Both of the plans have their merits, you begrudgingly admit. In Circe's case, she's clearly taking things seriously, and she would know Medea best. Part of you worries that she'll end up using too much mana to be useful to you later, but honestly, keeping her on the ground and waiting for one good shot would probably cost less in the long run than flying around counter-spelling. In Archer's case, she's right that her arrows can hurt Medea, maybe even kill her if she hits the right places, and that Circe would be the best choice to stop Medea from just raining down death on all of you once whatever bestial intelligence she still has left starts to figure out that maybe the stationary target on the ground could be the real danger. With a Shielder there to defend them, whatever Medea throws at you could be dealt with one way or another, and you'll have fulfilled your bargain with Circe.
There is, of course, one giant problem that neither your Servant nor the witch has considered.
You are
not a Shielder.
You might lug a hunk of steel around with you sometimes, you might wear something vaguely approximating a knight's armor, you might even look within your soul and see the class stamped on it like some kind of cosmic certification, but you are
not a Shielder. You protect, maybe, but you've protected by being proactive. You didn't stand in front of the people being hurt, you snuck up behind their attacker and slit their throat before they knew what was coming. If you have a Servant's power now, you're damn well going to use it, and not by sitting still and waiting for something to come to you.
With the fate of the world resting on your shoulders, now isn't the time to try new things. If you screw this up, everyone dies.
"We've got three Servants, we're not going to only use two." You speak up in a voice that's firmer than you really feel, but that's the trick, lie until it's true, keep everyone around you feeling as sure as you wish you were deep down. "Roman should be safe, especially if we keep Medea's attention off the ground, and sitting still makes us a target, she could swarm us with her dragon teeth or do something I can't protect from. We can't afford to drag this out. All of us are going to hit her as hard as we can, kill her as fast as possible. We'll avoid alerting the Soldier if we do it quick, and it means you'll drain yourself less, Circe." And that you'll drain yourself more, but if there's one thing you can thank your family for, it's your circuits. They're pretty damn exceptional, enough so that if it hadn't been for Niamh-
Focus, Dempsey. Focus.
Circe and Archer look apprehensive, though you can imagine it's for different reasons. You're not going to brook an argument here, though, and you hold up your arm with the six scarlet brands coiling down the back of it. "I can help Archer or myself if necessary. This is the quickest way to get it all done. I'm ordering you, Archer, and this is the only way it's going to happen, Circe. It'll be harder for her to hit anyone if she's got three targets to try hit."
It's Circe who speaks up first, the insistence that you're
ordering her to comply seeming to have quietened Archer for the moment, though she seems like she's practically bursting to say something. Circe's not under your control, though, so she's as free with her tongue as she usually is, though mercifully it's not for the purposes of hitting on you.
"You're a bit more reckless than I thought you'd be, Shielder. Are you sure this is the best idea? If you get killed, everything's over, isn't that it?" She's not entirely wrong, but hell, her idea is the one that has you sitting in front of her while Medea casts ancient Greek spells at you.
"Circe, I'm
not used to this. I don't even know my Noble Phantasm, and I've never held a shield before in my life. If she does something I can't protect you from, that's it, game over for us both. I'm strong, I'm fast, and I've got a weapon I actually know how to use. I promise, this is the best way." When you admit you don't know what your Noble Phantasm is, she looks a little shocked, and by the end of your half-explanation, half-implied plea, she looks a little more calm. Maybe she'd been banking on you pulling out some kind of crazy defensive ability that you hadn't mentioned, and she's reassessing things now that she knows better.
"...I'll admit, it's odd that you're a Shielder who doesn't know how to use his shield, but...I suppose a Demi-Servant is a brand new mystery for the both of us." You're not happy with that, but you get the feeling she's not entirely happy with you going against her plan, so you guess it's a bit of a give and take. "If you're certain, then we'll do it your way. Whatever gets Medea to rest. The doctor should be fine, as long as Medea doesn't start intentionally targeting him...hehe. I suppose I should be flattered that you're putting so much faith in me already."
"Thank you. Archer, are you-" You're doing your best to move the conversation along, even though this time Circe's flirtations seem a little more forced, her smile a little less genuine. Maybe you're an ass for doing it, but indulging her can come after Medea is dead. Instead, you turn to Archer, who cuts you off with a firm nod.
"You have thought this through, Master, and I will do as I am ordered regardless. I am your loyal Servant, and I will obey you."
