What are you talking about?
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From Mortal to Divinity (SI/CYOA Jumpchain)
- Thread starter xandou
- Start date
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
It seems like this is the final jump and you're spending a ton of time deep diving into the backstory of the Fate setting. It's not a bad thing, I just would've liked to know that before reading. Largely because I, personally, don't care much for the Fate setting and prefer to skip stories in that setting.
Again, not a criticism of the story, just something I would've liked to know starting out.
I never said that this is the last jump
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Nor did I claim you had. What I stated was: "It seems like..."
It isn't the last jump
Preemptive Strike
As the bright red light of the summoning circles illuminates the night, it enshroudes six standing figures that were previously not there. As the light diminishes and the figures can now be seen clearly, one steps forward and speaks.
"Saber Jason,-" speaks a man with blond hair and green eyes. "-captain of the Argonauts has arrived according to your summoning."
The man wears one of the most flamboyant and revealing outfits that Darnic has ever seen in his long life. He has the appearance of a young man with blond hair, he stands at five feet nine inches tall and has green eyes. He wears a black chest piece that leaves his chiseled abdomen open to see and also covers his crotch, golden pauldrons on his shoulders, a golden necklace along with golden earrings. On his arms he has one golden band wrapped around each bicep, golden vambraces that cover his forearm with black fingerless gloves under that also cover his entire forearm. On his legs he wears a green cloth around his waist that covers the back of his thighs and is being held up by a black and gold belt. Under he wears white pants that do not even cover his inner thigh and crotch, and are tucked into golden knee high boots that are reminiscent of pirate boots. All in all, Darnic would not find it hard to believe if someone had told him that Jason is a flamboyant male escort. Honestly, what self respecting person dresses in such a way, and why would Gordes choose to summon him of all people?
"Gordes,-" speaks Darnic. "-your choice in servants is quite questionable."
Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, is the head of the Yggdmillennia family and leader of the Black Faction. He stands at five feet nine inches, possesses blue hair tied into a ponytail, grey eyes, and a handsome face. He wears a white button up jacket with gold accents reminiscent of a military uniform, black trousers and shoes, and a white cape with gold accents draped over his shoulders.
Although he is 97 years old, he looks like a man in his late twenties, not showing a single wrinkle. It seems as if time has stopped for him since stealing the Grail. It is common knowledge among the Clock Tower however, that he fused his soul with an infant's to acquire longevity.
The man that he addresses is Gordes Musik Yggdmillennia. Gordes is a member of the Musik family, a family that once boasted a skill with alchemy which rivaled the Einzberns. Their thaumaturgical blood had eventually decayed enough that they were forced to fold themselves into the ranks of Yggdmillennia. Although they were forced into such a shameful situation, Gordes' mother and father told him of their legacy as alchemists from his youth. Unfortunately, this caused Gordes to be extremely proud of his family and make him unable to separate dream from reality.
Gordes is a five feet five inches tall heavyweight man with blond hair and mustache reminiscent of Hitler's. He wears the same clothes as Darnic, With his shoes and pants being white as the only difference.
"I-I-I-It wasn't supposed to be him." stutters Gordes as he turns towards Darnic to explain himself. "T-t-the relic wasn't greek. It was Germanic. I was supposed to summon Siegfried, n-n-not this excuse of a hero."
"Oi! Are you looking down on me, the great commander of the Argonauts?!" exclaims Jason with a frown.
"YOU, SHUT UP!" screams Gordes as he points towards Jason. "I didn't give you permission to speak."
"EH?!" replies Jason in shock. "You think you can order me around?"
"Of course I can." replies Gordes confidently as he regains his posture. "I'm the master and you're the servant. Remember, servants are only tools to be used by their masters."
Gordes' words draw a few frowns from some of the servants. One however, unseen by all, simply looks on in amusement with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't kid yourself." answers Jason with a mocking tone. "Master and servant? I'm of a lower rank than you? What a funny joke. Truly you fulfill your duties as a jester beyond everyone's expectations."
Jason's answer easily angers Gordes, tempting him to use a command seal. Before he can however, a boisterous laugh rings out in the chamber as one servant lets go of his previously controlled laughter.
"Oh man, that was a good one." says the man with green hair as he attempts to control his laughter to speak. "My father always told me that you could be funny."
"Do I know you?" asks a puzzled Jason.
"Ah, sorry about that. I forgot to introduce myself." answers the man as he stops laughing. "I am Achilles, son of Peleus, and my class is Rider. My master is that lad over there."
Simply from the man's appearance, one can see that he is a great hero, one who would be admired by any man or woman, young or old. While his face is pleasing to the eyes, he has the eyes of a raptor, a strong and firm build, and the lack of any appearance of crudeness. Rider has spiky green hair that stands up except for a single bang that hangs over the left side of his face, wears a chest piece of silver armor that features a bird, and orange cloth is wrapped loosely around his body. On the lower half of his body he wears black trousers, and knee length armored boots.
The person that he points to is Caules, the eldest son of the Forvedge family. He was born as a spare successor for the family and as a caretaker to his older sister, Fiore. Although Caules is eighteen, he has a childish, freckled face that does not match his age, brown hair, and stands at five feet six inches tall. He wears the standard Yggdmillennia uniform consisting of a white jacket with gold accents and black pants. He also wears black glasses.
"Uh. So you're Peleus' son. I hope that you can use that spear as well as your father can." answers Jason as he points towards the spear that rests on Achilles' shoulder.
Achilles merely gives him a wolfish grin in response.
"Are you ignoring me?!" calls out Gordes.
"Enough." orders Darnic in exasperation. "Now the rest of you introduce yourselves."
The first servant to speak up is a man with pale skin, long messy white hair that is nearly translucent, and teal eyes that gives piercing glares. He wears body armor and earrings that are a brilliant gold. The rest of his outfit is form fitting black material. His outfit also includes a spiked choker, red gem on his chest inlaid in a golden circle, shoulder armor with long spikes, a revealing of his chest which has a red gem and gold stones that are inlaid, and a flaming cape.
He walks up to a 19 years old girl that has brunette wavy hair, clear blue eyes and a gentle smile, with a body that appears fragile. She is Fiore, is a young woman who was born into the Forvedge family, another magus family that merged with the Yggdmillennia, and the older sister of Caules. .Due to a magic circuit malfunction during her birth, she became crippled and wheelchair-bound.
"Servant, Lancer. True name, Karna." introduces the man with a bow of his head. "Nice to meet you, master."
"Nice to meet you Karna." answers Fiore with her soft and clear voice.
Before the introductions can continue however, a homunculus walks into the chamber with a package in her hand. Darnic makes to reprimand the homunculus, but immediately notices something wrong with her. Unlike the clear red eyes that homunculi possess, the girl's eyes are clouded and hold a tint of purple in them.
"A package for you sir." speaks the homunculus as she reaches Darnic and hands him the package.
Darnic glances down at the package and inspects it. Using his magecraft he scans it for any possible involvement of magecraft, only to find nothing. Ripping the brown paper off the small rectangular package, Darnic finds a simple metallic box under. Before he can attempt to open it however, runes appear on the box and a projection of Ambrosius Malphas forms over the box.
"Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia. Head of the Yggdmillennia family, and perhaps the most unintelligent patriarch to come from such a dimwitted bloodline." speaks the voice of the current head of Malphas family, the most powerful family in the world.
"Did you honestly believe that you would manage to accomplish your foolish goal without consequence? Do not bother to answer for this is a pre-recorded message, and no amount of babbling will relay your answer to me. The purpose of this message is twofold. The first, is to warn you. To warn you of your upcoming doom at my hands for none have ever survived the wrath of a Malphas, ask Crimson Moon."
As the message continues to play the eyebrows on a certain golden Archer's face furrows before his eyes widen and he immediately astralises. While none of the masters noticed the Archer's actions, the servants did and quickly raced towards their respective masters.
"The second purpose i--" speaks Ambrosius before his voice is drowned out by a woman's.
"YOU FOOL! MO-" screams a female voice, only to be interrupted as the box in Darnic's hands glows red and explodes from an overload of magical energy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiritsugu Emiya, that is his name. He is an enforcer, not for the Clock Tower. Rather he works for the Malphas family to hunt down rogue magus and anything from the supernatural world that threatens mankind. He can't exactly say that he expected his life to end up this way, sneaking into a hotel to commit an assassination, nor can he say that he is disappointed since he never had a goal in life to begin with.
It all started when he and his father settled on Alimango Island. There he met his first friend and crush, Shirley, and life was enjoyable. Looking back at things now, he can't believe that he was ever that naive. His father had told him that the experiment would save the world by making sure that humans never got sick or aged, it worked on plants therefore it should eventually work on humans.So imagine his surprise when he stumbled upon Shirley on the cusp of turning into a vampire.
She had begged to be killed, but he couldn't bring himself to commit the act. Now if she did ask, he would do it with a heavy heart, if to at least save her from her suffering. It was on that day that he met Natalia Kaminski, a freelance and part-time enforcer who came with the Executors from the church and Enforcers of the Clock Tower.
Returning to the hidden Emiya residence, Kiritsugu confronted his father on his research and Shirley's death. His father explained that he wanted to become a Dead Apostle to continue with his research on Magecraft longer. As his father began to plan their escape, Kiritsugu stabbed him with the dagger he received from Shirley and then shot his father to death with a pistol that Kiritsugu found in Norikata's drawer. It was this scene that Natalia stumbled upon that allowed her to figure that the only person who could prevent Noritaka from escaping and ensuring his death was his own son. In the end she wound up taking Kiritsugu with her.
After that event, Kiritsugu had been on a downward spiral to save the world. He had realized that the tragedies he saw in his childhood were common occurrences in the world, the teenage Kiritsugu became a freelancer like Natalia to hunt down heretical magi around the world. Natalia trained him not only in Magecraft, but in tracking, assassination, and all types of weaponry. At first, he only got in Natalia's way, but he eventually became her partner and equal.
Then the mission came, the one where he met Ambrosius Malphas, head of the Malphas family, and the most dangerous man Kiritsugu has ever met in his life.
He and Natalia were hunting down the last Zepter head Heinrich Zepter, who was a magus who mastered the revival of dead flesh. After tracking Zepter to an American village called "Present Mountain", Kiritsugu and Natalia discovered all two thousand members of the community were extensions of Zepter's body. However, they were not the first ones to arrive. There in the middle of all two thousand undead was Ambrosius Malphas. At first he and Natalia assumed that he was in danger, however as they got closer they noticed the man wielding a red barbed spear in his hands as he slaughtered his way through the horde. They could only watch as the man single handedly wiped out two thousand Dead Apostles with minimal effort.
After he had finished wiping out the horde, the man had proceeded to simply study him and Natalia for a few seconds before speaking. "To save the world, such a foolish endeavor to embark upon." Kiritsugu still doesn't know how he was able to tell that his goal was to save the world and end all suffering. At the time he had been angry that this stranger would spit on his dream like that and immediately asked what made the dream foolish. The answer is something that he will remember to his dying breath.
Ambrosius had simply stared into his eyes before speaking. "Suffering is caused by conflict. Conflict is caused due to people disagreeing with one another. Human beings disagree with one another for we possess free will. To end suffering is to end free will. One could argue that not all suffering comes from free will, and I will agree for that is in fact correct. Many suffer simply due to natural causes, such as illnesses. Or I could disagree, for it is my prerogative as a human being possessing free will to do so. Me disagreeing with that statement causes conflict between the speaker and I. That conflict could cause countless to suffer. After all, wars have been started for less, and war is the biggest contributor to the people's suffering."
It was that speech that made him realise that while he was wrong, he was also right. He was wrong because to end suffering is impossible without stripping humanity of its free will in some way, shape, or form. He was correct because there is nothing wrong with saving those that he can. After many sleepless nights thinking, it was with a heavy heart that Kiritsugu gave up his dream of saving the world, instead focusing on those that he can. It also made him realise that he was ill equipped for completing those types of assignments without resorting to collateral damage. In hindsight, had he continued on his path he would have eventually adopted a mindset of completing the mission no matter what, with the excuse that the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few to stop his guilt from overwhelming him.
After that mission he had sought out Ambrosius in the hopes of receiving training to better equip him for those missions. The training had been extremely difficult, yet worth it, with the only requirement being that he works exclusively for the Malphas family.
