Fate/Ethereal Order

[Geedubs]

I am legitimately disappointed

 

[Squirtodyle]

Why do you take the shield?

Words spring to your lips immediately. Shame, you think, self-hatred and arrogance bubbling up in equal measure within you. "If only I hadn't ran away, I could have done something." There were over fifty experienced and powerful magi in that room, but you would make the difference, and because you chose not to, you must make it right.

But that isn't all of it. Your arrogance is not all there is to you. It is not why you take up the shield.

Fear, then, is your answer. You don't want to die. You're not embarrassed by it, why would you be? At your core, it's always been there, always held you back from pushing yourself that little bit too much, from truly seeking out the kind of release you long for at your lowest moments. You don't want to die, and because of that, you will do anything to avoid it, even if that means accepting such power. You'll use it to protect yourself, and the others will be incidental.

But that isn't all of it. Your fear is not all there is to you. It is not why you take up the shield.

Why, then, do you do it?

You hear something behind you, a child's shivering breath, the dying embers of tears that went unheard, the birth of cruel understanding. Alone and unloved and used, because that is what magi do. Because that is what the world does. Because that is just the way things are.

No more. Never again. Not a single person would suffer like that again.

Weren't those the words you whispered to yourself when you made your choice?

Aren't those the words that keep you going, even when you wish you could simply stop?

Never again.

Your mouth moves, and you move with it. The shield takes shape as you draw closer to the dark sun pressing down, and you can see it clearly. Dark steel, tinted black and purple, a circle large enough to cover you from thigh to neck, and from each cardinal direction, the prongs of a cross burst free. A strap for your arm set in the center, a ring around the edge of the circle to hold onto as well. It's like no shield you've ever seen before, and even with the front outside your vision, you know that it's beautiful beyond compare.

You have a good eye, don't you? It is a beautiful shield, and more besides that.

It is a beautiful shield, but it means far more to me than simply that.

Let me hear your answer again. I want to record it. I want to remember it. I want to close my eyes and hear your voice when I think of humanity.

Let me hear your answer again. It was beautiful. You needn't have been afraid of fear, nor ashamed of shame...but you are more than that. I chose well, and I'm thankful for that.

Your mouth moves again, and this time the shield is close enough to touch. The fire above feels like it will scorch you to your very soul, but...you know what stands behind you, know that you are all that stands between them. You're ashamed of yourself, and you want to make reparations. You're afraid, and you don't want this to be how you die.

But you chose to be a protector, didn't you? This is just upping the scale a little.

We are alike, in that regard. We protect. Always.

Now, do what you were meant to do.

Now, do what you were chosen to do.

You reach outwards with trembling fingers, slipping your arm through the strap and bracing yourself. The fell star will descend upon you soon, and you know you have to carry the weight. But that's what you've always signed up for, and you won't turn your back now.

You look up as the flames draw closer, and you scream defiance when they collide.

Good luck.

----------​

You wake with a heaving, sucking breath choked with ash, and immediately you roll over and start to cough. Flecks of black mucus come up and splatter against the ground, and with a shake of your head that makes your stomach turn like you've been sick all night, you sit back, trying to gather your thoughts. You know you blacked out after you pushed yourself too far, and...you know someone was with you. You cast your gaze out and take another breath of foul air, but the words die on your lungs as you see your surroundings.

A moment ago, you were in the center of Chaldea as it burned. Now, you're still surrounded by flames and smoke and ash, but you're in the middle of a city.

A closer look tells you that it's not a city anymore though, not really. Once tall skyscrapers have crumbled into ruins, abandoned cars litter the roads in burnt-out husks, and the air is a scorched, angry red. When you breathe, you smell smoke, and flecks of ash settle on your tongue and inside your throat no matter how much you cough to get them out. This is the corpse of a city, quietly burning in the final breaths of its funeral pyre.

You push yourself up onto your knees, moving gingerly out of habit before you realise...you're not in pain. You were dying minutes ago, from internal bleeding, from smoke inhalation, maybe even poison in the Rayshifting chamber for all you know. But now you're fine. That's...not how things are supposed to work. If you teleported somewhere, it's not like whatever mechanism would restore your body to full health, would it? You take a tentative step upwards, and when you don't collapse, you stand up straight. Something tickles at the back of your mind, a memory halfway to being forgotten, but...

When you glance downwards, you freeze for a moment. You'd been wearing what you usually wore, simple trousers, white shirt, chains, black coat. The chains are there, thankfully, but everything else is different. Your coat has vanished, and instead of a shirt you're wearing a leather jerkin, wrapped in chains in some facsimile of mail. Your arms are bare but for the chains and the communicator on your right wrist, and instead of the dark pants you prefer, you're wearing a pair of linen trousers tucked into hard hide boots. None of this is anything you'd even begin to consider wearing normally, especially with your own clothes enchanted, but you're wearing it nevertheless.

Hah. Maybe you're just in hell. Looking around, it's not like the scenery doesn't fit.

...take up the shield...

Memory dances on the razor's edge between recollection and oblivion, and you strain to recall where you heard that voice before. What did it mean, take up the-

"W-Whoa!"

You shout in surprise as blue light sparks on your left arm, and all of a sudden it's being weighed down. A blue-and-black shield in the shape of a cross with a wide circle surrounding the nexus of the points. It's enormous, bigger than you are tall, and you haven't Reinforced yourself yet. You wince, preparing for the inevitable jerk of your arm that'll dislocated it at best, and...it never comes. Your arm holds steady.

What?

A tool that appears when you think about it, and strength that you never before had to hold it. Your body is, as far as you can tell, in perfect shape as opposed to dying slowly. And that dream, that half-remembered voice flitting about in your head...

Your thoughts are cut off by the sudden chittering, clacking sound coming from the left, and when you whirl to defend yourself, the shield throws you off. More weight than you're used to, and you stumble a little, your gaze sharpening as your instincts kick in and you start to flood your body with mana. Walking skeletons, about a dozen, nothing you've not dealt with before, but these ones are different, a little darker, not quite human, no full skull just a jaw full of needle-sharp fangs and they're moving fast-

Your analysis runs headfirst into a block as your more rational mind takes front and center, and time all but slows to a crawl as you take stock of how to avoid being killed. They're armed with weapons of bone too, but nothing beyond crude swords and axes and spears. Faster than most animated skeletons you've seen, but to you they're slow. The stupid shield is blocking the chains on your left side and they're too close for you to untangle yourself, but, well, you are still holding a giant mass of steel.