Well, that's not odd at all. You know you ordered her, but given how focused she's been on your safety, you expected more resistance. In an operation with other Enforcers, you might be obeyed as soon as you gave an order, and you know the others would expect the same of you, but...Archer didn't seem the type to budge when it came to putting yourself in danger. You're a little curious as to what exactly pushed her to swing so hard, but that can come later. The sooner you kill Medea, the sooner Circe is free to help, and the more power she'll have at her disposal.
"Call her." You nod towards Circe, before launching yourself upwards. You're Reinforcing yourself on instinct but you honestly don't need it, and for a moment you marvel at your newfound power. You might have been able to leap over buildings before, but it was still something you strained to do, something you preferred to avoid. Now, you feel almost like you have to hold back to keep from clearing it by too much. Archer leaps to a building behind yours, arrow in her hand, ready to be fired as soon as she has a target. You've got to be closer to get your chains in, and you know you can't stick around too long or she'll trap you again, but you can do hit and run. Your shield is gone, your chains loosened and ready to lash out, and Circe is hovering in the air, her cloak...
Huh. Not a cloak. She really does have hawk wings.
She holds up her staff, the tip glowing with a soft yellow light, so different to the dull reds and oranges of the burning city. You've stopped noticing the smell of smoke, you realise, even though it's never really let up, even inside Circe's temple. This entire Singularity isn't an ongoing disaster, regardless of what they think back in Chaldea. It's the dying embers in a fireplace, the kind you poke and prod at and maybe consider trying to toss some more coal onto, before you give up and decide to just let it die. It's a special kind of unnerving, because at least in an apocalypse there's
movement, something to run from, somewhere to run to.
Being in Fuyuki feels like being some tiny little cell in a body that's giving up its last breath. Nowhere to run to, nothing to run from, the agents of its destruction left with nothing to do but fight until they've destroyed each other too. It's chilling, despite the omnipresent flames, and if it's a preview of what could happen to the world if Chaldea fails, it's pretty damn good motivation too.
Your thoughts are cut off by a familiar scream, and even though the professional magus part of you is wondering how exactly Circe called to specifically Medea without alerting the Soldier or either of the other two Servants still around, you've long since learned to manage that stupid curious part of you. It's agony, sitting in wait behind some rubble as Circe swings around to face her niece, and you're close enough to her that you can see how she freezes up on sight, how she tenses up and how her staff twitches as her fist clenches around it. It's gone in a moment, but it's a reminder of what this is for Circe. Mercy.
Their staves glow the same colour in the same moment, and you hear the same words spoken by both, one clear and crisp, the other screamed from a throat that's been rubbed raw. Twin shafts of purple light spear through the air with a low hum, meeting equidistant from each other and exploding on contact, the smoke and ash the collision kicks up hiding Medea from view only for the instant it takes her to lunge at Circe, arms outstretched like she means to rip her aunt from the air with her bare hands, if the two maddened dragon-heads beneath her don't do it first.
Circe twirls out of the way so gracefully that you honestly have to imagine she spends more time flying than walking, her wings curling and flapping just the right amount to let her soar over Medea's chariot while avoiding her grasping claws. Immediately Medea's twisting in the air too, the dragon heads twisting to keep Circe in sight, but that means that they're not watching when Archer makes her move, and when you make yours right after.
You can barely see the shaft that flies past your head but you hear it just fine, hissing through the air like a serpent. She's not firing as fast but she's firing with a hell of a lot more punch this time, the arrow colliding with a
crack into the chariot itself. Even if it missed anything vital, the threefold scream from Medea makes it clear that it
hurt, and already Archer's on the move, finding a new position to shoot from as you charge forward. You're not used to working together, but hell, "don't shoot your Master" is simple enough. A single solid leap sends you flying towards Medea, and this time, you're wise to her tricks, and you've got backup.
Instead of the woman, you're lunging towards the rightmost dragon-head. That's a sentence that sounds insane even as you make it reality, but if they're less mutable than the actual chariot, you'll be in less danger once you're too close for them to breathe fire at. That's the logic at least, but it still means for a terrifying moment that one of those heads is staring at you with beady, burning eyes, and a maw that's full of teeth sharper than anything should really have attached as part of their body. You reach it just as it starts to inhale, sinking the blades of your chains into its thick neck, the Reinforced blades puncturing through their scales as you latch on. The Binding curse wouldn't do a thing to someone with Medea's Magic Resistance, but fortunately for you, Magic Resistance does absolutely nothing to sharp metal.