It was that training that allowed him to save Natalia from an infested plane instead of resorting to shooting it down. Ever since then he has been hunting down anything that is a threat to humanity, from Dead Apostles to rogue magus.
Arriving in front of his target's, Kiritsugu erects a bounded field to keep noises from leaving, and to persuade anyone not of the supernatural world to stay away. Then he places his gloved palm on the door and activates the analytical runes inscribed on the palms of his gloves. Immediately the runes do their job and scans the room before sending the information to him. From what he can tell his target is in the process of summoning his servant and is about to use a civilian as a sacrifice.
Without wasting a second Kiritsugu breaks down the door and rushes into the room. Before his target can even turn, he grabs him by the back of his neck and snaps it. Unfortunately he was a second too late and the summoning circle glows brightly as it activates.
Once the light dies down Kiritsugu is faced with a strange sight. It is a white-haired girl with green-yellow eyes, with stitched-up scars on her face. Her upper body is that of an adolescent, while her lower body is more mature like that of an adult, creating an odd juxtaposition to her appearance. She dons a black vest, black panties and black stockings with pink shoes. Both her arms are bandaged but only her left hand wears a glove. She has a purple oval-shaped 'O' on each of her shoulders. At the small of her back she carries a number of sheathes that holds her knives.
"Did you just try to hurt mommy?" asks the child as she makes ready to launch herself at him.
Without wasting another second, the child races towards him with her knives at the ready. It's only years of training with a madman, experience, and enchanted clothes that save Kiritsugu. Activating the body enhancing runes on his suit and trench coat, Kiritsugu dodges the child's first few slashes before grabbing her outstretched arm while she is in midair and throwing her away from him.
"Wait!" exclaims the civilian before the child can attack him again. "He saved me."
"You saved mommy?" asks the child as she tilts her head.. "Does that make you my daddy?"
Kiritsugu can only blink owlishly as he wonders how best to answer her question, especially considering the fact that she can gut him if she is displeased by his answer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the ritual room of her manor, one Rin Tohsaka can barely contain her excitement as she reads the letter she received earlier that day. It had arrived earlier in the day while she was in school. The letter is written by Ambrosius Malphas III himself to her. It took all her self control not to squeal like the fangirl she is for receiving a letter from him of all people. He is what she aspires to be as a magus. Smart, powerful, knowledgeable, and respected by all. His ancestor also helped Zelretch himself tutor her ancestor, Nagato Tohsaka.
Her first encounter with his name was when she was a ten year old child reading her father's copy of the Clock Tower's monthly newsletter. A magazine of sorts that goes out to all registered magus detailing everything that happened in the past month from magecraft research discoveries to who is married to whom. There on the front page was a picture of him and a paragraph detailing a successful Dead Apostle hunt along with his possible discovery of a cure for some forms of vampirism. She had been intrigued about him, and ever since then has read every article on him.
Now he is inviting her to join his team for the Great Holy Grail War, and he even provided a relic to summon her servant. When her command seals had arrived, she hadn't been sure whether or not she would participate. Especially since she had no idea where it would be held. Now she not only knows where it is being held, but she also has a relic for her summoning.
Calming herself down, Rin makes her way to the summoning circle and begins to chant the incantation.
As the light of her summoning circle dies down, her servant steps forward and introduces himself.
"Servant, Archer. My name is Arjuna. Master, please utilize me to my fullest."
"Saber Jason,-" speaks a man with blond hair and green eyes. "-captain of the Argonauts has arrived according to your summoning."
The man wears one of the most flamboyant and revealing outfits that Darnic has ever seen in his long life. He has the appearance of a young man with blond hair, he stands at five feet nine inches tall and has green eyes. He wears a black chest piece that leaves his chiseled abdomen open to see and also covers his crotch, golden pauldrons on his shoulders, a golden necklace along with golden earrings. On his arms he has one golden band wrapped around each bicep, golden vambraces that cover his forearm with black fingerless gloves under that also cover his entire forearm. On his legs he wears a green cloth around his waist that covers the back of his thighs and is being held up by a black and gold belt. Under he wears white pants that do not even cover his inner thigh and crotch, and are tucked into golden knee high boots that are reminiscent of pirate boots. All in all, Darnic would not find it hard to believe if someone had told him that Jason is a flamboyant male escort. Honestly, what self respecting person dresses in such a way, and why would Gordes choose to summon him of all people?
"Gordes,-" speaks Darnic. "-your choice in servants is quite questionable."
Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia, is the head of the Yggdmillennia family and leader of the Black Faction. He stands at five feet nine inches, possesses blue hair tied into a ponytail, grey eyes, and a handsome face. He wears a white button up jacket with gold accents reminiscent of a military uniform, black trousers and shoes, and a white cape with gold accents draped over his shoulders.
Although he is 97 years old, he looks like a man in his late twenties, not showing a single wrinkle. It seems as if time has stopped for him since stealing the Grail. It is common knowledge among the Clock Tower however, that he fused his soul with an infant's to acquire longevity.
The man that he addresses is Gordes Musik Yggdmillennia. Gordes is a member of the Musik family, a family that once boasted a skill with alchemy which rivaled the Einzberns. Their thaumaturgical blood had eventually decayed enough that they were forced to fold themselves into the ranks of Yggdmillennia. Although they were forced into such a shameful situation, Gordes' mother and father told him of their legacy as alchemists from his youth. Unfortunately, this caused Gordes to be extremely proud of his family and make him unable to separate dream from reality.
Gordes is a five feet five inches tall heavyweight man with blond hair and mustache reminiscent of Hitler's. He wears the same clothes as Darnic, With his shoes and pants being white as the only difference.
"I-I-I-It wasn't supposed to be him." stutters Gordes as he turns towards Darnic to explain himself. "T-t-the relic wasn't greek. It was Germanic. I was supposed to summon Siegfried, n-n-not this excuse of a hero."
"Oi! Are you looking down on me, the great commander of the Argonauts?!" exclaims Jason with a frown.
"YOU, SHUT UP!" screams Gordes as he points towards Jason. "I didn't give you permission to speak."
"EH?!" replies Jason in shock. "You think you can order me around?"
"Of course I can." replies Gordes confidently as he regains his posture. "I'm the master and you're the servant. Remember, servants are only tools to be used by their masters."
Gordes' words draw a few frowns from some of the servants. One however, unseen by all, simply looks on in amusement with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't kid yourself." answers Jason with a mocking tone. "Master and servant? I'm of a lower rank than you? What a funny joke. Truly you fulfill your duties as a jester beyond everyone's expectations."
Jason's answer easily angers Gordes, tempting him to use a command seal. Before he can however, a boisterous laugh rings out in the chamber as one servant lets go of his previously controlled laughter.
"Oh man, that was a good one." says the man with green hair as he attempts to control his laughter to speak. "My father always told me that you could be funny."
"Do I know you?" asks a puzzled Jason.
"Ah, sorry about that. I forgot to introduce myself." answers the man as he stops laughing. "I am Achilles, son of Peleus, and my class is Rider. My master is that lad over there."
Simply from the man's appearance, one can see that he is a great hero, one who would be admired by any man or woman, young or old. While his face is pleasing to the eyes, he has the eyes of a raptor, a strong and firm build, and the lack of any appearance of crudeness. Rider has spiky green hair that stands up except for a single bang that hangs over the left side of his face, wears a chest piece of silver armor that features a bird, and orange cloth is wrapped loosely around his body. On the lower half of his body he wears black trousers, and knee length armored boots.
The person that he points to is Caules, the eldest son of the Forvedge family. He was born as a spare successor for the family and as a caretaker to his older sister, Fiore. Although Caules is eighteen, he has a childish, freckled face that does not match his age, brown hair, and stands at five feet six inches tall. He wears the standard Yggdmillennia uniform consisting of a white jacket with gold accents and black pants. He also wears black glasses.
"Uh. So you're Peleus' son. I hope that you can use that spear as well as your father can." answers Jason as he points towards the spear that rests on Achilles' shoulder.
Achilles merely gives him a wolfish grin in response.
"Are you ignoring me?!" calls out Gordes.
"Enough." orders Darnic in exasperation. "Now the rest of you introduce yourselves."
The first servant to speak up is a man with pale skin, long messy white hair that is nearly translucent, and teal eyes that gives piercing glares. He wears body armor and earrings that are a brilliant gold. The rest of his outfit is form fitting black material. His outfit also includes a spiked choker, red gem on his chest inlaid in a golden circle, shoulder armor with long spikes, a revealing of his chest which has a red gem and gold stones that are inlaid, and a flaming cape.
He walks up to a 19 years old girl that has brunette wavy hair, clear blue eyes and a gentle smile, with a body that appears fragile. She is Fiore, is a young woman who was born into the Forvedge family, another magus family that merged with the Yggdmillennia, and the older sister of Caules. .Due to a magic circuit malfunction during her birth, she became crippled and wheelchair-bound.
"Servant, Lancer. True name, Karna." introduces the man with a bow of his head. "Nice to meet you, master."
"Nice to meet you Karna." answers Fiore with her soft and clear voice.
Before the introductions can continue however, a homunculus walks into the chamber with a package in her hand. Darnic makes to reprimand the homunculus, but immediately notices something wrong with her. Unlike the clear red eyes that homunculi possess, the girl's eyes are clouded and hold a tint of purple in them.
"A package for you sir." speaks the homunculus as she reaches Darnic and hands him the package.
Darnic glances down at the package and inspects it. Using his magecraft he scans it for any possible involvement of magecraft, only to find nothing. Ripping the brown paper off the small rectangular package, Darnic finds a simple metallic box under. Before he can attempt to open it however, runes appear on the box and a projection of Ambrosius Malphas forms over the box.
"Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia. Head of the Yggdmillennia family, and perhaps the most unintelligent patriarch to come from such a dimwitted bloodline." speaks the voice of the current head of Malphas family, the most powerful family in the world.
"Did you honestly believe that you would manage to accomplish your foolish goal without consequence? Do not bother to answer for this is a pre-recorded message, and no amount of babbling will relay your answer to me. The purpose of this message is twofold. The first, is to warn you. To warn you of your upcoming doom at my hands for none have ever survived the wrath of a Malphas, ask Crimson Moon."
As the message continues to play the eyebrows on a certain golden Archer's face furrows before his eyes widen and he immediately astralises. While none of the masters noticed the Archer's actions, the servants did and quickly raced towards their respective masters.
"The second purpose i--" speaks Ambrosius before his voice is drowned out by a woman's.
"YOU FOOL! MO-" screams a female voice, only to be interrupted as the box in Darnic's hands glows red and explodes from an overload of magical energy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kiritsugu Emiya, that is his name. He is an enforcer, not for the Clock Tower. Rather he works for the Malphas family to hunt down rogue magus and anything from the supernatural world that threatens mankind. He can't exactly say that he expected his life to end up this way, sneaking into a hotel to commit an assassination, nor can he say that he is disappointed since he never had a goal in life to begin with.
It all started when he and his father settled on Alimango Island. There he met his first friend and crush, Shirley, and life was enjoyable. Looking back at things now, he can't believe that he was ever that naive. His father had told him that the experiment would save the world by making sure that humans never got sick or aged, it worked on plants therefore it should eventually work on humans.So imagine his surprise when he stumbled upon Shirley on the cusp of turning into a vampire.
She had begged to be killed, but he couldn't bring himself to commit the act. Now if she did ask, he would do it with a heavy heart, if to at least save her from her suffering. It was on that day that he met Natalia Kaminski, a freelance and part-time enforcer who came with the Executors from the church and Enforcers of the Clock Tower.
Returning to the hidden Emiya residence, Kiritsugu confronted his father on his research and Shirley's death. His father explained that he wanted to become a Dead Apostle to continue with his research on Magecraft longer. As his father began to plan their escape, Kiritsugu stabbed him with the dagger he received from Shirley and then shot his father to death with a pistol that Kiritsugu found in Norikata's drawer. It was this scene that Natalia stumbled upon that allowed her to figure that the only person who could prevent Noritaka from escaping and ensuring his death was his own son. In the end she wound up taking Kiritsugu with her.