If nothing else, this'll definitely help burn off some of the stress you're feeling.

The first of the too-sharp skeletons jumps at you, holding its sword aloft with the point down to impale you from above, but you're ready. You swing your arm, seafoam-green light shimmering on the skin as you Reinforce yourself, aiming to catch the torso on the longest prong of the shield's cross, maybe knock it into the next closest skeleton, this one holding a spear. Your plan is ruined with you scythe straight through the skeleton, striking with enough force that the bones you didn't cut straight through end up being splintered into little shards, flying off to the side. There's no time to be surprised by your strength, unnatural even by your standards, because the spearman is upon you next.

Fighting with a shield is awkward, but you're moving better than you thought you'd be. Catching the tip of the bone-spear on the front of your shield is easy enough, and as soon as you do you shove forward and up with enough force to send it swinging upwards, leaving the skeleton defenseless. You dart out with your other hand, the blade of your chain clenched in your fist, before slicing the thing in half from the top of its skull to the bottom of the spine. It's dissolving even as you move forward, the other ten a little more wary, but there's only so much they can do with tactics. At their core, they're weak constructs, and you'd only really be threatened by them if you were caught half asleep. With your newfound power and your own experience? It's just unfair.

Your worries melt away a little as you surrender to the pace of the fight, charging into the throng with your targets carefully picked. Swords and axes were for close range, but the three left with spears have more reach. Get overwhelmed by the closer ones and then find yourself spitted like a pig, they don't have to worry about hitting anything vital on an ally if they're all skeletons. There's no formation to it, just a horde of constructs, and that only really makes your job easier. Charge forward with your shield raised and smash one of the swordsmen back into the others, turn on the ball of your foot and lash out with your chain, the metal obeying your mental commands and winding its way around the haft of one of the spears. Yank, pull, sidestep and smash the skeleton with your shield, turn and duck under a swing from one of the others who dodged the swordsman you pushed, sweep the legs out and slam them into the ground with your shield.

It's easy, really. You're not even relying on the dance of your chains like you'd normally have to for a group this big, everything just seems slower, more sluggish, easier to slip around. What you can't dodge, your shield blocks, and even if it's designed for defense it turns out that a giant slab of metal is pretty good for smashing things if you can swing it hard enough. They try to surround you and it's so simple that it's almost insulting, and a quick pirouette and two-handed swipe is enough to turn the skeleton almost into dust from how hard you hit it. Someone else might be disappointed, but an easy fight where you don't end up hurt is pretty much exactly what you needed to work off some stress. It's only when the last of the skeletons is fading away into nothing that your senses start to scream at you, and you just barely manage to move your head out of the way as something goes whizzing past it from behind.

You whip your gaze behind you, bringing your shield up to block any more projectiles, before your blood runs cold. Standing before, about fifty meters down the road, is another skeleton. This one is human, the bones rounded and normal instead of twisted and sharp, and it's got a full skull beneath its steel helmet rather than just a jaw of teeth. Most of it is covered by khaki combat fatigues, and in its pale white fingers it holds an older looking rifle to its shoulder, already aiming for a second shot.

You turn and start to sprint.

Even with your enhanced speed and your Reinforcement, even if that was a relatively mundane weapon, even if the way you zig and zag until you turn and launch yourself up into one of the ruined buildings to hide means that it's almost impossible to hit you, you don't let out a breath until a minute passes and you're sure you're safe. You take another minute to try and keep yourself calm, your shield dissipating into blue sparks as you relax, and you're almost ready to continue when your communicator starts beeping loudly enough to echo through the corpse of the building you're in.

Fighting off a minor heart attack, you frantically scramble to answer it, but it picks up itself after less than a second. You remember the last time that happened with a small sense of dread, but you barely have time even for that before a familiar voice fills the room, crisp and clear for a moment before you slam your hand over the communicator to muffle it.

"Dempsey! Status report, now! What on earth is happening?! What the hell kind of readings am I getting from you?"

"Quiet!" you hiss, bringing your wrist closer to your mouth and glancing around for any skeletons in the dark. "I'm alive but there are constructs around, potentially a Servant, keep your voice down!" You speak under your breath, hopeful that you can get through to her, a hope that's vindicated when she immediately drops her voice to your level, though you can't imagine she's happy to be spoken to like that.

"Shit, shit shit shit. You're in the Singularity, we'd expected resistance but if you're already fighting a Servant...Dempsey, keep yourself alive. I don't know what's happening but we're getting bizarre readings from you, stronger than we observed when you were in the simulator. I don't care how you're doing it but you're clearly stronger now, and we were able to pick up your signal through all the distortion. Roman and Lev vanished with you, and so did another candidate. It's...it's bad, but we're putting them all into cryo. Our systems are down, no one seems to have any privileges for summoning anymore, and without Lev we can't fix it." She's speaking quickly and clearly, and you have to grudgingly admit that for all her flaws, she's at least keeping a cool head back in Chaldea.

"The Rayshift I initiated was only meant to catch whatever valid Masters were still there, to get them somewhere safer than Chaldea for the moment. I don't know how Lev and Roman got caught up in it, but find them, find the other Master too. SHEBA's scans suggested no other humans in the Singularity, so if you see anyone alive that isn't them, they're probably Servants. You need to-"

"What the hell is going on?!" You cut her off and keep going as she sucks in a shocked breath, no doubt wondering why someone like you had the gall to interrupt. "What the hell is a Rayshift? Where on earth am I? I don't know anything, I've got a huge shield and clothes I've never seen before, I'm stronger and faster and tougher and- just tell me what on earth is happening!" A little hysterical, but you think you've earned it. You've got half-remembered dreams with voices you can't remember saying words that slip away when you try think of them, you've somehow gotten arms and armor replacing your usual clothes, and you're quite possibly in the strike zone for some kind of shelling if you misjudged how far away you got from that last skeleton.

There's silence on the line as Animusphere draws in a breath, and when she speaks it's in a strained tone of voice, the kind people make when they want nothing more to strangle the person they're talking to, but know that it'd be a terrible idea. "You weren't here for the briefing. It's too much to explain now, not while you're in danger, so I'm ordering you to find our missing staff and establish a beachhead on a leyline somewhere. You're in Fuyuki City of 2004, you're there because of the Rayshift, and that's all you need to know right now. Find the civic center, it's the safest of the leyline nexuses, then we'll talk more. The signal here is weak and it's only because you were so easy to observe that we could contact you. Just...just do it, Dempsey. It's a disaster here too. Losing those two would hurt."

