[X] Leap out the window, reinforce your body and self-preservation spells, then drop kick the familiar.
-[X] High five the Assassin while said familiar inevitably explodes behind you in dramatic fashion.
"Try and catch up." Aaron Gentles said to Leysritt. "It's time to do this."
A moment later, and he was falling from the window, after Assassin and the beasts.
...Hm. He should probably use a few of his 'Don't Die' spells here, shouldn't he? This was, after all, a circumstance that most of them were made to avoid.
A few muttered incantations later, and Gentles was confident that nothing as mundane as a long fall and a sudden stop would kill him. Still, he kept speaking. Wasn't smart to stop making yourself undying because you're confident. That was the second largest cause of death with Enforcers, after all.
The falling fragment of Nrvnqsr Chaos tried to turn into a bird, but a wind spell to keep Gentles falling faster than it put a quick stop to that.
Foot met strange primordial goo, and the bird died again, falling to the ground.
Which was... Approaching rather fast.
Gentles braced for impact, and landed on the beasts again, killing it once more.
Looking around, Gentles saw Assassin standing with a throwing dirk in one arm, and the other arm obscured.
Walking away from the beast, Gentles raised a hand, ready to receive his reward.
Assassin looked at him.
After a moment, Gentles lowered his hand, and looked back at the beasts.
Jeez... No high five, no explosion? What kind of Grail War was this, where people wouldn't even respect the classics?
Well, good mood's dead, may as well ruin someone else's day.
"Any way to track that back to it's Master? Gentles asked.
"We don't want to." Assassin replied. "The Dead Apostle Ancestor is more powerful than both of us, and Berserker is not to be underestimated. If that thing returned to give away our location-"
And then a dog and snake both lunged at them, and the bird flew straight up, narrowly dodging Assassin's throwing dirk. With the snake distracting Gentles and Assassin needing to throw off the dog with their one good hand, the bird-thing was getting distance fast.
"After it!" Assassin demanded. Gentles didn't need to be told twice, setting off immediately.
As the two left, Leysritt finally stepped out of the front door, taking note of which direction the two were running in, and followed suit.
The pursuit quickly lead through the city, which was unusually empty for this time of day. That was Gentles first clue that he was walking into a trap.
Best to let Assassin spring it, then. Gentles slowed down a fraction, letting Assassin take the lead. As such, when the giant black elephant came bursting through the wall, the Servant was flung away first, leaving Gentles alone to deal with it and the bear that followed it.
Bears? Bears weren't a big deal. Easy to deal with, if you knew what you were dealing with.
Elephants? Another fucking thing entirely. Elephants were proof of intelligent and malicious against Magi design behind animals. Those fuckers were magic resistant, tougher than a sack of bricks, cancelled most magic on contact, disturbingly intelligent, almost completely immune to magic, freakishly strong, and did he mention the magic resistance?
Elephants were bullshit. And, naturally, Gentles didn't have any way of overpowering that Magic Resistance or dealing mundane damage on him.
Perhaps a retreat was in order.
Gentles took a step back, and the bear rushed him, only to quickly find it's head punched off. It recovered quickly and pushed the assault, keeping Gentles occupied, as the Elephant charged.
Life never could be easy, could it?
Waiting until the last possible second, Gentles wrestled the bear, then quickly disengaged and leapt out of the way before the elephant trampled him. The bear was absorbed into the elephant and leapt out of it's back, and the black beast itself quickly spun around without losing it's momentum, forcing Gentles to seek high ground on the roof of a building.
Naturally, the elephant took this as it's cue to start knocking down all the buildings around Gentles, isolating him on just one with nowhere to jump to when the elephant took it down.
If there was a plus side to all of this, it was that the Church would probably notice this and send someone to deal with it.
The bear followed Gentles to the rooftop, and the duel was on. A punch exploded the bear's spleen, and then the bear roared forward to crush Gentles under it's massive bulk, with the wooden-faced bastard barely able to throw it off.
All in all, the fight was nothing much, compared to what Gentles was used to. The bear stood up, and Gentles pinned it in place with a few bolts of lightning. Basic magecraft wasn't enough to kill it, but it certainly hurt it.
The approaching elephant, on the other hand, was quite the threat.
The bear resurrected again, and this time was smart about it. It rebuilt itself with it's head facing Gentles, when it had earlier been facing away, and managed to sink it's fangs into his thigh. Gentles started punching, but the bear managed to pull him down and get on top of him, meaning even when it died, it's weight was still there.