After that event, Kiritsugu had been on a downward spiral to save the world. He had realized that the tragedies he saw in his childhood were common occurrences in the world, the teenage Kiritsugu became a freelancer like Natalia to hunt down heretical magi around the world. Natalia trained him not only in Magecraft, but in tracking, assassination, and all types of weaponry. At first, he only got in Natalia's way, but he eventually became her partner and equal.
Then the mission came, the one where he met Ambrosius Malphas, head of the Malphas family, and the most dangerous man Kiritsugu has ever met in his life.
He and Natalia were hunting down the last Zepter head Heinrich Zepter, who was a magus who mastered the revival of dead flesh. After tracking Zepter to an American village called "Present Mountain", Kiritsugu and Natalia discovered all two thousand members of the community were extensions of Zepter's body. However, they were not the first ones to arrive. There in the middle of all two thousand undead was Ambrosius Malphas. At first he and Natalia assumed that he was in danger, however as they got closer they noticed the man wielding a red barbed spear in his hands as he slaughtered his way through the horde. They could only watch as the man single handedly wiped out two thousand Dead Apostles with minimal effort.
After he had finished wiping out the horde, the man had proceeded to simply study him and Natalia for a few seconds before speaking. "To save the world, such a foolish endeavor to embark upon." Kiritsugu still doesn't know how he was able to tell that his goal was to save the world and end all suffering. At the time he had been angry that this stranger would spit on his dream like that and immediately asked what made the dream foolish. The answer is something that he will remember to his dying breath.
Ambrosius had simply stared into his eyes before speaking. "Suffering is caused by conflict. Conflict is caused due to people disagreeing with one another. Human beings disagree with one another for we possess free will. To end suffering is to end free will. One could argue that not all suffering comes from free will, and I will agree for that is in fact correct. Many suffer simply due to natural causes, such as illnesses. Or I could disagree, for it is my prerogative as a human being possessing free will to do so. Me disagreeing with that statement causes conflict between the speaker and I. That conflict could cause countless to suffer. After all, wars have been started for less, and war is the biggest contributor to the people's suffering."
It was that speech that made him realise that while he was wrong, he was also right. He was wrong because to end suffering is impossible without stripping humanity of its free will in some way, shape, or form. He was correct because there is nothing wrong with saving those that he can. After many sleepless nights thinking, it was with a heavy heart that Kiritsugu gave up his dream of saving the world, instead focusing on those that he can. It also made him realise that he was ill equipped for completing those types of assignments without resorting to collateral damage. In hindsight, had he continued on his path he would have eventually adopted a mindset of completing the mission no matter what, with the excuse that the lives of the many outweigh the lives of the few to stop his guilt from overwhelming him.
After that mission he had sought out Ambrosius in the hopes of receiving training to better equip him for those missions. The training had been extremely difficult, yet worth it, with the only requirement being that he works exclusively for the Malphas family.
It was that training that allowed him to save Natalia from an infested plane instead of resorting to shooting it down. Ever since then he has been hunting down anything that is a threat to humanity, from Dead Apostles to rogue magus.
Arriving in front of his target's, Kiritsugu erects a bounded field to keep noises from leaving, and to persuade anyone not of the supernatural world to stay away. Then he places his gloved palm on the door and activates the analytical runes inscribed on the palms of his gloves. Immediately the runes do their job and scans the room before sending the information to him. From what he can tell his target is in the process of summoning his servant and is about to use a civilian as a sacrifice.
Without wasting a second Kiritsugu breaks down the door and rushes into the room. Before his target can even turn, he grabs him by the back of his neck and snaps it. Unfortunately he was a second too late and the summoning circle glows brightly as it activates.
Once the light dies down Kiritsugu is faced with a strange sight. It is a white-haired girl with green-yellow eyes, with stitched-up scars on her face. Her upper body is that of an adolescent, while her lower body is more mature like that of an adult, creating an odd juxtaposition to her appearance. She dons a black vest, black panties and black stockings with pink shoes. Both her arms are bandaged but only her left hand wears a glove. She has a purple oval-shaped 'O' on each of her shoulders. At the small of her back she carries a number of sheathes that holds her knives.
"Did you just try to hurt mommy?" asks the child as she makes ready to launch herself at him.
Without wasting another second, the child races towards him with her knives at the ready. It's only years of training with a madman, experience, and enchanted clothes that save Kiritsugu. Activating the body enhancing runes on his suit and trench coat, Kiritsugu dodges the child's first few slashes before grabbing her outstretched arm while she is in midair and throwing her away from him.
"Wait!" exclaims the civilian before the child can attack him again. "He saved me."
"You saved mommy?" asks the child as she tilts her head.. "Does that make you my daddy?"
Kiritsugu can only blink owlishly as he wonders how best to answer her question, especially considering the fact that she can gut him if she is displeased by his answer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the ritual room of her manor, one Rin Tohsaka can barely contain her excitement as she reads the letter she received earlier that day. It had arrived earlier in the day while she was in school. The letter is written by Ambrosius Malphas III himself to her. It took all her self control not to squeal like the fangirl she is for receiving a letter from him of all people. He is what she aspires to be as a magus. Smart, powerful, knowledgeable, and respected by all. His ancestor also helped Zelretch himself tutor her ancestor, Nagato Tohsaka.
Her first encounter with his name was when she was a ten year old child reading her father's copy of the Clock Tower's monthly newsletter. A magazine of sorts that goes out to all registered magus detailing everything that happened in the past month from magecraft research discoveries to who is married to whom. There on the front page was a picture of him and a paragraph detailing a successful Dead Apostle hunt along with his possible discovery of a cure for some forms of vampirism. She had been intrigued about him, and ever since then has read every article on him.
Now he is inviting her to join his team for the Great Holy Grail War, and he even provided a relic to summon her servant. When her command seals had arrived, she hadn't been sure whether or not she would participate. Especially since she had no idea where it would be held. Now she not only knows where it is being held, but she also has a relic for her summoning.
Calming herself down, Rin makes her way to the summoning circle and begins to chant the incantation.
Let silver and steel be the essence.
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let red be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.
Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth.
An oath shall be sworn here.
I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven;
I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell.
From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!
Let stone and the archduke of contracts be the foundation.
Let red be the color I pay tribute to.
Let rise a wall against the wind that shall fall.
Let the four cardinal gates close.
Let the three-forked road from the crown reaching unto the Kingdom rotate.
Let it be declared now; your flesh shall serve under me, and my fate shall be with your sword.
Submit to the beckoning of the Holy Grail.
Answer, if you would submit to this will and this truth.
An oath shall be sworn here.
I shall attain all virtues of all of Heaven;
I shall have dominion over all evils of all of Hell.
From the Seventh Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,
come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!
As the light of her summoning circle dies down, her servant steps forward and introduces himself.
"Servant, Archer. My name is Arjuna. Master, please utilize me to my fullest."
Whats up with Jack being summoned? Both Assassins were already summoned.
Especially sense Arjuna had killed him in legend, that grants additional conceptual bulshit to his fight.
Only one assassin was summoned last chapter, Li Shuwen.
I honestly forgot about Sekirei
Prelude to Battle
"Ahhh." sighs Mordred in happiness as we walk out of one of my many private jets. "We're finally out of that miserable death box. Why do you even have this thing? It's a safety hazard, especially since you can't even control it."
It has been three days since the summoning, and today we find ourselves in Wallachia for the war via a private jet.
"Truly I must agree with the child." replies Ozymandias as he places his hands in the pockets of his suit. "While the mount is certainly most impressive, should the machine malfunction then you shall surely plummet to your death."
"While an airplane certainly has its risks,-" I answer as I lead us from the runway towards customs in the airport. "-the amount of deaths per plane is undeniably less compared to cars, and I do not see any of you complaining about cars."
"Why would you even compare a car to a plane?" asks Mordred as she imitates Ozymandias and I by putting her hands in her suit pants pockets. "With a car you can go as fast as you, feel the wonderful wind on your face, and still have absolute control over it. With a plane you can't even feel the wind, and if you do then that means that you're about to crash."
"Well put little one." replies Ozymandias with a smile. "With a controlled mount one can enjoy the ride as the sun blesses them with its warmth and the wind gently blows on their face. With a plane, one cannot experience such luxuries."
Instead of answering with words I simply raise my eyebrow at him and Mordred. Considering their character, it very much still baffles me how they are able to get along so well. Mordred is a proud knight who has only given her full respect to Artoria, Morgan, Scathach and I during her life. Not even Lancelot, whom I very much respect due to his achievement of mushin, the state of mind that Ultra Instinct is based on, has fully earned her respect. While she respects his mastery over that state of mind, it is the first of two things that she respects about him, with his loyalty to Artoria coming in second.
As for Ozymandias, he is perhaps the only person tied with Gilgamesh himself when it comes to arrogance. He expects to be respected no matter what, and commands respect from anyone whom he comes in contact with. Which is why seeing him and Mordred getting along surprises me.
Looking towards Morgan behind me, I give an inquisitive nod towards the unlikely duo in the hopes that she will know how this came to be. In response Morgan simply shrugs and shakes her head to inform me that she does not know.
Once past customs, we make our way outside where we find Kiritsugu leaning on a limousine and smoking a cigarette while a woman stands a few feet away.
The woman appears to be 23 years old. She is an alluring woman who stands at five feet three inches with long greyish-green hair with looks that would drive many men mad with a single expression of melancholy. She wears a very form fitting green dress that ends just below her butt. It has no shoulder straps and easily accentuates her breasts. Over the dress she wears a long sleeve brown jacket, a necklace around her neck, and black high heels boots that reach up to her thighs. She is Reika Rikudou, an unfortunate prostitute who was brought into the supernatural world to be sacrificed by Assassin's master in an attempt to summon Jack the Ripper. His efforts in canon resulted in him being slaughtered by the very same servant he attempted to summon. In the end she became Jack's master.
Noticing our approach, Kiritsugu extinguishes his cigarette and stands up straight.
"Kiritsugu." I greet him with a nod. "It is good to see you in good health. Although it will not remain that way unless you cease to smoke those cancer sticks."
"It's good to see you too." he replies. "I see that your group's size increased."
"Allow me to introduce you to Ozymandias." I say as I gesture towards the pharaoh. "The young lady next to him is Mordred."
"Mordred?" asks Kiritsugu with a raised eyebrow. "One of the greatest knights and warriors in history?"
"Do you know anyone better?" counters Mordred confrontationally.
"Of course not." replies Kiritsugu with a placating wave of his hand before gesturing towards his companion. "This is Reika Rikudou, civilian, and master of Assassin of Black, Jack the Ripper."
"It's a pleasure to meet you." says the woman with a bow of her head.
"Likewise." I reply as I get into the limousine. "We can discuss everything in the car."
Once everyone is situated inside, Kiritsugu gently knocks on the window that separates us from the driver, and the car begins to move.
"How are Natalia and Maiya?" asks Scathach.
"They're doing well." he replies. "They love the island and are really enjoying retirement."
"And the children?" answers Scathach. "The last time you mentioned them, Shirou expressed interest in your line of work, and Sigma also seemed to have a growing intrigue towards it."
Kiritsugu's children, Shirou and Sigma, and both children that Kiritsugu ended up adopting. Similar to his canon counterpart, Emiya Shirou was found by Kiritsugu in Fuyuki city while there on an assignment. Unlike in Zero however, Kiritsugu was not there to participate in a Grail War. Rather he was there hunting down Ryuunosuke Uryuu, a mortal serial killer who would go on to summon caster for the Grail War in Fate/Zero in an attempt to summon demons. With no Grail War to draw his attention, Ryuunosuke went on to continue his spree of murders in Fuyuki. No one in the supernatural world paid him heed considering the fact that he did not even possess any active magic circuits to properly initiate the summon, and, as far as I know, the police does in fact capture him in the Fate/Apocrypha timeline.
Therefore, one can imagine my surprise when the Clock Tower received reports of suspicious activities in Fuyuki city. At the time Tokiomi and his family were out of the country for unknown reasons, thereby leaving the city unprotected. As a result Kiritsugu was sent in to investigate. What he found was a vampiric Ryuunosuke on the verge of losing complete control of himself due to the fool deciding to experiment with recipes found in his grimoire since the summoning refused to work. Shirou's family had been the lunatic's last victims with Kiritsugu and Natalia adopting the child as their own.