The communicator falls silent, and if you were any less stunned you'd be fighting the urge to curse. Time travel. Rayshifting was fucking time travel. You've been sent backwards in time to this, this Singularity, and you need to find the only three humans that are still alive in this hellhole. It's worse than the true Grail War ever was, you know that, but even so...

Breathe.

You take a deep breath and hold it, before letting it out slowly. It's manageable. Be stealthy, be quiet, be shadow while you creep through the city. Your alignment with earth will help you track the flow of the leylines, and once you get close enough you'll recognise the civic center from your study of the War. If you find anyone on the way, even better.

One step at a time.

You stand from where you slumped against the wall before looking out over the flaming city two floors below, nose wrinkling at the scent of smoke as you consider your options. You can see the sea far to your left, an ocean of ink-black liquid, which means that the civic center is to your right, somewhere. All you need to do is figure out which path to take.

[ ] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

[ ] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

----------​

Q/N: So yeah, this exists. I'm not fully happy with it and ended up scrapping the whole thing to rewrite it more than once, but I'll go insane if I don't get something out before this weekend is over, so here you all go! Updates will get a little more regular after Tuesday once I finish my last final, so thanks for sticking around. I appreciate it!

I'll also be working on the info page by the next chapter, so expect more to it once Chapter 9 drops.

Thanks again!

 

[King Ofheros]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[QTesseract]

Oh shit. Roman's in the singularity. We might be fucked.

 

[Ars Longinus]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

At the moment, speed is paramount, even if visibility is a risk

 

[ZerbanDaGreat]

You have a good eye, don't you? It is a beautiful shield, and more besides that.

It is a beautiful shield, but it means far more to me than simply that.

Let me hear your answer again. I want to record it. I want to remember it. I want to close my eyes and hear your voice when I think of humanity.

Let me hear your answer again. It was beautiful. You needn't have been afraid of fear, nor ashamed of shame...but you are more than that. I chose well, and I'm thankful for that.

Your mouth moves again, and this time the shield is close enough to touch. The fire above feels like it will scorch you to your very soul, but...you know what stands behind you, know that you are all that stands between them. You're ashamed of yourself, and you want to make reparations. You're afraid, and you don't want this to be how you die.

But you chose to be a protector, didn't you? This is just upping the scale a little.

We are alike, in that regard. We protect. Always.

Now, do what you were meant to do.

Now, do what you were chosen to do.

You reach outwards with trembling fingers, slipping your arm through the strap and bracing yourself. The fell star will descend upon you soon, and you know you have to carry the weight. But that's what you've always signed up for, and you won't turn your back now.

You look up as the flames draw closer, and you scream defiance when they collide.

Good luck.

Click to shrink...

Innnnteresting. I'm increasingly sure that if the invisible text is Galahad (obviously) then the visible text must be Merlin. Especially that line about 'think of humanity' which sounds very detached and outside of humanity to my ear. Big fan of how he hijacks the second-person narration still.

And now we better hope that poor Ed's got a better fate in store for him than Mashu Potatos!

You wake with a heaving, sucking breath choked with ash, and immediately you roll over and start to cough. Flecks of black mucus come up and splatter against the ground, and with a shake of your head that makes your stomach turn like you've been sick all night, you sit back, trying to gather your thoughts. You know you blacked out after you pushed yourself too far, and...you know someone was with you. You cast your gaze out and take another breath of foul air, but the words die on your lungs as you see your surroundings.

A moment ago, you were in the center of Chaldea as it burned. Now, you're still surrounded by flames and smoke and ash, but you're in the middle of a city.

A closer look tells you that it's not a city anymore though, not really. Once tall skyscrapers have crumbled into ruins, abandoned cars litter the roads in burnt-out husks, and the air is a scorched, angry red. When you breathe, you smell smoke, and flecks of ash settle on your tongue and inside your throat no matter how much you cough to get them out. This is the corpse of a city, quietly burning in the final breaths of its funeral pyre.

[...]

When you glance downwards, you freeze for a moment. You'd been wearing what you usually wore, simple trousers, white shirt, chains, black coat. The chains are there, thankfully, but everything else is different. Your coat has vanished, and instead of a shirt you're wearing a leather jerkin, wrapped in chains in some facsimile of mail. Your arms are bare but for the chains and the communicator on your right wrist, and instead of the dark pants you prefer, you're wearing a pair of linen trousers tucked into hard hide boots. None of this is anything you'd even begin to consider wearing normally, especially with your own clothes enchanted, but you're wearing it nevertheless.

[...]

You shout in surprise as blue light sparks on your left arm, and all of a sudden it's being weighed down. A blue-and-black shield in the shape of a cross with a wide circle surrounding the nexus of the points. It's enormous, bigger than you are tall, and you haven't Reinforced yourself yet. You wince, preparing for the inevitable jerk of your arm that'll dislocated it at best, and...it never comes. Your arm holds steady.

[...]

Your thoughts are cut off by the sudden chittering, clacking sound coming from the left, and when you whirl to defend yourself, the shield throws you off. More weight than you're used to, and you stumble a little, your gaze sharpening as your instincts kick in and you start to flood your body with mana. Walking skeletons, about a dozen, nothing you've not dealt with before, but these ones are different, a little darker, not quite human, no full skull just a jaw full of needle-sharp fangs and they're moving fast-

Your analysis runs headfirst into a block as your more rational mind takes front and center, and time all but slows to a crawl as you take stock of how to avoid being killed. They're armed with weapons of bone too, but nothing beyond crude swords and axes and spears. Faster than most animated skeletons you've seen, but to you they're slow. The stupid shield is blocking the chains on your left side and they're too close for you to untangle yourself, but, well, you are still holding a giant mass of steel.

If nothing else, this'll definitely help burn off some of the stress you're feeling.

The first of the too-sharp skeletons jumps at you, holding its sword aloft with the point down to impale you from above, but you're ready. You swing your arm, seafoam-green light shimmering on the skin as you Reinforce yourself, aiming to catch the torso on the longest prong of the shield's cross, maybe knock it into the next closest skeleton, this one holding a spear. Your plan is ruined with you scythe straight through the skeleton, striking with enough force that the bones you didn't cut straight through end up being splintered into little shards, flying off to the side. There's no time to be surprised by your strength, unnatural even by your standards, because the spearman is upon you next.