The dragon's head is writhing and twisting as it tries to shake you off, and you're only too happy to oblige, wrenching the blades down towards the head and carving two bloody furrows half the length of its neck, even cutting out one of those creepy eyes. The roar it lets out as you start to fall towards the ground is satisfying as all hell, as is the hissing you know comes from another of Archer's arrows, the uncomfortably wet sounding impact suggesting that she'd hit the head whose eye you managed to gouge out. Falling towards the ground might have scared you if you didn't have your chains and your newfound endurance, and all it takes is lashing out to bury one in the side of a building and immediately yank yourself towards it to arrest your momentum and send you to a new perch that you can leap off of again. Medea's body is kept busy with Circe, the dragon-witch's staff blurring as she screams incantations for spells that Circe alternately dodges and dispels, thunder clapping as lightning forks into the sky, ice cracking as the moisture in the air freezes solid instantly to be fired at the hawk-witch, even burning flames spilling forth from the head of Medea's staff with a roar, all failing to so much as scratch your ally. Glancing up at the chariot shows a significant chunk missing from the right head, and for a moment, you feel a savage sense of satisfaction. Things are going well.
It's that one little moment of over-confidence that makes you worry something terrible is about to happen, and all it takes is one yell from Circe to prove you right. You can barely hear her over the incessant screaming from Medea and her dragons, but Archer's senses are sharper than yours, and she has a direct link to your mind.
<"Master, the teeth! I missed!">
You'd been so focused on your assault that you'd assumed things had been going well, but you'd mistaken it. Archer hadn't hit the right head on purpose, it had moved into the path of her arrow to protect its twin. The other one hadn't been attacking for no reason, it had another purpose, and you realise with a sharp intake of breath exactly what it is as you spy the triangular black shapes cascading down towards the ground. Twenty, thirty, maybe more, and each and every one of them only seconds away from becoming the skeletal warriors you fought earlier. There's no reason to create them if they can't hurt you, so you can only assume there'll be a twist, but you don't have
time for that because with the dragon's teeth released the heads can go on the offensive.
With Medea occupying Circe, the dragon's heads focus in on you, and you have to alter your plans to go in for another hit as twin streams of golden dragonfire shoot towards you. You're fast enough to avoid them, but the concrete you were on a moment ago is already melted slag, and the roof is starting to collapse. All it takes is a moment of unsure footing and your balance is off when you jump, and suddenly instead of cleanly hopping to another roof you're scrabbling to catch the edge of one in your hands. Your fingers bite deep into the concrete and you're moving to try to haul yourself up, before all of a sudden you feel a sharp pain in your thigh, hissing as you glance downwards.
It's an arrow, dark blue and sticking straight into the linen of your trousers, the tan material already starting to get dark and sticky with the blood that's pumping out around the arrow. It's not life-threatening, but it hurts, and it's going to make moving more difficult. Following the path of the arrow leads you to a dragon-tooth warrior just like before, but instead of a sword or a spear, this one is holding a bow made out of bone, arrows made of the same thing sticking out of the ground beside it. There's more dotting the ground and you realise you need to
move, and with a murmured curse that you swiftly change to an incantation, your pain starts to dull. Self-hypnosis to handle pain is a simple trick for most magi, and right now you need to be able to move more than you need to know your thigh's got a hole in it.
The next stream of dragonfire goes over your head, though you're a little too experienced to hope that it was a miss. You know Archer is somewhere around there, and you barely have time to hope she managed to avoid it before you're ducking behind some ruined rooftop building, yanking the arrow out of your thigh and murmuring some Irish under your breath. The wound's healing, but it's a patchwork thing, just meant to keep you from losing blood really. It's good enough for now, but you barely manage to peak out from behind your cover before you're diving away to avoid more flames.
She's smarter than you thought, you realise. You and Archer can't fight if the dragons are focused on you, losing an eye hasn't changed that they can see you fairly easily with their senses all shared. The archers below make up for the times the dragons draw breath, and even if Medea's being stalemated by Circe, that still means that Circe's not able to help
you out of this mess.
You need to change things around, and fast. It's reckless, sure, but hell, Medea's not the only one with Magic Resistance now.
"<Archer, cover Circe when she dives!">
"<Yes, Master!>"
You don't have time to worry whether your instructions are being followed, because you can't do the same for Circe. Your shield manifests itself just long enough for you to throw it to your left, before you dart to the right. You're gambling on Medea's dragons being too trigger-happy to resist, and it pays off. The shield is bathed in golden fire that smells of sulfur, and you only barely note that it holds its shape without even a hint of melting before you're moving, launching yourself to the building ahead of you. It's behind the chariot and the archers won't be able to shoot without hitting their master, and in the moments you have before the dragons twist to target you again, you yell.