"Shirou is stubborn about joining, so Natalia has been training him in the basics before she decides to send him to the Fraga's for more advanced training." replies Kiritsugu. "As for Sigma, well the situation is pretty much the same."
Sigma is the child of Maiya Hisau. The result of an unknown soldier raping the woman. In canon he would be kidnapped soon after his birth and drafted into a special division of an unknown governernment that trained soldiers to wield magecraft. Knowing the amount of issues that they can possibly cause in the future by attempting to recreate a Holy Grail War, I made sure that they were shut down with Sigma being rescued as a result. Now he, Shirou, Maiya, and Natalia live on an uncharted island owned by the Malphas family.
"While I can see that your assignment was a success,-" I say, bringing everyone's attention to me. "-clearly there were complications. What happened?"
"I made it just as the target was attempting to kill Reika as a sacrifice for his summoning." answers Kiritsugu. "While I was able to terminate him, the summoning was still successful with Reika being Jack the Ripper's master."
"Is she not a civilian?" asks Ozymandias with a raised eyebrow. "I am intrigued to know how she is able to sustain her servant."
"Morgan, Azula, and Sakura arrived in time two days ago to set up the system of homunculi to feed magical energy to the servants." answers Kiritsugu.
"I see." replies Ozymandias as he turns to look at Reika. "Tell me woman, why have you chosen to participate in this War in which you are almost guaranteed to perish? Do you perhaps have a wish to see fulfilled?"
Hearing Ozymandias' question, the occupants of the car turn to the only civilian. Surprisingly Reika manages to keep calm even with countless eyes surveying her.
"Jack needs her mother." replies the woman with a calm and serene voice.
"You see yourself as her mother?" asks Ozymandias with a raised eyebrow.
"I am her mother." replies Reika.
Surprisingly Jack has not shown herself throughout this entire exchange, even when Ozymandias mentioned the possibility of Reika dying. The only explanation that I can reasonably think of is that Reaika is keeping her in check.
Before any more questions can be asked, the limousine arrives at our destination, a luxurious hotel owned by the Clock Tower, Olympia. It acts as a safehouse for magus in the county. Similar to the Continental Hotel in John Wick, the Clock Tower possesses a chain of safehouses for magus everywhere in the world. Similar to the Clock Tower, every Olympia has countless defenses against both the supernatural and the mundane.
Walking into the hotel, I showcase my identification card to the clerk, and he hands me the key to my personal floor, the twelfth floor.
"Has my guest arrived yet?" I ask the clerk.
"Yes sir. She arrived a day earlier." answers the man.
With a nod I turn and walk towards the elevator. We make our way there in silence as Mordred looks at the building in awe while Ozymandias simply gives it an appreciative nod. Once on the twelfth floor we file out of the elevator and lead the group into the living room space where I find my guest, Rin Tohsaka, sitting on a couch reading a tome.
"Miss Tohsaka,-" I say, bringing her out of her tome and causing her servant to deastralize and ready to protect her. "-it is good to see that you have arrived. I trust that your flight over was pleasant?"
"It was pleasant Lord Malphas." she says with a bow that would make the noble's of the Clock Tower proud. "Thank you for this opportunity."
"There is no need to stand on ceremony with me. We are after all comrades in this Holy Grail War." I reply with a smile. "As for this 'opportunity', think nothing of it. As a descendant of Nagato, I do believe that you deserve the chance to participate. Now why don't you introduce your servant."
"Right, this is Arjuna of the Archer class." introduces Rin as she gestures towards said servant.
"It is a pleasure to meet you." politely says the servant with a slight bend of the waist.
"This is Ozymandias of the Rider class." I introduce as I point towards him before pointing to Mordred. "And the young lady behind him is Mordred Pendragon of the Saber class."
Not wanting to be seen as anything less than the knight her legends paint her as, Mordred puts on her stoic face and simply nods towards Rin and Arjuna while Ozymandias simply regards her with a look as she attempts not to stare between him and I.
"Do not avert your eyes." says Ozymandias to her. "Rather you would do well to look closely, for my brilliance outshines even the Sun, and I shall grant you the honour of gazing upon this exalted form."
Ozymandias' words cause Rin to blush as she stutters in an attempt to answer. The situation is so ridiculous that Bazett does not even bother to hide her amusement and laughs unrestrained along with Setanta. Scathach, taking pity on the girl, smacks the back of Ozymandias' head and fixes him a glare.
"We already had this conversation before Ozymandias." says Scathach with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Unless you wish to become my new sparring partner, then you will keep that ego in check."
Ozymandias frowns yet remains quiet even as Setanta laughs at him behind us. The last time Ozymandias disobeyed her, she proceeded to kick him up and down the training field, stopping only when he became close to dying, and nothing he did could stop her. Even his reality marble was useless against her. Ever since then he has tried to keep his arrogance in check with various degrees of success.
Before Ozymandias can respond, Morgan walks in from an adjacent room followed by Sakura, Medea, and Azula.
"Good, you're all here." says Morgan as she settles down on a couch. "All of the preparations are ready."
"Do we know who Ruler is?" I ask her.
"Unfortunately no. While we have been able to locate Ruler, we have not been able to ascertain their identity." she replies.
"It is fine, their identity is not a priority as we do not plan on violating any rules." I reassure her. "Do we know what the result of our bombing is?"
"Yes." replies Azula. "While the plan to use a primary bomb as a distraction while a second one explodes in their homunculi chamber did not eliminate all of their magical energy supply, it still did enough damage for their Berserker to be absorbed by the Grail due to a lack of magical energy. Meanwhile in an attempt to save her master, Circe died and was absorbed by the Grail."
"Good." I answer. "Now everyone sit, it is time to lay out our plan of engagement."
As everyone takes a seat, the servants who were astralised materialise themselves and take various positions near their master, with Jack sitting herself on Reika's lap.
"As of now, we know the identities of the enemy servants as well as their masters." I say as I begin explaining. "Saber is Jason, Lancer is Karna, Archer is Gilgamesh, and Rider is Achilles."
"What about Berserker, Caster, and Assassin?" asks Rin.
"Berserker and Caster are no longer a concern as they were turned into magical energy for the Grail." answers Morgan. "As for Assassin, she has chosen to join our faction."
"That leaves Jason, Karna, Gilgamesh, and Achilles." I answer before turning to Setanta and Bazett. "You two will be in charge of defeating Achilles. Setanta ought to be able to win the battle should he take it seriously. Although you will not be in shape to fight any more afterwards. Bazett, your assignment is to isolate their battle from everyone, especially Jason."
"Is Jason really that powerful?" asks Rin.
"No." replies Medea. "He is not dangerous due to his prowess in battle, rather it is his skills as a commander that are dangerous. He turned the Argonauts from a group of strangers into a well oiled fighting machine. He can take a group of strangers and use them as effectively as possible, even if the strangers despise one another."
"What makes this situation so precarious is the fact that the heroes on his side are equal to ours in terms of skills and power with some being even more powerful." I explain to Bazett. "Which is why isolating him is of the utmost importance."
"While Achilles is being taken care of by Setanta,-" I say as I turn to Rin. "Arjuna and Mordred shall be facing Karna with Li Shuwen remaining in the background to take any opportunity he sees to defeat Karna. Like Bazett, your assignment as masters will be to isolate them from Jason."
"Meanwhile, Kiritsugu and Jack will infiltrate the Yggdmillennia castle to eliminate the masters and the remaining homunculi that provide the servants with magical energy." I tell Kiritsugu who nods in understanding. "This will effectively stop the masters from being able to use the command seals to perform tasks such as boosting their servant's noble phantasms or teleportation."
"That leaves Ozymandias and Caligula to face Gilgamesh together while Medea and Sakura face Jason." I say as I finish my explanation. "Are there any questions?"
'A sound plan worthy of Roma.' says Romulus with pride
'You have been oddly silent the past few days.' I reply.
'The merger is almost complete. As such my consciousness is becoming weaker and soon it will completely fade.' answers Romulus. 'Besides, you do not require my aid, and everything that needed to be said has already been said. As such I am proud of you, my child.'
"That will not be necessary." says Ozymandias, bringing me out of my head before I can reply. "I alone will be enough to defeat the King of Heroes."
"Perhaps you will, and perhaps you will not." I say as I channel Lupa and send him a wolf glare. "Regardless, Caligula will be there to assist you should it be necessary, and that is final."
"Very well." answers Ozymandias in resignation after a few seconds of contemplation. "I shall defer to you as the pharaoh of these times, and of this team."
"Good. Are there any questions?" I ask the room's occupants.
Seeing as no one has any questions, I nod and declare the meeting adjourned.
It has been three days since the summoning, and today we find ourselves in Wallachia for the war via a private jet.
"Truly I must agree with the child." replies Ozymandias as he places his hands in the pockets of his suit. "While the mount is certainly most impressive, should the machine malfunction then you shall surely plummet to your death."
"While an airplane certainly has its risks,-" I answer as I lead us from the runway towards customs in the airport. "-the amount of deaths per plane is undeniably less compared to cars, and I do not see any of you complaining about cars."
"Why would you even compare a car to a plane?" asks Mordred as she imitates Ozymandias and I by putting her hands in her suit pants pockets. "With a car you can go as fast as you, feel the wonderful wind on your face, and still have absolute control over it. With a plane you can't even feel the wind, and if you do then that means that you're about to crash."
"Well put little one." replies Ozymandias with a smile. "With a controlled mount one can enjoy the ride as the sun blesses them with its warmth and the wind gently blows on their face. With a plane, one cannot experience such luxuries."
Instead of answering with words I simply raise my eyebrow at him and Mordred. Considering their character, it very much still baffles me how they are able to get along so well. Mordred is a proud knight who has only given her full respect to Artoria, Morgan, Scathach and I during her life. Not even Lancelot, whom I very much respect due to his achievement of mushin, the state of mind that Ultra Instinct is based on, has fully earned her respect. While she respects his mastery over that state of mind, it is the first of two things that she respects about him, with his loyalty to Artoria coming in second.
As for Ozymandias, he is perhaps the only person tied with Gilgamesh himself when it comes to arrogance. He expects to be respected no matter what, and commands respect from anyone whom he comes in contact with. Which is why seeing him and Mordred getting along surprises me.
Looking towards Morgan behind me, I give an inquisitive nod towards the unlikely duo in the hopes that she will know how this came to be. In response Morgan simply shrugs and shakes her head to inform me that she does not know.
Once past customs, we make our way outside where we find Kiritsugu leaning on a limousine and smoking a cigarette while a woman stands a few feet away.
The woman appears to be 23 years old. She is an alluring woman who stands at five feet three inches with long greyish-green hair with looks that would drive many men mad with a single expression of melancholy. She wears a very form fitting green dress that ends just below her butt. It has no shoulder straps and easily accentuates her breasts. Over the dress she wears a long sleeve brown jacket, a necklace around her neck, and black high heels boots that reach up to her thighs. She is Reika Rikudou, an unfortunate prostitute who was brought into the supernatural world to be sacrificed by Assassin's master in an attempt to summon Jack the Ripper. His efforts in canon resulted in him being slaughtered by the very same servant he attempted to summon. In the end she became Jack's master.
Noticing our approach, Kiritsugu extinguishes his cigarette and stands up straight.
"Kiritsugu." I greet him with a nod. "It is good to see you in good health. Although it will not remain that way unless you cease to smoke those cancer sticks."
"It's good to see you too." he replies. "I see that your group's size increased."
"Allow me to introduce you to Ozymandias." I say as I gesture towards the pharaoh. "The young lady next to him is Mordred."
"Mordred?" asks Kiritsugu with a raised eyebrow. "One of the greatest knights and warriors in history?"
"Do you know anyone better?" counters Mordred confrontationally.
"Of course not." replies Kiritsugu with a placating wave of his hand before gesturing towards his companion. "This is Reika Rikudou, civilian, and master of Assassin of Black, Jack the Ripper."
"It's a pleasure to meet you." says the woman with a bow of her head.
"Likewise." I reply as I get into the limousine. "We can discuss everything in the car."
Once everyone is situated inside, Kiritsugu gently knocks on the window that separates us from the driver, and the car begins to move.
"How are Natalia and Maiya?" asks Scathach.
"They're doing well." he replies. "They love the island and are really enjoying retirement."