Fighting with a shield is awkward, but you're moving better than you thought you'd be. Catching the tip of the bone-spear on the front of your shield is easy enough, and as soon as you do you shove forward and up with enough force to send it swinging upwards, leaving the skeleton defenseless. You dart out with your other hand, the blade of your chain clenched in your fist, before slicing the thing in half from the top of its skull to the bottom of the spine. It's dissolving even as you move forward, the other ten a little more wary, but there's only so much they can do with tactics. At their core, they're weak constructs, and you'd only really be threatened by them if you were caught half asleep. With your newfound power and your own experience? It's just unfair.

Your worries melt away a little as you surrender to the pace of the fight, charging into the throng with your targets carefully picked. Swords and axes were for close range, but the three left with spears have more reach. Get overwhelmed by the closer ones and then find yourself spitted like a pig, they don't have to worry about hitting anything vital on an ally if they're all skeletons. There's no formation to it, just a horde of constructs, and that only really makes your job easier. Charge forward with your shield raised and smash one of the swordsmen back into the others, turn on the ball of your foot and lash out with your chain, the metal obeying your mental commands and winding its way around the haft of one of the spears. Yank, pull, sidestep and smash the skeleton with your shield, turn and duck under a swing from one of the others who dodged the swordsman you pushed, sweep the legs out and slam them into the ground with your shield.

It's easy, really. You're not even relying on the dance of your chains like you'd normally have to for a group this big, everything just seems slower, more sluggish, easier to slip around. What you can't dodge, your shield blocks, and even if it's designed for defense it turns out that a giant slab of metal is pretty good for smashing things if you can swing it hard enough. They try to surround you and it's so simple that it's almost insulting, and a quick pirouette and two-handed swipe is enough to turn the skeleton almost into dust from how hard you hit it. Someone else might be disappointed, but an easy fight where you don't end up hurt is pretty much exactly what you needed to work off some stress.

Click to shrink...

Right so as we were told we are definitely getting the full story of GO with no deviation whatsoever and this just goes to prove that. Still in burning Fuyuki of AU 2004, Ed can properly summon and dismiss the shield like a Servant weapon, it looks just like the real thing in the game, and he's beating up skellingtons. Looks like we can relax-

It's only when the last of the skeletons is fading away into nothing that your senses start to scream at you, and you just barely manage to move your head out of the way as something goes whizzing past it from behind.

You whip your gaze behind you, bringing your shield up to block any more projectiles, before your blood runs cold. Standing before, about fifty meters down the road, is another skeleton. This one is human, the bones rounded and normal instead of twisted and sharp, and it's got a full skull beneath its steel helmet rather than just a jaw of teeth. Most of it is covered by khaki combat fatigues, and in its pale white fingers it holds an older looking rifle to its shoulder, already aiming for a second shot.

You turn and start to sprint.

Click to shrink...

NOT THE SKELLEMANS

But seriously Ed must be getting some horrible flashbacks if this is what I think it is and this Fuyuki has The Unknown Soldier wandering about being a nuisance. Forget trying to sneak past half the servants to get to the Greater Grail cavern, try sneaking past several armies worth of wraiths with machine guns and tanks.

"Dempsey! Status report, now! What on earth is happening?! What the hell kind of readings am I getting from you?"

"Quiet!" you hiss, bringing your wrist closer to your mouth and glancing around for any skeletons in the dark. "I'm alive but there are constructs around, potentially a Servant, keep your voice down!" You speak under your breath, hopeful that you can get through to her, a hope that's vindicated when she immediately drops her voice to your level, though you can't imagine she's happy to be spoken to like that.

"Shit, shit shit shit. You're in the Singularity, we'd expected resistance but if you're already fighting a Servant...Dempsey, keep yourself alive. I don't know what's happening but we're getting bizarre readings from you, stronger than we observed when you were in the simulator. I don't care how you're doing it but you're clearly stronger now, and we were able to pick up your signal through all the distortion. Roman and Lev vanished with you, and so did another candidate. It's...it's bad, but we're putting them all into cryo. Our systems are down, no one seems to have any privileges for summoning anymore, and without Lev we can't fix it." She's speaking quickly and clearly, and you have to grudgingly admit that for all her flaws, she's at least keeping a cool head back in Chaldea.

Click to shrink...

Oh my god. Olga-Marie's so Not Dying that she didn't even show up here, she's back at Chaldea safe and sound. Which means the bomber who might not even be Lev any more didn't take the precaution of planting a big ol block of C4 right under her feet to blow her skirt off. Which means our suspect list now includes... Roman. And the other Master candidate pulled in can only mean Niamh which is liable to cause its own diverse assortment of what-the-fuck feelings.

Oh boy oh boy I can't wait for some incredible swerve where it turns out Roman's the Demon Pillar and Lev's just some guy with bad fashion sense.

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

Ed's a big huge superhuman Chad with a shield of steel and cock of thunder, he can take whatever piddly bullets or mortar shells or what-have-you come his way. What's important right now is speed, specifically the speed with which he finds out what the fucksauce is the deal around here.

----------​

Q/N: So yeah, this exists. I'm not fully happy with it and ended up scrapping the whole thing to rewrite it more than once, but I'll go insane if I don't get something out before this weekend is over, so here you all go! Updates will get a little more regular after Tuesday once I finish my last final, so thanks for sticking around. I appreciate it!

I'll also be working on the info page by the next chapter, so expect more to it once Chapter 9 drops.

Thanks again!

Click to shrink...

Ganbatte your best Squirto-chan, just be careful not to burn yourself out trying to pick up the paste. Quest voters are subhuman filth, we don't deserve your full effort in keeping to a schedule.

 

[erehecate]

Walking skeletons, about a dozen, nothing you've not dealt with before, but these ones are different, a little darker, not quite human, no full skull just a jaw full of needle-sharp fangs and they're moving fast-

Click to shrink...

Dragon Tooth Warriors 👀
So a high chance of Medea, Circe, or another related Greek magus
Could be Semiramis but I can't remember if she showed off any of them before pulling out the Hanging Gardens, and they were modified aside from not making sense for her to have in the first place

At their core, they're weak constructs, and you'd only really be threatened by them if you were caught half asleep. With your newfound power and your own experience? It's just unfair.

Click to shrink...

Ed knows he's a badass usually but now? He's a fucking badass

you're almost ready to continue when your communicator starts beeping loudly enough to echo through the corpse of the building you're in.

