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Fate/Danger Zone

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AN: While watching the latest Fate series a comment in my anime group got turned into a...
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    • Academia Nut

    Academia Nut

    Arbitrator
    Pronouns
    He/Him
    AN: While watching the latest Fate series a comment in my anime group got turned into a challenge that got turned into this. The guilty member knows why.

    ---

    There was something not right in the city of Fuyuki. Tohsaka Rin knew that with the Fifth Holy Grail War imminent there would be unscrupulous Masters out and about in the city, making trouble that normally she or that damn troublesome priest would have to deal with. Unfortunately as it was now anyone making trouble would have to be dealt with in the context of the War itself, which meant that first Rin had to summon her own Servant.

    While the recent spate of "gas leaks" and fires was a sure enough sign of a malevolent Master making trouble with their Servant, there was definitely a certain oddity to the start of this war. Other than starting far earlier than it should have, the damage thus far seemed less magical than it should have been. At best Rin supposed that mundane means were being used to cover over the magical attacks, but during previous Wars few bothered with such deception.

    More importantly, when Rin had been at school today - an hour early because of her father's puzzle box! - the Matous had been in an odd state. While it wasn't unusual to see Sakura at least marginally happy, especially if she had been spending time away from Shinji and with Emiya, she had seemed unusually animate and outgoing. While doubtlessly linked, this had to be related to the fact that Shinji on the other hand had spent the whole day in some sort of daze, his eyes glazed over with a look of horror.

    Pausing in her preparations, Rin went over to some of the tomes on her shelves and pulled out a select one. Quickly leafing through it, she found the image she had been looking for and felt an involuntary shudder run through her body. The man in the 18th Century woodcut image of the dangers of a magus peering unprepared at the horrors of the universe definitely had the same expression as Matou Shinji. Something had clearly happened with them, and it gave Rin pause in her mental planning. She had already written the Matous off as having no suitable candidates as Master for this war, but despite Shinji's complete lack of magical ability and Sakura being Sakura perhaps they had pulled something off under the supervision of their withered grandfather.

    Making absolute certain of her preparations, including doing an extra triple check of the clocks and her timing to make sure that the summoning went off perfect, Rin went into the ritual. At first everything seemed to be going well, but as she began to reach the peak of the summoning ritual she felt that there was something subtly off. She knew that as she fed prana into the grail it would forge a link and then eventually start feeding energy back to her to manifest her Servant, but the response she was getting had a strange feeling to it. While she had obviously never done this before, her instincts as a mage told her that the feedback she was getting was not quite right.

    It was the sort of thing that was hard to put into words, but if someone had forced her to give a description, Rin would have said that the feedback should have been like the taste of static electricity upon the tongue, but instead it was faintly flavoured with an oily feel and something like burnt peat. For a fraction of a heartbeat Rin considered pulling back, but she knew that this was both her only chance to summon her Servant, and that if she tried to abort now it would result in far worse a disaster than if she pressed on.

    Finally she reached the final note of the summoning and felt the power of the Grail pushing back towards her, filling the circle with energy to manifest a Heroic Spirit. The energy then kept expanding, overloading the summoning circle. Rin's eyes had just enough time to go wide before there was an eruption of undirected magical energies that caused her to lose track of the world for a second. When the world stopped spinning, the room was a smoke filled mess.

    Rin almost but not quite broke down crying, and instead settled for something of a whining temper tantrum as she tried to piece together what had gone wrong. Her preparations were immaculate! She had gone over everything a dozen times and then an extra three in consideration for whatever the Matous might have been up to. She can inscribed the circle perfectly! It shouldn't have overloaded, she had been filling it right when her od was at its peak so...

    Rin screamed in frustration when she realized that all the clocks in the house had gone forward by an hour last night. She had forgotten to put them forward and thus all that careful checking of the time meant that she had been performing the ritual at the wrong time! How could she be so stupid?

    Through the stone ceiling someone called out in irritation, "Keep it down down there!"

    Eyes snapping back open at the fact that there was someone inside her house, Rin suddenly realized that just because the circle had exploded did not necessarily mean that the spell had failed. Moving as fast as her legs could carry her, she found herself hurling open the door to the parlour above her lab, still dishevelled from the explosion and panting a little from the heat build up of her own reinforcement magic. What she found on the other side was not what she expected.