"And the children?" answers Scathach. "The last time you mentioned them, Shirou expressed interest in your line of work, and Sigma also seemed to have a growing intrigue towards it."
Kiritsugu's children, Shirou and Sigma, and both children that Kiritsugu ended up adopting. Similar to his canon counterpart, Emiya Shirou was found by Kiritsugu in Fuyuki city while there on an assignment. Unlike in Zero however, Kiritsugu was not there to participate in a Grail War. Rather he was there hunting down Ryuunosuke Uryuu, a mortal serial killer who would go on to summon caster for the Grail War in Fate/Zero in an attempt to summon demons. With no Grail War to draw his attention, Ryuunosuke went on to continue his spree of murders in Fuyuki. No one in the supernatural world paid him heed considering the fact that he did not even possess any active magic circuits to properly initiate the summon, and, as far as I know, the police does in fact capture him in the Fate/Apocrypha timeline.
Therefore, one can imagine my surprise when the Clock Tower received reports of suspicious activities in Fuyuki city. At the time Tokiomi and his family were out of the country for unknown reasons, thereby leaving the city unprotected. As a result Kiritsugu was sent in to investigate. What he found was a vampiric Ryuunosuke on the verge of losing complete control of himself due to the fool deciding to experiment with recipes found in his grimoire since the summoning refused to work. Shirou's family had been the lunatic's last victims with Kiritsugu and Natalia adopting the child as their own.
"Shirou is stubborn about joining, so Natalia has been training him in the basics before she decides to send him to the Fraga's for more advanced training." replies Kiritsugu. "As for Sigma, well the situation is pretty much the same."
Sigma is the child of Maiya Hisau. The result of an unknown soldier raping the woman. In canon he would be kidnapped soon after his birth and drafted into a special division of an unknown governernment that trained soldiers to wield magecraft. Knowing the amount of issues that they can possibly cause in the future by attempting to recreate a Holy Grail War, I made sure that they were shut down with Sigma being rescued as a result. Now he, Shirou, Maiya, and Natalia live on an uncharted island owned by the Malphas family.
"While I can see that your assignment was a success,-" I say, bringing everyone's attention to me. "-clearly there were complications. What happened?"
"I made it just as the target was attempting to kill Reika as a sacrifice for his summoning." answers Kiritsugu. "While I was able to terminate him, the summoning was still successful with Reika being Jack the Ripper's master."
"Is she not a civilian?" asks Ozymandias with a raised eyebrow. "I am intrigued to know how she is able to sustain her servant."
"Morgan, Azula, and Sakura arrived in time two days ago to set up the system of homunculi to feed magical energy to the servants." answers Kiritsugu.
"I see." replies Ozymandias as he turns to look at Reika. "Tell me woman, why have you chosen to participate in this War in which you are almost guaranteed to perish? Do you perhaps have a wish to see fulfilled?"
Hearing Ozymandias' question, the occupants of the car turn to the only civilian. Surprisingly Reika manages to keep calm even with countless eyes surveying her.
"Jack needs her mother." replies the woman with a calm and serene voice.
"You see yourself as her mother?" asks Ozymandias with a raised eyebrow.
"I am her mother." replies Reika.
Surprisingly Jack has not shown herself throughout this entire exchange, even when Ozymandias mentioned the possibility of Reika dying. The only explanation that I can reasonably think of is that Reaika is keeping her in check.
Before any more questions can be asked, the limousine arrives at our destination, a luxurious hotel owned by the Clock Tower, Olympia. It acts as a safehouse for magus in the county. Similar to the Continental Hotel in John Wick, the Clock Tower possesses a chain of safehouses for magus everywhere in the world. Similar to the Clock Tower, every Olympia has countless defenses against both the supernatural and the mundane.
Walking into the hotel, I showcase my identification card to the clerk, and he hands me the key to my personal floor, the twelfth floor.
"Has my guest arrived yet?" I ask the clerk.
"Yes sir. She arrived a day earlier." answers the man.
With a nod I turn and walk towards the elevator. We make our way there in silence as Mordred looks at the building in awe while Ozymandias simply gives it an appreciative nod. Once on the twelfth floor we file out of the elevator and lead the group into the living room space where I find my guest, Rin Tohsaka, sitting on a couch reading a tome.
"Miss Tohsaka,-" I say, bringing her out of her tome and causing her servant to deastralize and ready to protect her. "-it is good to see that you have arrived. I trust that your flight over was pleasant?"
"It was pleasant Lord Malphas." she says with a bow that would make the noble's of the Clock Tower proud. "Thank you for this opportunity."
"There is no need to stand on ceremony with me. We are after all comrades in this Holy Grail War." I reply with a smile. "As for this 'opportunity', think nothing of it. As a descendant of Nagato, I do believe that you deserve the chance to participate. Now why don't you introduce your servant."
"Right, this is Arjuna of the Archer class." introduces Rin as she gestures towards said servant.
"It is a pleasure to meet you." politely says the servant with a slight bend of the waist.
"This is Ozymandias of the Rider class." I introduce as I point towards him before pointing to Mordred. "And the young lady behind him is Mordred Pendragon of the Saber class."
Not wanting to be seen as anything less than the knight her legends paint her as, Mordred puts on her stoic face and simply nods towards Rin and Arjuna while Ozymandias simply regards her with a look as she attempts not to stare between him and I.
"Do not avert your eyes." says Ozymandias to her. "Rather you would do well to look closely, for my brilliance outshines even the Sun, and I shall grant you the honour of gazing upon this exalted form."
Ozymandias' words cause Rin to blush as she stutters in an attempt to answer. The situation is so ridiculous that Bazett does not even bother to hide her amusement and laughs unrestrained along with Setanta. Scathach, taking pity on the girl, smacks the back of Ozymandias' head and fixes him a glare.
"We already had this conversation before Ozymandias." says Scathach with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Unless you wish to become my new sparring partner, then you will keep that ego in check."
Ozymandias frowns yet remains quiet even as Setanta laughs at him behind us. The last time Ozymandias disobeyed her, she proceeded to kick him up and down the training field, stopping only when he became close to dying, and nothing he did could stop her. Even his reality marble was useless against her. Ever since then he has tried to keep his arrogance in check with various degrees of success.
Before Ozymandias can respond, Morgan walks in from an adjacent room followed by Sakura, Medea, and Azula.
"Good, you're all here." says Morgan as she settles down on a couch. "All of the preparations are ready."
"Do we know who Ruler is?" I ask her.
"Unfortunately no. While we have been able to locate Ruler, we have not been able to ascertain their identity." she replies.
"It is fine, their identity is not a priority as we do not plan on violating any rules." I reassure her. "Do we know what the result of our bombing is?"
"Yes." replies Azula. "While the plan to use a primary bomb as a distraction while a second one explodes in their homunculi chamber did not eliminate all of their magical energy supply, it still did enough damage for their Berserker to be absorbed by the Grail due to a lack of magical energy. Meanwhile in an attempt to save her master, Circe died and was absorbed by the Grail."
"Good." I answer. "Now everyone sit, it is time to lay out our plan of engagement."
As everyone takes a seat, the servants who were astralised materialise themselves and take various positions near their master, with Jack sitting herself on Reika's lap.
"As of now, we know the identities of the enemy servants as well as their masters." I say as I begin explaining. "Saber is Jason, Lancer is Karna, Archer is Gilgamesh, and Rider is Achilles."
"What about Berserker, Caster, and Assassin?" asks Rin.
"Berserker and Caster are no longer a concern as they were turned into magical energy for the Grail." answers Morgan. "As for Assassin, she has chosen to join our faction."
"That leaves Jason, Karna, Gilgamesh, and Achilles." I answer before turning to Setanta and Bazett. "You two will be in charge of defeating Achilles. Setanta ought to be able to win the battle should he take it seriously. Although you will not be in shape to fight any more afterwards. Bazett, your assignment is to isolate their battle from everyone, especially Jason."
"Is Jason really that powerful?" asks Rin.
"No." replies Medea. "He is not dangerous due to his prowess in battle, rather it is his skills as a commander that are dangerous. He turned the Argonauts from a group of strangers into a well oiled fighting machine. He can take a group of strangers and use them as effectively as possible, even if the strangers despise one another."
"What makes this situation so precarious is the fact that the heroes on his side are equal to ours in terms of skills and power with some being even more powerful." I explain to Bazett. "Which is why isolating him is of the utmost importance."
"While Achilles is being taken care of by Setanta,-" I say as I turn to Rin. "Arjuna and Mordred shall be facing Karna with Li Shuwen remaining in the background to take any opportunity he sees to defeat Karna. Like Bazett, your assignment as masters will be to isolate them from Jason."
"Meanwhile, Kiritsugu and Jack will infiltrate the Yggdmillennia castle to eliminate the masters and the remaining homunculi that provide the servants with magical energy." I tell Kiritsugu who nods in understanding. "This will effectively stop the masters from being able to use the command seals to perform tasks such as boosting their servant's noble phantasms or teleportation."
"That leaves Ozymandias and Caligula to face Gilgamesh together while Medea and Sakura face Jason." I say as I finish my explanation. "Are there any questions?"
'A sound plan worthy of Roma.' says Romulus with pride
'You have been oddly silent the past few days.' I reply.
'The merger is almost complete. As such my consciousness is becoming weaker and soon it will completely fade.' answers Romulus. 'Besides, you do not require my aid, and everything that needed to be said has already been said. As such I am proud of you, my child.'
"That will not be necessary." says Ozymandias, bringing me out of my head before I can reply. "I alone will be enough to defeat the King of Heroes."
"Perhaps you will, and perhaps you will not." I say as I channel Lupa and send him a wolf glare. "Regardless, Caligula will be there to assist you should it be necessary, and that is final."
"Very well." answers Ozymandias in resignation after a few seconds of contemplation. "I shall defer to you as the pharaoh of these times, and of this team."
"Good. Are there any questions?" I ask the room's occupants.
Seeing as no one has any questions, I nod and declare the meeting adjourned.
Isn't Ozymandias voiced by the same actor as Dio?
Apocryphal War
"Gilgamesh." I say as the King of Heroes himself deastralizes in the lounge of my hotel suite. "To what do we owe the honor of your visit."
It is the night of the day after our arrival in Romania, the setting of this Holy Grail War. Currently Ozymandias and I are the only remaining members in the building as everyone else left to fight their battles, with Gilgamesh deciding to pay us a visit. Were I expecting Gilgamesh to conform to whatever plan Jason came up with we would have left long ago to fight him. However, knowing the King of Heroes' temperament, I can say with certainty that he would observe before participating.
Similar to when he was summoned, the King of Heroes wears his golden armor in full while he stands there stoically with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"Planeswalker." he says as he looks at me, his sense of superiority fully on display without him saying a word. "I expected much more from you, and yet you still failed to live up to expectations with that cowardly action. Then again, a mongrel is a mongrel regardless of their potential."
"I assume that you speak of the bomb?" I reply with a raised eyebrow.
"Tch." replies the golden archer with a look of disdain in his eyes. "It is an admission of your lack of ethics and weakness."
"Perhaps to you and Ozymandias, and as a man who has led Roman civilization in his own universe I would very much agree. However,-" I tell him, causing him to arch an eyebrow. "-as a father whose sole purpose in this war is to achieve victory, I will have to strongly disagree with you. No tactic or strategy is too cowardly to win."
Before he can answer Ozymandias walks into the room.
"Well if it isn't the Golden King himself!" exclaims Ozymandias as he makes his way towards us.
"Oh...you're also here as well, Sun King." replies Gilgamesh as he looks at Ozymandias. "To have one such as you as an adversary… perhaps I shall not suffer from complete boredom in this… so called Holy Grail War."
"Indeed. Holy Grail War? How plebeian. Do they honestly expect the world's greatest King to attend such slovenly trifles?" replies Ozymandias. "I had expected to derive some form of entertainment from it, after all only the greatest heroes may be summoned. Yet I find myself disappointed in the participants, particularly my fellow pharaoh and his cowardly actions."
His last sentence is delivered with a hint of disappointment in his voice as he and Gilgamesh look towards me.