Click to shrink...

You should adjust your sound settings ASAP, Ed, before Olga ends up getting you killed

"Shit, shit shit shit. You're in the Singularity, we'd expected resistance but if you're already fighting a Servant...Dempsey, keep yourself alive. I don't know what's happening but we're getting bizarre readings from you, stronger than we observed when you were in the simulator. I don't care how you're doing it but you're clearly stronger now, and we were able to pick up your signal through all the distortion. Roman and Lev vanished with you, and so did another candidate. It's...it's bad, but we're putting them all into cryo. Our systems are down, no one seems to have any privileges for summoning anymore, and without Lev we can't fix it." She's speaking quickly and clearly, and you have to grudgingly admit that for all her flaws, she's at least keeping a cool head back in Chaldea.

Click to shrink...

language, Olga, language

more seriously though, Roman being in the singularity could be a problem. There's no mention of what happened to Matthew either, so that's not really a great indication of what might have happened to him - though I wouldn't be surprised if Olga just doesn't care about whether kouhai exists or not

Lev's probably the one responsible for the explosion, so it's possible he just ducked out of the way of it and made it so no one can find out where he is until it's time for his grand reveal
Hopefully they find someone else to fix the summoning problem, since I doubt a member of Goetia would be keen on helping fix it.

"The Rayshift I initiated was only meant to catch whatever valid Masters were still there, to get them somewhere safer than Chaldea for the moment. I don't know how Lev and Roman got caught up in it, but find them, find the other Master too. SHEBA's scans suggested no other humans in the Singularity, so if you see anyone alive that isn't them, they're probably Servants. You need to-"

Click to shrink...

When a burning city full of hostile skeleton warriors and Servants is actually safer than the security organization, you really have to wonder if things are going according to plan, Olga.

The other Master is probably Niamh, then? Though it's a question as to whether SHEBA's scans are talking about there being no other humans before or after the shift, in regards to Matthew. I can't recall if he had a communicator so it's possible Olga wouldn't be able to track him if he didn't... though she doesn't seem to be having much luck with finding the other Master anyways, due to shitty connection

There's silence on the line as Animusphere draws in a breath, and when she speaks it's in a strained tone of voice, the kind people make when they want nothing more to strangle the person they're talking to, but know that it'd be a terrible idea. "You weren't here for the briefing. It's too much to explain now, not while you're in danger, so I'm ordering you to find our missing staff and establish a beachhead on a leyline somewhere. You're in Fuyuki City of 2004, you're there because of the Rayshift, and that's all you need to know right now. Find the civic center, it's the safest of the leyline nexuses, then we'll talk more. The signal here is weak and it's only because you were so easy to observe that we could contact you. Just...just do it, Dempsey. It's a disaster here too. Losing those two would hurt."

Click to shrink...

Props to Olga, because that's actually a really good summary of the situation without getting into the needless technicalities of how he's in 2004 Fuyuki until he's at a better place to hear about it all. I can't even blame her for being annoyed with him, seeing as they both got off on the wrong foot and she has no way of knowing that he wasn't at the meeting because he saw someone that scares him more than death itself. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun when they end up meeting in the burning city and she's having tea with some insane Servant or another

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

He's already seen a Servant that a sniper, and it's fairly close by. Showing off his location by going to the top of the buildings would be stupid, especially since Servants can be fast as fuck when they want to be. If the DTWs are working with the Servant, any one of them 'seeing' him could mean his location is revealed to the sniper, and then he's bringing danger to the spot that's supposed to be safe.

 

[Imaflatsquid]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[Paleb05]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

 

[WildCardFool]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[EternalObserver]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

 

[Commonwealth1991]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

Time is of the essence, find who we can before something else does. And if we are intercepted we will likely draw the survivors towards us due to the commotion.

 

[Pale Wolf]

You whip your gaze behind you, bringing your shield up to block any more projectiles, before your blood runs cold. Standing before, about fifty meters down the road, is another skeleton. This one is human, the bones rounded and normal instead of twisted and sharp, and it's got a full skull beneath its steel helmet rather than just a jaw of teeth. Most of it is covered by khaki combat fatigues, and in its pale white fingers it holds an older looking rifle to its shoulder, already aiming for a second shot.

You turn and start to sprint.

Click to shrink...

Oh dear. TUS in Fuyuki? No wonder the city's on fire.

"Shit, shit shit shit. You're in the Singularity, we'd expected resistance but if you're already fighting a Servant...Dempsey, keep yourself alive. I don't know what's happening but we're getting bizarre readings from you, stronger than we observed when you were in the simulator. I don't care how you're doing it but you're clearly stronger now, and we were able to pick up your signal through all the distortion. Roman and Lev vanished with you, and so did another candidate. It's...it's bad, but we're putting them all into cryo. Our systems are down, no one seems to have any privileges for summoning anymore, and without Lev we can't fix it." She's speaking quickly and clearly, and you have to grudgingly admit that for all her flaws, she's at least keeping a cool head back in Chaldea.

Click to shrink...

Naturally, as with all plotlines that have no divergences from FGO at all, Olga-Marie stayed back in Chaldea in Roman's place.

Edward may have to work real hard to keep his husbando from getting yeeted from existence (assuming he isn't the actual bad guy here), but Olga-Marie is much better-suited for the backline command position than Roman was, let alone getting dropped into the battlefield.

And the other Master candidate pulled in can only mean Niamh which is liable to cause its own diverse assortment of what-the-fuck feelings.

Click to shrink...

I'm hoping for Matthew, because if Matthew didn't come on the Rayshift, he may be fucked, his best-case scenario is 'cryofrozen in a coffin so he doesn't die', which means the only way we're getting any Matthew until like three singularities in is if he came along with them.



[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

This isn't going to keep him safe from nonvisual detection (and he's very easy to detect nonvisually as Chaldea just demonstrated), but he was just sighted by a Servantlike entity that he thinks is an artillery spotter. So being spotted visually seems like a bad idea. He can handle rifle rounds, and he can handle tank and artillery shells, but he doesn't know that and I don't think speed is so important to him right now that he'll risk performing that kind of stress-test on his new powers.

 

[VagueZ]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

 

[toxinvictory]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[Astro Ambulance]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[Nocturnfox]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

He has a big shield that can be used to block projectiles.
And being visible helps in allow the survivor to locate us for good and for the worse.