    Her first impression was that there was some sort of burglar inside her house, but she quickly rejected that for two reasons. The first was that there was no way a burglar could get through her wards. The second was that despite the suspicious black turtleneck sweater the man was wearing and the way he was rooting around in the wreckage of the room, his appearance was far too well groomed for a criminal, especially since he was clearly not Japanese.

    Turning at her arrival and revealing a smugly handsome face, the man looked around in disgust at the way the furniture had been rearranged by the out of control spell and commented sarcastically, "This place is a sty. You should really clean it up. I mean, do you want ants? Because this is how you get ants."

    Finding herself gaping at the dismissive arrogance of the man before her, whatever Rin was going to say was cut off by the realization that the man had helped himself to a bottle of brandy from her father's old collection and was clearly setting out to make himself a drink. Trying to sort out just what to say beyond spluttering outrage had the man note, "You probably shouldn't do that, it wrecks that 'kinda hot, kinda cute schoolgirl' thing you've got going on. I mean, I wouldn't bang you for at least two more years since we're not in Alabama or the Alabama of Europe, AKA your old fascist pals - incidentally, the way I know that is so freaking cool, even if your country is still super creepy about little girls - but I would probably do you one day."

    Blushing with a combination of embarrassment and outrage and trying to figure out just what to say as the man poured himself a drink, took a sniff and shrugged dismissively before he started to sip anyway, Rin finally blurted out, "Are you my Servant?"

    The man glared at her and replied acidly, "Do I look like someone who only thinks he's people? I do actual important things with my life."

    Rin staggered back at the vehemence of that, but then she realized that a particularly powerful Heroic Spirit might very well baulk at the idea of being the Servant of a mortal. It was one of the big reasons for the Command Seals, which Rin noted were in fact on the back of her hand now. She almost began to invoke the use of one right then and there but she realized that she would have to confirm that this person was in fact her Servant first.

    Grinding her teeth to keep from screaming at this arrogant ass of man, Rin asked, "Are you Saber?"

    The man snorted and replied dismissively, "Pfft! Unlike those idiots back in school who took fencing, I did a real sport, lacrosse! Saber? Please."

    Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it! Not only had she failed to get a properly obedient Servant but she hadn't even got the best class. But wait, if he wasn't Saber, from what that damn priest had said, by process of elimination...

    "Are you Archer?" She asked.

    The man grinned after taking a sip of her brandy and said, "Bingo."
     
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    • Okay, forgive the massive ignorance I am aout to reveal... But who's Sterling Archer?
     
    I knew what was coming the second I saw the title, but the reveal was still so damn good. I can't wait to see where this goes.
     
    Expected a Fate x Top Gun crossover, but this is almost as good do I'm not disappointed.
     
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    • Emiya Shirou was having a bad day. Not the worst day of his life, but that was only because that title had already been claimed ten years ago when he had essentially died and been reborn in the fire that had ravaged the city, but as it was standing this was a solid number two worst day ever. The past three days had been odd but not particularly unpleasant, but all that oddness had built up to the point of the insanity and pain of the past few hours.

    First up, his friends Shinji and Sakura had been acting uncharacteristically the past few days. While he was glad to see Sakura looking brighter and more cheerful than she had in all the time they had known each other, the cheer had taken on an almost brittle mania that morning. Then there was Shinji, who while a jerk far too often, Shirou had actual felt a little sorry for of late. The past few days he had had a haunted, distant look in his eyes, and there were rapidly growing bags underneath his eyes. Shirou had actually volunteered to clean the archery dojo just to help the poor guy out.

    Shinji also wasn't the only one who was apparently under the weather either. Ryuudou Issei had been looking oddly out of sorts for the past week, growing particularly haggard within the past two days, and despite the normally stoic boy's attempts to shrug off whatever was influencing him, he was clearly also slowing down. Considering the problems with gas leaks recently, Shirou had obviously asked if everything was alright up at the temple, but Issei had waved it off with the fact that the temple didn't have any gas lines.

    Yesterday, despite the fact that the two weren't on terms that warranted much interaction, Shirou had wondered if perhaps there wasn't something infectious going around since Tohsaka had failed to appear in school, apparently home sick. Whatever could keep the school idol down had to be rather potent, and if Issei was fighting it then that might explain a few things - perhaps even Shinji, even if Sakura's change in character made no sense considering her much closer proximity to her brother.

    However, while he was still trying to piece everything together, Shirou now had a much better idea of what might have been happening. He had been feeling odd at school today, almost like there was a presence in the walls watching him, bringing with it a musty scent, but he had mostly shrugged it off. What he had not expected was for his cleaning of the archery dojo well after the city wide curfew went into effect to be interrupted by an unholy racket, a noise like strings of firecrackers going off in unending succession.