"Indeed,-" replies Gilgamesh as he returns to ignoring me. "-it is far beneath the station of the most majestic of history's kings"
"Hahaha!" laughs Ozymandias boisterously in response to Gilgamesh. "Regardless, it is rare for one to meet the King of Heroes in his domain, even for me. As such, I shall permit it. I shall allow this King who is a stranger here to enter as I grace him with my presence, and personally give him a tour, I am feeling generous this night."
"Truly your words are far too gracious." replies Gilgamesh as he follows his fellow King. "I am humbled."
"No." replies Ozymandias. "It is I, who is embarrassed."
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While Ambrosius finds himself witnessing the budding friendship between the King of Heroes and the King of Kings, the remaining masters and servants make their way through the forest surrounding the Yggdmillennia castle with no regards for whether or not their enemies are alerted to their trespassing. Arriving outside of the woods, the group is met with a clearing large enough to field an army that leads towards the Yggdmillennia castle.
"So this is their castle huh?" comments Cu as the group stops just short of entering the field. "It's not that impressive."
"It does indeed lack a certain quality to it." agrees Mordred, not realising that she and Cu Chulainn are both comparing it to the castle owned by Ambrosius and Scathach back in England.
"So who wants to go knock?" asks Cu as he looks at his companions.
"Leave this to me." answers Azula as she steps forward with a smirk and a gleam in her eyes.
High above in the sky, clouds quickly gather and enshroud the field and the castle as lightning flashes and thunder rumbles.
"Perhaps you should reduce the amount of power that you are channeling." comments Scathach as she looks at the growing flashes of lightning with a frown. "We would not want to inadvertently damage the Grail."
"Ah." sighs Azula in disappointment. "Sorry. It's been a while since I have had the opportunity to properly stretch my muscles. I got carried away"
Sure enough, the flashes of lightning seem to slow down and the cloud decreases in size until it only encompasses the castle. Satisfied with the amount of power built up, Azula releases a lightning strike upon the castle and watches with a triumphant smirk as the one of the castle's wings is demolished.
"You know… you remind me of this lady that used to come by Dun Scaith to spar with teacher and the old man." says Cu as he looks at Azula. "Her name was Aife, and she had the most sadistic smile whenever she was sparing or using lightning."
Just remembering her makes Cu shiver with unease, which is only made worse when Azula turns to him and smiles that very same sadistic smile. Unknown to Azula, Scatach, or Ambrosius, Cu possesses a subconscious fear towards the woman. It started out with their first encounter, and was very built up during the times that she would visit and spar with him and Ferdiad. Her ruthlessness, sadistic smirk, and the gleam in her eyes very much unnerved the two students at the time. The situation was only made worse by the fact that, unlike Ambrosius and Scatach, Azula had no qualms with making their spars as painful as possible to make sure that pain would never be a deterrent for the two in a fight. While Cu is very much thankful for her making him almost impervious to pain, seeing that smile once again brought about memories of his training that he buried.
Before anyone can answer Cu, an enraged roar can be heard coming from the direction of the castle and approaching the group. Azula, seeing a charging Kintoki, duck's under the swipe of his maskari axe and punches him in the solar plexus, sending him flying back. Meanwhile the other masters retreated away from the pair to escape being caught in the crossfire.
"Azula,-" says Scathach. "-did you not claim that Kintoki was turned into magical energy by the Grail?"
"I did." replies Azula with a frown. "And I am almost certain that my scrying was successful."
"Ohoho." comes a giggling voice as Circe deastralizes next to a recovering Kintoki. "Did you truly expect for your scrying to go unnoticed when I, Circe, was summoned. It was simple to cast an illusion and make you see what you saw."
"Do you mean to tell me,-" comments Azula with a vicious smirk. "-that I was fooled by a short little pipsqueak like you, who doesn't have the sense to sleep once it's their bedtime."
Hearing Azula's words about her height, Circe cannot help but become enraged and prepares to retaliate. Before she can, however, Sakura appears behind said servant and grabs her by the neck and crushes a stone in her hand. Once crushed, the stone glows a faint blue light before transporting the duo away from the group and into an unknown location.
The action was so sudden that Kintoki, who has been prepared to once again launch himself at Azula, takes a second to process the disappearance of his comrade. His hesitation cost him however, as Azula takes the opportunity to launch herself at him and teleport them away, leaving Bazett, Rin, Scathach, and their servants behind.
"Well damn. There goes Jason's plan" comments Achilles as he deastralizes, his spear loosely held in one hand as it leans on his right shoulder. "Man you guys are really a troublesome bunch. First the bomb, then you guys destroy Jason's plan in seconds."
"Finally." replies Cu with a savage grin as he approaches Achilles. "I thought that I would have to come get you from the castle."
"Oh?" answers Achilles with a smirk as he cocks his head to the side. "Fine, we'll see who wins. I am Rider Achilles."
"And I'm Lancer Cu Chulainn." replies Cu as he summons Gae Bolg. "I hope that you can give me a good fight."
"Hehehe, I never thought that I'd be facing you of all people." chuckles Achilles. "So what are the rules? One on one combat, just skills, and to the death?"
"Sure." replies Cu with a shrug. "I wanna see which one of us is better."
With a smirk on his face, Achilles activates the duel field of his noble phantasm (Meteor Spear): Spear-tip of the Star Traversing the Skies. Upon its activation, the combatants are transported to a separate dimension outside of time that is comparable to a Reality Marble, so that when the duel within concludes, it will have lasted only a second from an outside perspective. Due to Hector not wishing to fight Achilles with the advantage of his immortality, he developed the ability so that they could evenly fight where inside the field all forms of immortality, including his, became moot.
Bazett, who has been observing the interaction behind Cu, cannot help but slightly worry about him. While she knows that he is the greatest hero to come from the Ulster Cycle, she also knows that he will be facing Achilles, one of the most famous heroes in the world. However, she decides to not interfere since this is what the original plan entailed, isolating Achilles so that Cu may defeat him.
Turning her attention back to the remaining participants of the war, she notices that Karna has arrived and is already battling Arjuna.Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Bazett slips the package that she has been carrying from her shoulders and gently places it on the floor. She opens it to reveal Ambrosius' second underhanded plot, the noble phantasm Fragarach.
Earlier in the day, while she was taking part in her morning exercise, Ambrosius pulled her aside to give her the order that she is about to execute. According to him, Karna possesses a noble phantasm that is always active, Kavacha and Kundala. It is an armor that reduces all damage inflicted upon Karna to one tenth of its power no matter what the source of said damage may be. This is where the Fraga family's noble phantasm comes into play.
Fragarach: Gouging Sword of the War God, also called Answerer: That Which Comes Later Cuts First and The Retaliator, is a Noble Phantasm and Mystic Code with the ultimate form of counterattack. It warps causality to always strike the opponent in the heart with a needle thin concentrated blast right before they unleash their ultimate attack. The condition for its use is that the opponent must use their strongest attack, and Fragarach must be used directly after the enemy's strike. It would normally be that Fragarach would kill the enemy, and the opponent's attack would also simultaneously destroy Bazett. However, this is not the function that she will be using. The second effect is far more suitable for this situation.
Fragarach is an "Ace-Killing Joker" and the "ultimate counter code" that responds to the "trump card" of the enemy, such as the Noble Phantasm of a Servant. Against passive trump card abilities that are constantly activated, such as Kavacha and Kundala, it can be used against them at any time, and against an attack used by a mount, like Bellerophon, it kills the Pegasus rather than the rider. If used in the proper conditions with the "Answerer effect", it activates as an A Rank attack after calling out both of its names. One major weakness is that it is useless against enemies without a special ability, such as an all-rounded magus like Caster.
Normally she lets a metal ball float in a diagonal rear movement a few meters behind her in anticipation of the enemy's trump card. However, considering the fact that the noble phantasm is already active, the attack begins. The ball glows and begins to be electrically charged and a blade is generated. By this point Karna and Arjuna's battle has reached its crescendo and Karna seems to be ready to dismiss his armor in order to use Vasavi Shakti. Meanwhile Arjuna seems to be preparing Parshupata to counter Karna. Calling out her noble phantasm's name, Bazett punches it towards the enemy for the strike. As the blade launches towards Karna, Bazett's glove and hand are burned as an aftereffect, and the sphere, as a one-use weapon, loses its grey color as well and drops to the floor. However, Bazett does not stop and repeats the process two more times, launching two more blades at Karna.
Like predicted, the blades turn into beams of light and pierce Karna's heart.
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Arjuna had not expected to meet Karna of all people in this Holy Grail War. While he answered the call of the summoning, it was due to the fact that he hoped to be able to use it to have his rematch with Karna. One can imagine his surprise however, when during yesterday's briefing it was mentioned that Karna was summoned. He had been looking forward to his battle with Karna especially when the faction's leader decreed that he would be facing his rival. Unfortunately, the excitement was short lived as it was later decreed that he would be receiving aid. So like a true hero, Arjuna remained silent, but unfortunately it is also part of his nature to plot on how to receive what he wants once he has been slighted. He even remained silent when it was mentioned that his faction had bombed the opposition, making him question their honor and whether or not he found himself on the 'evil' side.
When he and the group had arrived in the clearing, he had been glad to find out that the bomb did not have the desired effect that was reported. Since every servant of the enemy is very much still alive, then that means that he can face Karna on his own. After having dispensed of the pleasantries and having his master taken to a safe distance, Arjuna cannot help but follow Karna's lead and throw himself into the fight, which is how he finds himself dodging Karna's spear and retaliating with a kick to his opponent's chest that sends him flying a short distance away.
Recovering quickly, Karna launches himself into the sky before launching himself at Arjuna once again. However Arjuna has no intention of facing Karna on his terms and proceeds to shoot his fully powered Agni Gandiva at the approaching lancer.
Agni Gandiva: Flame God's Roar is one of the two Noble Phantasms of Arjuna. It is a Bow of Flames that essentially cannot be handled by humans (mortals), awarded to Arjuna by the Flame God, Agni. Normally just a regular bow, by activating its True Name, its arrow becomes a missile engulfed in flames. It is not a homing missile, but since Arjuna is an archery genius and possesses the Clairvoyance Skill, its precision is similar to that of a homing missile. It is also a noble phantasm that is capable of fully damaging Karna as if ignoring his armor.
Knowing this, Karna does not attempt to block nor does he tries to dodge, instead he makes use of his third noble phantasm Brahmastra Kundala. It is a Noble Phantasm obtained by Karna from the Brahman Parashurama, a projectile attack that is granted his fiery attribute and resembles fiery beams. Karna launches the projectiles at the incoming arrows canceling them out.
With renewed effort, Karna attempts to close the distance between him and Arjuna while dodging the standard arrows and canceling out the fully powered ones. As he reaches a few feet away from Arjuna, Arjuna increases his rate of fire and Karna is forced to take the full brunt of an arrow head on. While the damage is not crippling, nor does it hinder his performance, it is still a substantial amount and Karna is certain that his master does not possess enough magical energy to heal him.
Knowing that his armor is not of any use to him during this battle, and it serves as more of a hindrance due to it restricting him from utilising Vasavi Shakti, Karna prepares to remove it from his person.
Meanwhile Arjuna, who takes notice of Karna's action, readies himself to counter Vasavi Shakti with Pashupata. Before either of them can finish their actions, three beams of light pierce through Karna's heart, or at least that is what seems to have happened. With his clairvoyance, Arjuna is able to perceive Karna being teleported away as Circe appears next to him and completely heals him. At the same time, he notices his comrades, Medea and Sakura, appear next to him with frowns on their faces.
"What has happened?" questions Arjuna.
"The plan was a failure." replies Medea. "Circe managed to escape the barrier that was set up to separate her from her faction."
"It was my fault." claims Sakura. "I was the one who set up the barrier and forgot that she is a magician from the Age of Gods."
"It doesn't matter anymore." replies Medea. "From now on she will be reinforcing Karna to give him an edge in your battle. However, you don't have to worry, I will be reinforcing you to match him."
Arjuna simply nods and looks towards the direction from where the beams of light emerged. There he sees the woman named Bazett fighting a blond portly man, Gorde, along with what seems to be a dozen homunculi.
Turning his attention back to his opponent, Arjuna sees a recovered Karna approach.
"It seems that we will have to escalate our battle." comments Karna.
"Indeed." replies Arjuna. "Are you ready?"
As if given an unseen signal, the duo launch themselves at each other.
