster placed the core inside, then turned to Martha and started slowly walking over.
"Well, that's that! Thanks ever so, Rider. I feel confident in saying I couldn't have done this without you. Thanks to the dragon core, and my own adjustments from the stabiliser to render it compatible with a humanoid shape, Due can make her own magical energy. Effectively, she
is a dragon now."
Martha glared, determined not to despair even wrapped in chains on the ground. "That may be. But I can only see one monster here, and it isn't her."
"Hm, well." Caster frowned, apparently disappointed that Martha hadn't cheered out loud in awe of her brilliance. "You're entitled to think that, I suppose. As for me, I don't really care about your opinion, and now that you've kindly allowed us to harvest your Noble Phantasm, I don't think we need you any more. Anything more to say?"
Caster aimed her gauntlet at Martha, and that hole in the palm opened once again.
"Just… please let Aoi and the children go."
"Of course! I only needed them so you'd actually bring out your dragon to defend them. Whatever you might think, I'm really
not a monster."
"If you say it enough, it might be true." Martha closed her eyes.
So this is how it ends, she thought. Defeated utterly, having helped give the smartest Servant in the War the most versatile weapon possible.
At least… at least she'd managed to bring a reconciliation between Sakura and her family. That would have to be enough.
Caster's railgun shell was faster than the sound it made, and Martha felt the shock through her heart before hearing the earsplitting crack. Her eyes snapped open involuntarily… and that was why she was the first to see it.
"Well, that's that," said Caster. "See you back on the Throne, I suppose!"
Even as she dissolved into a mass of pure white motes, Martha forced a vicious smile on her face. She strained with all her might to keep herself together long enough to witness what was about to happen, and croak out her last words.
"Race… you…"
The look of confusion on Caster's face was priceless. The look of shock as Due's arm plunged through her chest from behind, sublime.
When she saw the first motes start to break away from Caster's form, Martha finally let herself dissolve, laughing all the way to Heaven.
Risei could hardly understand what had happened.
One moment, Caster was gloating in victory, the next, her child duplicate had calmly walked up behind her and killed her, quicker than it took to tell it.
Caster's look of puzzlement was matched only by young Waver Velvet's one of horror. "That's not… right…" she said – and dissolved.
Behind her, the young homunculus started to change, figure flowing like a sculpture being created in fast-forward. She grew taller, and her shape filled out. The bright red and blue clothes turned to a dull clay colour, and hardened to form armour. The lines of the face changed subtly, from carefully-crafted beauty to a rougher aspect. Risei strained to watch, aware of a nagging sense of familiarity.
When the M-shaped tiara formed, Risei gasped. He
knew this face. He knew it, but it was impossible.
"Ruler?" he asked.
The homunculus' head snapped round – and now the colours stared coming in. Not the purple and silver he'd gotten to know so well, sixty years ago, but a deep, burnt black, a stark contrast to the too-pale flesh and washed-out, ash-blonde hair.
Yellow eyes met Risei's, and the pure hate in them chilled him to the bone. Slowly, a malevolent smirk spread across the face he'd known as Jeanne d'Arc's.
"
Not. Quite," she said.