    Rushing to see what was going on, heedless of any danger to himself, Shirou had discovered a remarkable and utterly unexpected sight. Two dark figures were fighting with literally superhuman speed and skill, their efforts tearing apart the track field that served as the setting for their battle. One man, dressed in a tight blue garment - a track suit perhaps? - and armed with a gigantic spear, had been fighting another man dressed in dark clothing and armed with an apparently infinite supply of guns. Actually infinite since whenever one of his weapons either expended its ammunition or was smashed by a thrust from the spearman the gunner discarded the weapon and summoned a new one out of thin air.

    The two should have been a mismatch of epic proportions, but while the spearman was fast and agile enough to either dodge or bat away the bullets with his spear, the gunner was able to put up such a relentless wall of fire with both hands that the spearman simply could not maintain an offensive before he had to adjust. Even if he got in close enough, the gunner would just use one of his guns to block a thrust while firing at point blank around the spear with the other, either forcing his opponent back or opening up an opportunity to skip back and open fire with something new.

    Up close the noise was incredible in its cacophony, and Shirou still felt his ears ring a little from after effects the rapid fire retorts of the guns going off, but despite that he could also hear the gunner cheering and whooping like a total maniac. Actually, he had been laughing, evidently having the time of his life firing so many guns like he was. He repeatedly let out jubilant cries of, "THIS IS AWESOME!"

    Shirou had found it almost grotesque how such a destructive, life or death battle was being treated so flippantly by one of the combatants. And then someone had noticed him. He was fairly certain that it had been the spearman, but the gunner had just sort of casually raised one of his guns without really looking and opened fire. Shirou had felt like he had been repeatedly punched in the chest and then everything went cold and he collapsed to the ground, unable to support his own weight.

    "Damn it Archer!" A shrill with anger feminine voice had cried out. Shirou had thought it had been Tohsaka, but it couldn't be her. How could she be mixed up in something like this?

    "Well you said we couldn't have witnesses to this sort of thing," the gunner, or at least Shirou had been pretty certain it had been the gunner, had almost whined, his voice definitely carrying a petulant tone.

    "I could have erased his memory!" The female voice screamed in frustration while rapidly drawing closer to where Shirou had been struggling not to go to sleep. He had felt like something bad would happen if he did.

    There was a long pause before the gunner replied, "Oops."

    "You really are a piece of work, aren't you Archer? You know what, screw this. My boss wanted me to kill the kid, so I am out for the night," a third voice had said from somewhere out in the growing darkness.

    When Shirou's eyes had opened again he found himself lying in a half frozen pool of his own blood, staring up at the stars. He had felt a little sore but upon inspection he had found that underneath his now rust stained shirt his chest and back were now whole. Deciding not to push his luck more than he needed to, he had just left the school with all haste and made his way back home, sore but not dead.

    Which of course meant that shortly after he got back home the spearman had attacked him, smashing his way into Shirou's kitchen and trying to impale him on his spear, stating apologetically, "Sorry kid, my ass of a boss ordered me to confirm that you were dead, and here we are."

    For his part, Shirou had managed to find that his magecraft had responded the way he wanted for the first time in forever and allowed him to Reinforce a poster into something able to withstand enough blows from the spear to let him get kicked out of the kitchen and into the courtyard, scrambling desperately for his Workshop out back and the possibility of something that could actually be called a weapon that he could use to defend himself.

    Which was where his near death summary of the second worst day of his life had brought him to: seated helplessly in his Workshop, tired from far more exertion than should be survivable and bleeding from several wounds inflicted by being punted through his walls. There was a light coming from nearby that he couldn't explain, but Shirou knew that without a miracle he was in too poor a position to avoid being skewered on that wicked looking spear.

    That miracle appeared before him with the sudden manifestation out of what appeared to be condensed moonlight of a blonde haired woman dressed in blue, her features soft and pale like nothing Shirou had ever seen in real life. She glanced at Shirou and seemed ready to say something before she glanced to the side and noticed the spearman nearby, a look of utter confusion crossing over her face.

    "Ray?"

    "Pam?"
     
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    • How in the infinite layers of the Abyss did Pam get to be Saber? I can understand Ray getting Lancer, if only for the sex jokes, but Pam? PAM of all people? Shirou's doomed, isn't he?
     
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