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As Medea watches Arjuna clash with Karna, she makes sure to reinforce him as much as possible while sometimes launching volatile balls of magical energy at Circe, and making sure to defend herself against Circe's ranged attacks.
"Maybe I should engage Circe in melee combat?" questions Sakura.
Medea glances at her master, who has managed to endear herself to her, and nods.
"Be careful." warns Medea.
Before Sakura can make her way to Circe, she is forced to dodge an overpowered Gandr shot.
"You will do no such things." comes a male voice from their right.
Looking at the direction of the attack, Medea sees Darnic Preston Yggdmillennia himself approaching them as he continuously launches curses at Sakura. Without saying a word, Sakura easily dodges his attacks and begins to retaliate with streams of fire and air towards him. Unfortunately, Darnic seems to have a defensive magecraft that blocks all of Sakura's attacks. This does not seem to worry Sakura however as she jumps into the air and launches a pillar of fire at Darnic with an axe kick. Seeing that Sakura has things well in hand, Medea turns her attention back to her own battle where Circe has begun to take control of the battlefield itself and is making use of illusions, curses, and poisons to affect Bazett, Rin, and Sakura.
Dodging one of Darnic's curses as she lands on the ground, Sakura begins her counterattack. Channeling magical energy throughout her body, Sakura performs a mana burst to close the distance between her and Darnic. Moving so fast that she appears to be teleporting to Darnic, Sakura arrives in front of him and coats her left hand in lightning as she drives it through his heart and uses her right hand to snap his neck. Once Darnic's body falls to the ground, Sakura turns her attention to Circe.
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Rin has never been involved in such a dangerous situation before, and her training certainly has not prepared her for it. The battle between servants is certainly a sight to see. She knew that servants were very much overpowered, especially the ones with old legends like Arjuna. However, knowing and experiencing are two different things. Their battles seem to be straight from the pages of a manga. What makes the situation worse is that she knows that the majority of her fellow masters can face them head on. Earlier this morning she saw the battle royal spar between the other masters and Cu Cuchlainn. Somehow they all managed to keep up with Lancer of all people in melee combat, and although she was not as powerful as the others, Sakura was able to keep up. Even if it was barely, it still makes Rin feel somewhat inadequate.
"Pay attention to your opponent." comes Scathach's voice from behind her and breaks her from her train of thought just in time to dodge an incoming metallic limb.
Her opponent is Fiore Yggdmillennia, heir to the Yggdmillennia family. Sometime after the beginning of Arjuna's battle with Karna, the majority of the masters of the Yggdmillennia family took to the field. Rin caught a glimpse of Darnic engaging Sakura while Gordes attacked Bazett with the aid of his homunculi. Meanwhile she is faced with the Yggdmillennia heir as an opponent.
Fiore Yggdmillennia's way of battle is utilising her wheelchair which she turns into four robotic limbs that are attached to her back. It is eerily reminiscent of Doctor Octopus from that American comic book she once read, which is why Rin is currently leading the battle back into the woods. Rin takes cover behind a tree just as Fiore pelts her previous standing spot full of bullet holes. With a frown on her face she climbs up the tree, turns back, and launches herself down at an unsuspecting Fiore. Unfortunately, she is suddenly struck with the worse she can possibly be imagined resulting in her losing her concentration and getting smacked back into the clearing by one of Fiore's metallic limbs. As she lands on the grass, Rin is struck by violent tremors across her body as the pain subsides. Without an impressive amount of effort, she stands back up and regards her opponent with a glare. Reinforcing her limbs once more, Rin sprints towards Fiore as she launches spells of Gandr and Fin shots at her adversary. Caught off guard, Fiore is unable to react allowing Rin to reach her. Without giving the poor girl time to react, Rin punches her on her left temple knocking her out.
"Not bad." comments Scathach as she approaches Rin. "You have plenty of potential. Even managing to fight through that curse that inflicts pain."
"Thank you." answers Rin with a slight blush. She didn't expect to be complimented by the wife of her idol of all people.
"Come." orders Scathach as she picks up the unconscious girl. "Bazett is almost finished with Gordes."
With a nod Rin follows her.
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As Bazett dodges another halberd, she cannot help but pour her frustrations into her counterattack punch. She doesn't know what annoys her the most, having to fight these homunculi and their weak master or the fact that she failed to kill Karna because Circe interfered. Maybe it's because her current enemies are distracting her from trying again, or maybe it's because of all the poisons and curses she would have fallen victim to if she wasn't protected by the runes inscribed on her suit. Even then, she can feel the amount of magical energy that she has reduced the longer the battle continues, thereby reducing the amount of times she can use Fragarach after she finishes with these annoyances.
Dodging the strike from the sole remaining homunculi, Bazett closes the distance between them and snaps his neck before he can react. Not bothering to pause, she runs past the corpse towards a panicking Gordes and launches a kick towards his face.
Before her foot can reach him however, Bazett is forced to retreat as Jason deastralises while swinging his sword at her leg.
"Tch, you're so useless that I have to take to the field just to save your life." comments Jason.
Jason makes to speak again, only to suddenly decide not to and grab Gordes as he dodges a bolt of lightning from Bazett.
Watching Jason dodge her attack causes Bazett to frown even more. Jason is the last servant that she wanted to encounter, not because of his combat prowess, but because of his skill Insight in the Jaws of Death. It's a skill that provides him with flashes of inspiration and foresight when acting to throw his life away, essentially making it so that he can survive any dangerous situation. While it doesn't increase his combat skills, it does increase his chances to survive by escaping or dodging attacks exponentially, and the more dangerous the situation is for him the better it works.
Before she can form a plan of attack, Gordes' body slumps the ground and blood can be seen leaking from his forehead.
"NO!" exclaims Jason. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
Since they did not see the projectile, Bazett and Jason are forced to look around in order to spot the culprit. Soon enough two figures can be seen walking towards them from the left, Scathach and Rin.
"Fine." says Jason with gritted teeth as he takes a few steps away from Bazett. "Since I'm going to be taken out anyway, I might as well bring you with me. Astrapste Argo: The Dazzling Ship that Splits the Heavens."
Astrapste Argo: The Dazzling Ship that Splits the Heavens is Jason's Noble Phantasm, Reinforcement from the Argo. The heroes that sailed on the ship begin a simultaneous attack. Which is why as soon as Jason finishes calling the name of his noble phantasm, Berserker Heracles, Archer Atalanta, and Caster child Medea appear behind ready to attack. With a roar Heracles launches himself at Jason's opposition while Atalanta nocks her arrows, child Medea prepares a magical attack.
Before Heracles can reach far however, twelve Gae Bolgs impale him in fatal locations, immediately killing him. Following through with her previous attack, Scathach launches herself at Atalanta and child Medea with a Gae Bolg held in each hand. Atalanta attempts to evade by jumping back, unfortunately she is too slow and dies with a spear through her throat. Child Medea takes to the skies, but does not make it far as a Gae Bolg impales her through the heart.
"Dammit!" mutters Jason as he slowly dematerialises due to running out of magical energy after using it up to activate his noble phantasm.
"That was too close." comments Bazett.
"Yea." replies a dumbstruck Rin as she watches Scathach with admiration clear in her eyes.
"Come you two." orders Scathach as she makes her way towards where she can sense Medea and Sakura.
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Dodging Achilles' spear, Cu retaliates by stabbing his spear towards his opponent, only for it to be also dodged.
"You're pretty good." comments Achilles as he gathers himself.
"You're pretty good yourself." answers Cu.
They have been exchanging blows for an unknown amount of minutes, and so far no one has been able to decisively dominate the battle. It's as if their fighting styles were specifically designed to counter each other even though they are opposites. Not even Achilles' superior speed has been able to tilt the battle into his favor. Achilles' style takes the basics to an extreme level. It is simple yet effective with no wasted movements and making use of every part of the user's body. Cu's style however is anything but simple. It's savage and looks very impressive, almost as if the user has lost their senses and the only thing matters is their enemy. It makes full use of Cu's demi-god physique and takes it to the next level.
After settling themselves back into their fighting stances, the two warriors launch themselves at each other. Cu begins with a powerful swing of his spear that is redirected by Achilles who follows through with a stab towards Cu's opening. Cu tilts his head to dodge the spear as he collects his own and slashes at Achilles' shoulder tendon. Achilles, who had been prepared to turn his stab into a slash, is forced to abandon that route to block with his spear and leaves his stomach open. Cu takes the opportunity and sends Achilles flying with a kick. Achilles quickly recovers, jumps into the air, and throws his spear at Cu who is sprinting towards him. With his spear, Cu blocks his opponent's attack and sends the weapon back into the air. Making use of his impressive speed, Achilles follows his weapon and catches it.
"This is getting us nowhere." comments Cu.
"Yea, it looks like in terms of spearmanship we're pretty even." replies Achilles.
"Hand-to-hand?" asks Cu as he dismisses his spear and takes a fighting stance.
"Hand-to-hand." answers Achilles as he stabs his spear into the ground and follows Cu with a fighting stance.
Looking over his opponent, Achilles can't help but frown at the slight similarities between their fighting stances. However, with a shake of his head Achilles puts it out of his mind and rushes towards Cu. Cu's first move is a straight punch towards Achilles' face. Achilles tilts his head to dodge and retaliates with his own punch towards Cu's open left only to be surprised as Cu grabs his wrist and punches him in the solar plexus, knocking the breath from his lungs and breaking a few ribs. Cu follows through with a leg sweep towards Achilles' heel forcing him to hop back in defense.
"That fighting style." comments Achilles as he catches his breath.
"Once you reach your opponent,-" begins Cu with a smile.
"-be sure to destroy it." finishes Achilles with a smirk.
"That is the basis of Pankration." comment the two together.
"How do you know that?" asks Achilles.
"That old man taught me hand-to-hand combat. According to him some lady called Lupa taught him that." answers Cu.
"Lupa? Like the wolf goddess?" replies Achilles.
Cu merely shrugs in answer before rushing towards Achilles. Achilles lets him get close enough before jumping into the air and kicking towards his opponent's face. Cu weathers the assault to grab Achilles' left heel and attempt to break it. His opponent however launches another kick towards his temple, forcing Cu to let go.
As he lands on the ground Achilles launches his knee towards Cu's face, but his opponent raises his arms and blocks. Following through, Achilles launches an assault of punches at his opponent. Cu answers in kind by deflecting and sending his own punches that are also deflected. As it begins to look like every punch will be deflected, Cu sees an opening that he takes advantage of. Grabbing hold of Achilles' left arm, Cu snaps it at the elbow and follows through by sending his own elbow at Achilles' face. However, Achilles dodges the blow and kicks one of Cu's knees, snapping it.
Despite their injuries, the two do not stop fighting. Achilles sends a full powered punch towards Cu's left ribs snapping a few and sending them into his heart. In retaliation Cu grabs that very same arm and snaps it, then he proceeds to grab Achilles' neck and breaks it.
Exhausted and injured, the two retreat from each other with heavy breaths.
"I win." claims Cu as he sits on the floor.
"Barely." replies Achilles with a strained voice as he drops to the floor.
"You lost that battle as soon as I first punched you in the solar plexus." says Cu as he begins to cough blood.
"Yea." strains Achilles with a smirk. "Break… bones… into… heart. Happy… fight… you."
After saying his peace, Achilles' eyes close and his body breaks down into magical energy for the grail.
"Yea." replies Cu as he too is turned into magical energy.
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With an impassive face Karna blocks an arrow and fires his projectiles at Arjuna who also dodges. They had been fighting in this stalemate for a while now. Similar to their encounter before the interruption, not one of them has been able to hold the upper hand for long. The only time one of them has been able to truly gain the upper hand is when one of the caster's reinforcement would stop due to being put at a disadvantage in their own battle.
Dodging a thrust of Karna's spear, Arjuna retaliates by shooting Karna with fully powered Gandiva arrows on the chest, sending him flying. Recovering quickly, Karna takes to the skies.
"This is taking us nowhere. Perhaps it would be best to decide the winner with one final attack." says Karna.
"I agree." replies Arjuna as he also takes to the skies.
Noticing the duo's actions, Medea and Circe cease their actions on the battlefield and turn their full attention to reinforcing the two.