"Circe! Archers, now!"
There's no time to check whether she understands what you ask, no time to make sure she's doing it even if she did. If she chooses to ignore you, if she's too late, things are going to go horribly for you, but they were going horribly before with the dragons and archers working in tandem, and this is the only way you can shake things up. You leap towards Medea from behind, and for one horrible moment Circe just looks at you.
Then her wings fold and she dives downwards, and you hear the hissing from Archer's arrows as she shoots down the dragon-teeth arrows, giving Circe a moment to work her magic. A sharply barked word of Greek and a wave of her staff as the tip glows green is all you can see before Medea twists one-eighty degrees to stare at you past her scaled visor, the spell she'd been halfway through casting finished off with you as its new target. There's a low hum in the air as Medea's cloak spreads wide, glowing pinpricks coalescing into existence in the air as you draw your shield from nothing, holding it in front of you as you rocket towards her. The hair on the back of your neck stands up as she releases the spell with a triumphant cry. Against Circe, she'd have had a counterspell on her lips by now. Against you, it's all you can do to hold your shield before you and hope for the best.
When the beams of light slam into you, you can all but feel your momentum stop, and for a terrible moment you're afraid you'll simply fall and be a sitting duck for Medea, her dragons, and her archers. But you feel solid, disgusting flesh under your foot, and with a herculean effort, you swing your shield to the side, your innate resistance to magic and whatever the shield itself can do sending them flying off to the side, crashing into the nearby buildings and collapsing some of the less stable ones. Medea lets out a cry of surprise but you know she can cast quickly, know she can sprout more limbs from her chariot to immobilize you. No time to think.
With a wordless yell, you swing your shield back, one hand gripping the handle, the other gripping the rim of the shield, your body twisting with the blow to give it a little extra bite. A normal person swinging a big lump of steel might deal some damage, and a Reinforced person could seriously threaten someone. A Reinforced Servant slamming the heavy shield into unprotected flesh?
When the shield makes contact with Medea, you can
feel the bones shattering in her torso, right before you start hearing them too. If you'd been using a sword, she would have been cleaved in two easily, but with a flat shield, she's crushed instead. There's broken, shattered bones poking out from torn skin, and the cry of pain she and her dragons give is mangled through her ruined throat. She's alive, though, and you can't let that be the case much longer. The shield disappears as you lunge forward, chain snaking down your arm as you grip the blade tight, and with a single downward thrust, you drive it through her skull and
twist.
The human body atop the chariot seizes up for a moment, before it goes slack. She's still alive as long as those dragons are, but you've taken out one head, the next should be-
Your thoughts end up scattered what feels like a hurricane forms beneath you, throwing off your balance and sending you flying backwards. The winds are tinted the same green as Circe's staff, and here and there you see the telltale dark blue of the dragon-teeth warriors as the magical twister grinds them into dust. Even in the eye of the storm the raging winds are enough to cause the chariot to sway and swerve through the air, but even with their master dead for the moment, the dragons are still there, and they remember which one caused them the most pain.
For a moment, the impact of your back against the concrete left you dazed, and by the time you've gathered your thoughts, by the time the hurricane of green winds disappears along with any remnant of the dragon-teeth warriors, the twinned maws of the dragons are already wide open. It's all you can do to stare at the approaching stream of fire, mouth half-open, all thoughts abandoning you in the face of a painful, firey death.
"No!"
You hear Archer's voice in the same moment your circuits flare, and this time instead of a hissing noise you hear a
roar when her arrow flies. You see her leaping up to your side, bow still shuddering in her hand from the power of the arrow she just launched. You see her face, eyes all but glowing in the gloom as she bares her fangs, near-feral rage twisting her features into a furious scowl directed at Medea's chariot. You see her arrow, spinning in the middle of a miniature hurricane of its own, the wind around it twisting and dispersing the flames that should have taken your life as the arrow flies straight through the streams, straight through the rightmost head, straight through the back of the chariot.
"Get behind me, Master!"
It's drained you quite a bit, but whatever Archer did, it was damn effective. She's at your side in moments, yanking you to your feet and all but shoving you behind her, and at this point you're more than willing to let her do that. You're still lightheaded from the pain and the sudden shock of your mana being squeezed out of you without warning. You know there's one head left, know that Archer should be nocking another arrow, but...
Circe's there, flying before the chariot, alighting on top of it and staring down at the ruined body of her niece. Already, it's starting to patch itself back together, jittering and shuddering in ways no normal body should ever move, even as the sole remaining head screams bloody murder as it tries to twist itself to aim at Circe. For a moment, she simply stays still, unnaturally still despite the tilting and shuddering of Medea's chariot, and for a moment you see something on her cheek sparkle in the light of the flames.