 

[Geedubs]

Wouldn't it be funny if the other Master candidate in here wasn't Niamh or Matthew, but just some other random schmuck who was (un?)fortunate enough to live?

Hmm, having Ed decide he doesn't afraid of anything and leap from rooftop to rooftop like a superhero sounds pretty fun, but I think I'm going to go with
[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[defenestrator]

[X] Move on the streets. They might be patrolled by skeletons and worse, but it's easier to hide when you're not leaping from rooftop to rooftop, and you doubt that any of your three targets are going to be anywhere besides hiding at ground level. With your skills you should be able to avoid being caught, but it'll be slower going before you can get yourself back in contact with Chaldea.

 

[MJ12 Commando]

But seriously Ed must be getting some horrible flashbacks if this is what I think it is and this Fuyuki has The Unknown Soldier wandering about being a nuisance. Forget trying to sneak past half the servants to get to the Greater Grail cavern, try sneaking past several armies worth of wraiths with machine guns and tanks.

Click to shrink...

Look, we can take 'em, they're like, probably chumps

Surely the manifestation of the forgotten war dead in the middle of a terrible war zone, on the ground where the first and last nuclear weapons used in anger were dropped, will be chumps because they're ~modern Servants~

But more seriously if these are who I think they are, trying to sneak around them is probably extremely risky. Better to move fast and avoid the artillery, so...

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

 

[Walker]

[X] Take to what's left of the rooftops. It's visible to anyone who might be looking, and you won't have much luck in the way of hiding if anything nasty crops up, but it's the quickest way to get around, and it'll give you the best visibility.

 

[Squirtodyle]

Just a heads up, voting will close at midnight GMT on Wednesday, in about 26 hours.

 

[Squirtodyle]

There's at least two definite non-combatants in Fuyuki, maybe three if the other Master candidate can't handle themselves, and there's definitely Servants around. You can take the slow and steady route, creep around, stick to the shadows, and you'll be fine. Honestly, in a burnt-out city like this, you could probably hide for days and never get noticed. But the others, Roman and Lev and Thirteen? They'll die in a few hours if they're lucky, less if they're not. You have to get to that community center and pick up communications with Chaldea, hope that they can use whatever contraption they have for scanning the Singularity to point you in the right direction. That means moving fast, and you really only have one option.

Besides, you're half-sure that the area you're in is about to be bombed to hell and back, so getting out of it quickly can only be a good thing.

There's more to consider, your strange new power chief among them, but that can wait. You aren't safe, and panicking over the potential explanations when you're in danger is about the worst possible thing you could do, regardless of the impossibility of what you're thinking. It fits, but it doesn't make sense at all, and you're not in any position to puzzle it out. Link to Chaldea, figure it all out, rescue anyone you find along the way. Simple mission parameters, probably not even the most dangerous thing you've ever done. As you breathe, you feel a sense of calm settle on your mind, jumbled thoughts and half-formed worries simply fading away under the clarity you've earned over your years.

Just another mission.

Just another Grail War.

You move.

You're using your Reinforcement, your arms and hands free for you to use your chains, but gods, you barely feel like you need to. A simple jump takes you up to the rooftop of the building across the way from you, and from there it's easy enough to start moving towards the civic center. Jumps that you'd have to supplement with a lot of energy barely take any effort at all, and you realise with a little bit of almost-melancholy that you don't even need your chains to help you.

There's nothing happening as you leap forward, just long enough that you start to wonder if maybe nothing would happen. You only ran into one skeleton soldier, after all, and you didn't notice anything in the skies beforehand. It's possible that you could get through this without any kind of issue, reach the civic center in a couple minutes. It's also entirely possible that Animusphere will get on her knees and beg forgiveness for being so rude to you earlier, but you're not holding your breath for either. You're in the middle of a city at the end of the most destructive Grail War you've ever seen, and you're leaping across crumbling rooftops without a hint of secrecy. Your luck isn't nearly good enough to get you out of this without issue.

With those thoughts in your mind, you're ready for when your instincts start to scream at you, though even without them you'd have heard the whistle and crackle of soaring flames, the screaming of some horrible monster. You've already jumped and you can't really jump off of thin air, but fortunately, you've got some help. With a thought, your shield appears in your arms and you twist just in time for the fireball to slam into it, golden flames spilling out around your sides and heating the metal around your arms just enough to be uncomfortable. What's distinctly more than uncomfortable is the fact that you've been pushed off course, and you only just managed to slam one of the prongs of your shield into the crumbling concrete, arresting your movement and distinctly not tearing your arm off from the force. More evidence for that impossible conclusion, but you can't think about that now, not yet. The screaming still hasn't stopped, and you can see golden streams of fire above you.

You take a deep breath and let your shield disappear, your chains whipping out as you launch them upwards, blades digging into the top of the building. With your newfound strength it's easy to leap upwards, letting your chains retract and pull you up, before whipping back around your arms, ready to be used again. Face to face with a horrible fire-breathing monster is, unfortunately, not that uncommon for you, so you're a little calmer than you might be.

At least, until you see a woman's face.

Lavender hair streaked with silver falls in messy waves down to the small of her back, the wind whipped up by the heat of the flames below making it blow around in the air. Her eyes are covered by something that looks like a mask growing from either side of her face, golden scales bursting from her temples and growing until they blocked her vision completely. Her mouth is open in a wordless snarl, teeth filed to sharp points illuminated by the glow of flames down her throat, trails of something dark spilling down to her chin and the neck below. In one hand she holds dark, pulsing reins that seem to vanish into the construct below, and in the other she brandishes a broken staff, the delicate circular tip shattered in half into ugly, irregular spikes. A form-fitting dress of deep-purple covers her from her chest down, and you have to think she's got a kind of unearthly beauty despite the strange features.

Your eyes reach her waist, and you swallow sharply.

She's a woman from the waist up, but below, there's nothing but burnished golden steel and matching scales. Her body simply melts into the metal, skin spreading from the point of contact and reaching around the construct like wires or nerves. It grows into sinew and muscle around the wheels, tendons and bone where there would be bolts and connecting struts. It's a mangled mockery of a once-great chariot, the shine it gives off corrupted and tainted. From the front, where there should be horses hitched, grow the bodies of two serpentine dragons, wingless and legless, simply sprouting halfway from the chariot like a parody of limbs. Their eyes are black and shot with red veins, their mouths open in snarls that match their mistress's, and after one moment of horror, realization hits you.