The elephant was about five seconds off, as Gentles tried to wrestle it. The beast died again, then rebuilt itself with it's jaws around his fist, denying his attempt to blast it with fire magecraft until it was killed to death.
Four seconds. The other hand was less inconvenienced, so a spike of earth shot up to impale the bear, narrowly missing Gentles. A root attached to it promptly grew out to strangle the bear, and Gentles was able to rip off it's head, freeing his fist.
Three seconds. The elephant trumpeted in glee at it's impending victory, as Gentles continued to wrestle with the bear. The moving root managed to get another stranglehold as the bear reformed, allowing Gentles to avoid the bite.
Two seconds. Gentles put both hands against the bear's stomach, and pushed. Pure strength alone wasn't enough, but reinforced as he was, all it took to finish the deal was a gust of wind pushing against it. The bear was held in the air for a moment, as Gentles rolled out from under it.
One second remaining, Gentles got to his feet, and saw the elephant charge. More importantly, though, he saw the elephant being pursued.
Just before the elephant charged into the building, Leysritt's throwing arm stayed try, and the Noble Phantasm pushed through the beast fast enough to tear it asunder. The weight of it still crashed into the building, but not as hard, and not as fast. Gentles had time.
Quickly leaping off the rooftop and near the elephant, Gentles took a moment to snatch the old spear, and landed behind a piece of rubble. Earth Magecraft quickly took effect to hide the spear for later.
Okay, now that that's done, time to run.
Assassin finally returned to combat, throwing a few dirks at a bear, and the elephant reformed slowly.
"Let's go!" Gentles called. "We can't win this!"
And then suddenly, out of the sky, a black bald eagle descended, followed by dozens of birds, clawing at Gentles. A bolt of lightning dealt with some of those, but the others got to start ripping and tearing. Gentles, remembering a trick he'd seen someone pull off once, quickly set up a flow of wind to move the birds into one spot, which he constantly fired blades of wind at to tear apart, but it took too much time to set it up, and in that time, the elephant reformed.
The beast barrelled towards Gentles, who watched it approach.
...You know what? Time to do something stupid.
Gentles met the charge with his own, a spell preparing in his hand.
Fortunately, before he could be shown what a bad idea this was, something collided with the elephant, forcing it to it's knees.
As the dust cleared, Gentles got a better look at his saviour.
He was, undoubtedly, a Servant. A fierce one, too. His entire body was covered in hair, and great fangs rolled down his face, matching clawed hands. His appearance reminded Gentles of that of a wolf, and given this was Rome, that narrowed down the suspect list considerably.
The wolf-man snarled at the elephant, and quickly murdered it again, in an impressive display of speed. As it started reforming, he howled, and the wind gathered around and scattered the black goo.
All the other beasts stopped to look at the attacker, who snarled at them. Intimidated, the beasts withdrew.
Slowly, Gentles approached the beast man. He seemed not to be on Team Dead Apostle, but given how much like a berserker he'd just acted like, being careful with the wild wolf man would probably be smart.
As he approached, the Servant turned to Gentles, and opened it's mouth.
"Ah! Good morrow, fine sir. Indubitably, this meeting of ours is a pleasure, my boy."
"...Pardon?"
"Oh? The wolf man asked. "Ah, I see. My appearance is rather barbarian, is it not? Rest assured, my good man, I do not allow my wild face to dictate my thoughts. Rather, I see it as prudent to act in a more sophisticated matter to compensate for it. Wouldn't you?"
...Okay, wolf man had a point.
"Caster." Leysritt greeted, coming over. "Mistress sent you?"
"Correct, my dear girl. Our Master was feeling somewhat concerned about your extended period without contact. I see you have found a fine gentleman to aid in the act of protecting your person?"
"Master of Saber." I greet.
"Oh, splendid!" Caster declared. "Master would undoubtedly be pleased, to find an ally, and one of a Class considered as highly as Saber would, perhaps, be the one to please her most. Might you consider returning to my workshop and be willing to discuss this alliance over a cup of tea, good sir?"
The British in Gentles almost made him agree immediately, but he really wanted to get away from Leysritt before she started asking about her spear.
Thinking it over for a moment, Gentles reached a decision.
[X] Accept the offer.
[X] Reject the offer.
-[X] Instead, ask Assassin about a possible alliance? He seemed cool, apart from the high-five thing.
-[X] You think you left seaweed on the wall. You should go talk to him.
[X] Write-in.