Then she twirls her staff, holding it like a spear with the tip pointed straight at Medea, straight at the dragon's head, straight at the final thing keeping the twisted Rider alive. The tip glows and you taste copper in your mouth even from this distance, and instinctively, you close your eyes and turn away. It's barely enough to stop the burning light from searing your eyes, and for a few moments, it's all you can do to pray that Circe stops before you can't bear it any longer.
The pillar of light scorching through any attempt to hide from it vanishes as soon as it appears, and when you open your eyes and do your best to blink away the black mark in your vision, there's no sign of Medea. Only Circe, floating softly towards you, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand before giving you a small, forced smile.
"Your part of the bargain has been fulfilled. I'm yours to do with as you please, until you leave this rotten place."
You're about to open your mouth to reply when Archer cuts you off, turning and bowing respectfully, her head almost parallel to the concrete roof as she speaks.
"Forgive me, Master! I will do better in the future, and I will not endanger you with such reckless choices again!" You can only hope she meant her choice to do...whatever it was that made her arrow so strong, maybe some kind of Mana Burst? Still, it's uncomfortable having her bow like that, and you reach forward to push her shoulder up gently, trying to coax her back to her full height.
"No, it's...it's okay, honestly. It was a good decision, you did good." She meets your eyes and for a moment you can tell the praise delights her, but her expression hardens as she nods regardless.
"Thank you for your kind words, Master. I will do better in future." You have a feeling that's the best you're going to get out of her for a while, so instead you turn to Circe, who cuts you off before you can speak.
"Assassin will be here soon. Here, let me help." A murmured work of Greek and a careless flick of a finger is all it takes for her to patch up your thigh, and you're really glad you're not a regular magus because you're certain that if you were, the envy you'd feel at such a casual display of finesse after all the power she threw around moments ago would make you sick. "We need to fetch the doctor and move."
The fighting didn't move too far away from where you left Roman, and you're about to leap downwards when you hear a crackle from your communicator. You freeze immediately, expecting another one of Olga's yelling rants, but instead what comes through is barely audible, static and noise almost reducing the voice on the other end to unrecognizable gibberish.
Almost.
"...skeletons...broke through...escaped...had to run...can't hide...cave...meet me...!"
It's hard to make out, but from what little you've heard, you know you wouldn't mistake Doctor Roman's voice.
Archer and Circe recognise it too, and all of a sudden Circe goes white as a sheet, holding up her hands defensively as she begins to speak. "N-No, that's impossible! I was sure...they shouldn't be able to break through, u-unless...I was
sure I maintained it..." The glare you give her makes her flinch backwards, and part of you tries to remember that she just killed her niece, but goddamnit they're both
Servants and she's put Roman at risk!
"We need to move, come on!" You're letting frustration get the better of you, but Roman is the least capable person in the Singularity right now. If he's alone, there's every chance he'll end up getting killed before you can do anything about it. "He can't have gotten far, what's the fastest way to the cave?"
"I-I can fly over and scout but if he's been avoiding things then he'll be hard to see, and I don't have any of his blood or hair for a tracking spell!" Your expression mustn't be very friendly, because she immediately continues, speaking a little more hesitantly than before. You get the feeling she didn't particularly want to say what comes next.
"...If we cut through Lancer's territory, we could get to the cave before Roman, but we might end up having to fight him too. I'm with you, so it'll be a three against one again, but...if we avoid him, it'll be safer."
[ ] Cut through Lancer's territory. Every single damned moment you spend without Roman in your sight is a moment that he could end up dead. You'll take any shortcut, and three against one is damn good odds for someone who probably can't fly and probably doesn't have three heads. You'll kill Lancer if you have to, and then cut off Roman before he gets to the cave. The idea that he could be dead by then isn't one you're going to entertain.
[ ] Follow Roman's path. It's slower, especially having to hide three people from the Soldier instead of one, but it means avoiding more conflict. You might be leaving Roman to fend for himself a little longer, but you'll also avoid creating any kind of disturbance that could attract an enemy Servant, and if Roman can sneak properly, you might be able to get to the cave without any more fighting.
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Q/N: I'd like to blame illness for the lateness of this, but honestly it was mostly just a busy week. I'm posting this at 4:47 AM, so hopefully it's still somewhat good! Writing this fight scene was harder than I thought and it's probably coming through that I need much more practice with them, but hey, what is this if not practice?
As always, thank you for sticking around!