No one Enforcer handled every Grail War, and not all Enforcers survived their deployments. But you still gathered information, sent it back as you could, gave every advantage to every other Enforcer that you could. You recognise what this thing should be, from a couple of pictures and reports sent back from a small War in Belgium, four Servants, barely enough to qualify as one. Still killed sixty-four people, including all of the Masters, by the time it was over. You recognise the lavender hair, the purple dress, even recognise the chariot despite the fleshy growths that almost obscure it.

You're being hunted by the Witch of Colchis.

Spoiler: Rider of Fuyuki Information Matrix: EX

Class: Rider

True Name: Medea

Stats:-
STR: C -> B
END: C -> B
AGI: B - > A
MAG: A++
LUK: E

Skills:-

Riding: C++
Class Skill of the Rider class, denoting the capacity to control all kinds of mounts and vehicles, whether living or artificial. At this rank, Medea is capable of controlling most animals and vehicles with above-average skill, though she cannot ride any form of Phantasmal Species. The sole exception is her Noble Phantasm, which ordinarily she could control with an effective A++ rank in Riding. Due to her corruption, Medea instead controls her Noble Phantasm as an extension of her own body, increasing her skill and prowess with it.

Magic Resistance: C -> B
Class Skill of the Rider class, expressing a resistance to all forms of thaumaturgy. Medea possesses an unusually high rank in this skill for her class despite her corruption, owing both to her expertise and the nature of her change. Cancels all spells below three verses, including high-thaumaturgy and greater rituals.

High-Speed Divine Words: A -> C
As a witch from the Age of the Gods, Medea would ordinarily be capable of casting spells on the level of high-thaumaturgy with but a single word, even outside of the Caster class. Due to her corruption, this skill has been ranked down, and she requires a full sentence to cast spells of that level.

Divinity: C -> D
A mark of divine lineage, conferring various bonuses and drawbacks depending on the deity one is related to. Ordinarily, Medea would possess a middling rank in this skill as Helios' granddaughter, but her corruption into a monster has degraded this skill's rank. Currently, she experiences only a mild lessening of her mana cost while basking in the sun's rays, though her connection to Fuyuki's mud makes such a benefit irrelevant.

Noble Phantasm:-

Heiress Helios: Escape on the Wings of Light: Anti-Army (A)
The chariot upon which Medea fled from Corinth upon committing her murders, sent by her grandfather Helios, the god of the sun. Pulled by two golden dragons, this would originally have functioned as both offense and defence for Medea, allowing her a safe haven among the skies while raining down dragonbreath and magecraft upon those below her. However, due to the corruption staining Fuyuki, Medea and her Noble Phantasm have both been warped.

Rather than a chariot she can dismiss and summon at will, Medea has fused with her chariot and dragons, becoming a chimeric beast of scale, steel, and Servant. Doing so has ranked up her physical stats and her Magic Resistance skill and increased her control over her mount, at the cost of her sanity being diluted among three minds and further corroded by her corruption. By opening her draconic mouths, Medea can spill dragon's teeth into the world below, instantly raising an army of dragon-tooth warriors to destroy all those they come across, in addition to possessing the considerable might of a dragon's breath still. So long as one head remains, whether human or draconic, Rider will not die, and can retreat to restore herself as she gorges upon the infinite mana provided by the mud of Fuyuki.

Medea screams in a language you can't understand and her staff glows, and as soon as the first twisted syllable left her mouth you're moving. Getting close is about the only way you can think to finish this quickly, and you really don't want to test out what kind of magecraft she has access to in this twisted state. Arrows of light rain down behind you, but you're so goddamn fast compared to how you were before! Servants should easily outclass you even with your preparations, but now you're not just keeping up, you're actually managing to dodge the burning light she sends your way. She might be able to fly around, but if you get onto the chariot itself, you're pretty sure you can take care of her in melee before anything bad can happen.

It seems crazy, but you've committed, so you're going to commit. A blast of flames scorches your hair as your duck under it, before a second one just about clips the bottom of your left boot as you throw yourself to the side. By the time you're done dodging both, Medea has cast another spell, and this time you've got to summon your shield to defend yourself. Thorns of pure white slam into your shield one after another, but you stand your ground, your boots digging into the concrete around you as you crouch behind the seemingly impenetrable steel. It vanishes as soon as the assault stops, and your chains unwind and launch upwards, the blades digging into the softer underbelly of one of the dragons as you dash beneath the chariot.

There's a pull upwards and you know what she's trying to do, lift you up before you can get purchase and make you a sitting duck, but you're faster than she is. With a wrench of your arms and another powerful kick, you launch yourself upwards towards her, your chains retracting and yanking you up with them. You're swinging at an angle, and the dragons can't twist their heads fast enough as you disappear behind them. Everything's going about perfect, and you really don't have time to worry about what'll happen if it's not. Your arc takes you to the back of the chariot, behind Medea, and you're moving the moment you touch down, grasping hands reaching for her head, one in front, one behind, a flash of scarlet on your left. With your newfound strength, you let out a grunt as you twist.

Her head turns.

There's no crunch.

You need to move now but when you try to push away, you feel a piercing pain in your leg, crying out half from the sheer shock. A glance down reveals a dull, golden claw sprouting from the fleshy surface of the chariot, all three talons sunk deep into your leg. Medea's mouth twists into a hellish grin, and this close you can smell the acrid, burning stench of the mud that spills from her lips like a bloodhound slavering over its kill. The dragons are rumbling below you, but they don't seem to be moving, letting their master go for the kill as she lets go of the reins. Her hand draws close, and you see the dirty claws that burst from her gloves, reaching up, nearly at your throat-

There's a high-pitched whistle through the air, and your eyes widen.

Something slams into the chariot and explodes the next second, and your vision goes white for a moment. You barely have a chance to catch the breath that was knocked out of you when your back hits something hard, and miraculously, whatever you hit gives instead of your body splattering on impact. You crash through another hard something before coming to a stop, and as you blink away the ash and crumbling rubble, you can see the ruins of the building you were knocked through starting to collapse.

You panic as you hear more whistling, more explosions, more screaming from the twisted mockery of Medea that had you dead to rights a few moments ago, and it's all you can do to summon your shield and brace yourself for the crumbling concrete that batters down on you. A few smaller bits and pieces fall and strike you, but you've wedged the shield between the ground and the still-standing wall behind you, enough that you can huddle beneath it a little. When you give it an experimental nudge, the rubble above starts to crumble and fall, and you freeze instantly.

Spoiler: Assassin of Fuyuki Information Matrix: EX

Class: Assassin

True Name: The Unknown Soldier

Stats:-
STR: E
END: E
AGI: E
MAG: E -> A++
LUK: E

Skills:-
Presence Concealment: C- -> X
Class Skill of the Assassin class, allowing the wielder in question to hide their presence as a Servant. The Unknown Soldier's manifestations would ordinarily b capable of appearing as simple humans to the naked eye, though continuous observation would reveal the façade of life they cling to. In the blasted hellscape of Fuyuki and under the corruption of the mud, they have no use for this skill, revealing themselves for the walking dead that they are at all times.

Military Tactics: C
Tactical knowledge meant not for duels, but for battles with many soldiers on each side. The effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms utilized by the Unknown Soldier is raised, while the effectiveness of Anti-Army Noble Phantasms used against them are reduced. As their consciousness is distributed across all their manifestations, the Soldier suffers no degradation to this skill despite their corruption.

Noble Phantasm:-

The Unknown Soldier: Dulce Et Decorum Est (Anti-Army – EX)
There is no difference between the Unknown Soldier's manifestation as a Servant and the crystallization of their "legend", such as it is. They are in essence a living Noble Phantasm, constantly under its effects and incapable of suppressing or deactivating it, as to do so would kill them. The Soldier is capable of manifesting countless bodies at minimal mana cost, their core distributed across their manifestations. Each one is as weak as a human, and each possesses weaponry appropriate for a soldier that died in one of the many wars that have plagued human history.

By expanding their supply of mana and entrenching themselves within the world they are summoned to, the Unknown Soldier is capable of increasing the amount of bodies they can maintain, as well as advancing the technology they are capable of bringing to bear. While they may start with muskets and bayonets, given time, they can outfit themselves with weapons up to the level of those deployed in the Second World War, theoretically up to and including the power of an atomic bomb.

Okay.

Okay, you can make it out of this.

Breathe.

You know what that whistling was, what the explosions are, you remember them. Your worst fears were confirmed, but you're not dead yet. The armor and chains managed to catch most of the shrapnel, even if you are bleeding from a few small wounds around your torso, but you're alive, for now. The Unknown Soldier's attention is on Medea for now, and maybe they'll even think you're dead. You can hide here and-

And let the others die?

Breathe.

You're trapped. You're trapped and if you move too much a whole four stories worth of concrete is going to come tumbling down onto you. You don't want to risk being killed by it, but even if it wouldn't kill you, you're struck with thoughts of being trapped under there, not hurt enough to die and not strong enough to free yourself, just wasting away until you're found or you die of hunger or thirst. Maybe you could cast a spell to help, but the moment you do you know Medea will know where you are, and if you screw it up you'll just be stuck waiting for her

You shiver.

Breathe.

There's a way out. There's always a way out.

The battle outside is raging on, mortar fire and screaming spells exchanged between the two Servants, and you wish, hah, you wish you had one of your own. If you could summon one, they could help. If you could summon one, they could protect you. If you could summon one, they could save you. But the summoning system was shot, wasn't it? The only hope you can think of, dead and gone before you could even try it out.

There's a flash of scarlet on your left hand.

Hell, worth a shot.

You can't move it to check, not with your arm propping up your shield, so you'll just have to hope. You close your eyes, reaching out with your right hand, and begin to chant.

It's not a spell you'd ever expected to use yourself, but you can't go through so much study of Grail Wars and not memorize it. The summoning chant created by the three families that designed the original War. It's words and energy but it means nothing without a Grail to connect to, or something like that, and even if you have Chaldea, even if you were once registered as a Master, with the system shut down, there's no chance it'll work. Why are you even bothering? You can't see a way out of this, it'd be easier to admit it, to just try something less pointless.

You almost stumble in your chanting before you feel a hum from your shield.

It's not a physical thing, it's still stuck in its position, wedged as a barrier between you and the rubble. It's not even a sound, as far as you can tell, because the din of the fight outside is still dominating your hearing. It's a rumbling, a thrumming that seems to come from the shield and inside you and all around you at once, an invisible, intangible vibration that some integral part of you can just know.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, small bits of rubble on the ground beside you starting to shake as the spell begins to complete itself, a searing pain on the back of your left hand that makes you shiver and drops another few pieces of concrete on you.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, stronger this time, and your soul burns at the contact, roaring, raging, yearning to take the final step.

You feel phantom fingers brush against your own, and you can't help but gasp, taking a breath filled with the dust of crushed concrete as you feel something, an impression of something impossibly vast, but familiar. Your soul reaching out, and something answering.

[ ] You feel hope and warmth and spirit, a peaceful summer's day, undercut by a simple, honest yearning. You want to excel, to surpass, to reach the pinnacle that you know you can, if you only could stretch out a little further, a little higher. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them squeeze tight, as though reassuring you that it will be okay.

[ ] You feel longing and worry and eagerness, the autumn sky in the moments before the storm. You want to belong, to be loved, to find your place in the world and never have to leave it, that place you know exists if you search just a little more, just a little deeper. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them cling to you, as though they're afraid you'll vanish if they let go.

[ ] You feel spite and bitterness and determination, the stinging winter that brings blankets of snow and icy death in equal measure. You want to prove them wrong, to tear them down, to rip apart the roots of those that scorned you like you know you could, if you had been a little stronger, a little smarter. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them grip your arm, like they mean to simply pull it off your body.

----------​

A/N: Took a while, but I finally got it out. Hopefully you all enjoy it! I'll be keeping this vote up a little longer than usual, given that Christmas is in three days, but I should have plenty of time to write around the 27th onwards, so you shouldn't be kept waiting too long!

 

[VagueZ]

[x] You feel longing and worry and eagerness, the autumn sky in the moments before the storm. You want to belong, to be loved, to find your place in the world and never have to leave it, that place you know exists if you search just a little more, just a little deeper. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them cling to you, as though they're afraid you'll vanish if they let go.

 

[ScarfDyedShadow]

[x] You feel spite and bitterness and determination, the stinging winter that brings blankets of snow and icy death in equal measure. You want to prove them wrong, to tear them down, to rip apart the roots of those that scorned you like you know you could, if you had been a little stronger, a little smarter. When your grasp tightens on their hand, you feel them grip your arm, like they mean to simply pull it off your body.