Raising his right hand into the air, Karna gathers as much magical energy as he can. As a result miles of land is burned to cinders as what seems to be a second sun appears above his head.
"I have enjoyed this battle between us rivals." comments Karna. "Should we meet again, let it be with the knowledge that a victor has officially been decided."
Floating until he becomes across from Karna, Arjuna also gathers as much magical energy as he can. Unlike Karna however, he gathers the magical energy into his hand and compresses it into a ball.
"Indeed, this battle has been most satisfactory." replies Arjuna.
With small smiles on their faces, Arjuna and Karna call upon their noble phantasms.
« "Holy Ground Expansion, Space Fixation, Divine Punishment Enforcement Period Establishment... All Clear. By Shiva's wrath, your life ends here..."
"Pashupata!!! »
« "My father, I ask for your forgiveness. For the first and last time."
"End everything, Vasavi... Shakti! »
The two demi-gods release their noble phantasms into giant beams that clash with each other, neither one willing to submit. However, as the clash continues both fighters suddenly find themselves out of magical energy, cancelling their noble phantasms. At the same time, two beams of light pierce their hearts, killing them.
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Finding Circe is proving to be harder than Sakura thought it would be. The child like Caster has turned the entire clearing and the castle into her territory with Territory Creation. This certainly explains why she was able to teleport straight here after breaking through Sakura's barrier. As a humble person Sakura may never admit it, but her magecraft is only below the likes of her teacher Azula, Morgan, Scathach and other magus of that caliber. That is to say that no one from this era can defeat her in a battle of magecraft. Then again Circe is not even a magus, she is a magician from the Age of Gods. One who is on par with Medea of all people.
"Pluto. Jupiter." whispers Sakura as she activates her magic circuits and concentrates on finding her foe.
The arias that she whispered, Pluto and Jupiter, are the arias needed to utilize her personally invented spells, The Olympia's. Being raised by Azula, Sakura has heard countless stories of the Greek and Roman gods to the point that she could name them based only on their personalities. She also became fascinated with their abilities and has researched on ways to replicate them. While she hasn't truly replicated them, she has been able to replicate aspects of their powers. Jupiter for example can be used for simple lightning manipulation or creating a full on lightning storm. And while some may seem like simple elemental manipulation, they are actually more powerful than any elemental spell of modern magecraft.
Sensing the wind with Jupiter, and the ground with Pluto, Sakura is able to easily find Circe flying to her right.
"Mercury." whispers Sakura as she takes off towards the Caster with a speed that would be impressive even to a Lancer.
Arriving near Circe, Sakura makes use of her spell 'Diana' which creates a bow that is capable of shooting arrows of any variation, from pure magical energy to curses, or poisons. Not only are the arrows versatile, but she also knows from testing that they can't be sensed, not even by a Caster of Medea's level. While Circe seems occupied with her battle against Medea, and reinforcing Karna as much as possible, Sakura shoots her with three arrows. One to the head, a second through the neck and a final one to the heart, killing her.
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"Was that necessary?" asks Rin as she looks on as Karna and Arjuna turn to magical energy from losing their links to their masters and due to having a Fragarach blade killing them.
"Yes." replies Bazett as she puts away the noble phantasm.
"Do you feel Setanta's link?" asks Scathach to Bazett.
"It was broken a few minutes ago." she replies solemnly.
"I see, and judging by the fact that Achilles has not assaulted us then that means that the battle was mutually destructive." answers Scathach as everyone nods in affirmative. "Then that leaves, Gilgamesh, Ozymandias, Mordred, Circe, the berserkers and the assassins."
"Circe is dead." claims Sakura as she approaches the group. "While she was occupied with her battle against Medea, I killed her."
"One assassin, and one berserker." says Morgan as she teleports in front of the group with Reika, Kiritsugu, Mordred, and Jack, and throws an unconscious Roche and Caules to the floor.
"Actually." calls out Azula as she too appears before the group. "Make that zero berserkers."
"What happened to Li Shuwen and Caligula?" asks Scathach.
"After we destroyed the remains of the homunculi chamber, disposed of the vermin Celenike,-" says Morgan as she begins to explain "-and captured these two, he decided that he had spent enough time in the land of the living. So to receive his wish of once more participating in a worthy battle, he challenged Mordred to a one on one battle. One that she easily won."
"As for Caligula,-" says Azula as she looks at her nails. "-well the battle between him and Kintoki made him even more mad. So I had to put him down after his victory."
"I see." replies Scathach. "Then that only leaves Ozymandias and Gilgamesh."
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"My, what a boring performance." says Gilgamesh as he looks at the television that displayed the events of the Holy Grail War. "It is good that you are here to provide me with ample entertainment King of Kings."
"Indeed." replies Ozymandias as he and Gilgamesh stand from their collective seats. "Now that the teaser is over, perhaps it is time for the main event."
"Hahaha."laughs Gilgamesh. "Perhaps it is best that we skip the 'warm up' Sun King." says Gilgamesh. "Watching these mongrels has made me weary, and I wish to quickly finish this."
"HAHAHA.Very well, Golden King." answers Ozymandias with his own boisterous laugh. "If it is a swift battle that you wish, then it is a swift battle you shall have. I shall give you a reward, lightless one."
« "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and bow down! My infinite brilliance. The sun descends here! "Ramesseum Tentyris"! »
As Ozymandias finishes summoning his noble phantasm, my hotel floor is replaced with his reality marble, Ramesseum Tentyris.
"This is Ramesseum Tentyris: The Shining Great Temple Complex." boasts Ozymandias as he opens his arms in presentation. "It is my greatest trump card, similar to and a kind of Reality Marble. The Great Temple Complex, the might of the Pharaoh Ozymandias, embodied as a Noble Phantasm. It is the manifestation of how I, the glorious Pharaoh, contains within my body the various Egyptian gods, thus it contains a number of mystics."
Inside the temple a number of divine protections and curses take effect. The first is a divine protection that grants immortality to Ozymandias and his Guardian Beasts, making total destruction of both the temple and Ozymandias himself necessary to defeat him. The second is a divine curse of an Ancient Egyptian Divine Spirit that acts as poison to any invaders, killing typical creatures in two seconds and weakening Servants by ranking down their parameters and occasionally weakening some of their Skills. The third and final is a curse of the gods that stops enemies from activating Noble Phantasms by sealing them. However, should one possess a high enough divinity, then the curse becomes moot.
"Truly an impressive structure." proclaims Gilgamesh. "Yet, can it withstand the power of my ultimate noble phantasm?"
As Gilgamesh speaks, a golden portal opens above his hand and the golden handle of a sword emerges from it. Unlike a regular sword, the blade of the sword has no edge and is instead rounded like a tournament lance. The tip also is not sharp and is instead flat. Surrounding the rounded blade are intricate red patterns over the black background.
Looking at the weapon, I can feel my godly powers over weapons attempting to comprehend what it is that I find in front of me. However, no matter how much it tries all I can feel is gibberish and a terrible migraine. Eventually I decide to turn away from that abomination and instead focus on the Golden King himself.
« I have enjoyed myself in your presence King of Kings, as such I shall allow you the pleasure of witnessing this.
I speak of genesis. The elements amalgamate, coalesce, and bring forth the star that weaves all of creation. Pay homage in death. Enuma Elish! »
As Gilgamesh nears the end of his aria, every single one of my senses scream for me to leave. Never one to ignore my danger sense, I immediately activate one of my trump cards, a teleportation array that is designed to allow me to leave Reality Marbles. I feel space twist as I am ejected from Ramesseum Tentyris and arrive in the teleportation chamber of my castle. As I catch my breath, I feel sweat roll down my brow and realise how close to death I just was. Wiping the sweat from my brow I focus on the teleportation marker that I placed in the hotel and activate it.
Arriving outside of the hotel, I notice that nothing seems to be out of place, not even my floor is destroyed.
"Planeswalker." calls out Gilgamesh as he walks out of the hotel. "As a show of respect towards the Sun King, I elected to swiftly kill him and leave the building undamaged. You may be thankful. As for you… Well, I see no better time than now to finish this so called Holy Grail War. Come, show me your worth."
As Gilgamesh finishes his statement, countless golden portals appear and fire noble phantasms at me. With a smirk on my face I summon my trident and proceed to deflect and block every weapon thrown at me while my divine powers from Bellona proceed to read and record every weapon that I lay my eyes upon.
As I dodge more weapons, the quality of the noble phantasms increase until I find myself satisfied with the variety of weapons that I will now be able to conjure. With renewed effort I begin to fight back by approaching him.
"An adequate performance mongrel, you may yet be worthy of my respect." says Gilgamesh as he summons more portals.
Knowing what earning Gilgamesh's respect entails, and wanting absolutely nothing to do with it, I decided to stop holding back and completely speed blitz him. Before he can process what has happened I appear before and drive my trident through his throat, killing him.
It is the night of the day after our arrival in Romania, the setting of this Holy Grail War. Currently Ozymandias and I are the only remaining members in the building as everyone else left to fight their battles, with Gilgamesh deciding to pay us a visit. Were I expecting Gilgamesh to conform to whatever plan Jason came up with we would have left long ago to fight him. However, knowing the King of Heroes' temperament, I can say with certainty that he would observe before participating.
Similar to when he was summoned, the King of Heroes wears his golden armor in full while he stands there stoically with his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"Planeswalker." he says as he looks at me, his sense of superiority fully on display without him saying a word. "I expected much more from you, and yet you still failed to live up to expectations with that cowardly action. Then again, a mongrel is a mongrel regardless of their potential."
"I assume that you speak of the bomb?" I reply with a raised eyebrow.
"Tch." replies the golden archer with a look of disdain in his eyes. "It is an admission of your lack of ethics and weakness."
"Perhaps to you and Ozymandias, and as a man who has led Roman civilization in his own universe I would very much agree. However,-" I tell him, causing him to arch an eyebrow. "-as a father whose sole purpose in this war is to achieve victory, I will have to strongly disagree with you. No tactic or strategy is too cowardly to win."
Before he can answer Ozymandias walks into the room.
"Well if it isn't the Golden King himself!" exclaims Ozymandias as he makes his way towards us.
"Oh...you're also here as well, Sun King." replies Gilgamesh as he looks at Ozymandias. "To have one such as you as an adversary… perhaps I shall not suffer from complete boredom in this… so called Holy Grail War."
"Indeed. Holy Grail War? How plebeian. Do they honestly expect the world's greatest King to attend such slovenly trifles?" replies Ozymandias. "I had expected to derive some form of entertainment from it, after all only the greatest heroes may be summoned. Yet I find myself disappointed in the participants, particularly my fellow pharaoh and his cowardly actions."
His last sentence is delivered with a hint of disappointment in his voice as he and Gilgamesh look towards me.
"Indeed,-" replies Gilgamesh as he returns to ignoring me. "-it is far beneath the station of the most majestic of history's kings"
"Hahaha!" laughs Ozymandias boisterously in response to Gilgamesh. "Regardless, it is rare for one to meet the King of Heroes in his domain, even for me. As such, I shall permit it. I shall allow this King who is a stranger here to enter as I grace him with my presence, and personally give him a tour, I am feeling generous this night."
"Truly your words are far too gracious." replies Gilgamesh as he follows his fellow King. "I am humbled."
"No." replies Ozymandias. "It is I, who is embarrassed."
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While Ambrosius finds himself witnessing the budding friendship between the King of Heroes and the King of Kings, the remaining masters and servants make their way through the forest surrounding the Yggdmillennia castle with no regards for whether or not their enemies are alerted to their trespassing. Arriving outside of the woods, the group is met with a clearing large enough to field an army that leads towards the Yggdmillennia castle.
"So this is their castle huh?" comments Cu as the group stops just short of entering the field. "It's not that impressive."
"It does indeed lack a certain quality to it." agrees Mordred, not realising that she and Cu Chulainn are both comparing it to the castle owned by Ambrosius and Scathach back in England.
"So who wants to go knock?" asks Cu as he looks at his companions.
"Leave this to me." answers Azula as she steps forward with a smirk and a gleam in her eyes.
High above in the sky, clouds quickly gather and enshroud the field and the castle as lightning flashes and thunder rumbles.
"Perhaps you should reduce the amount of power that you are channeling." comments Scathach as she looks at the growing flashes of lightning with a frown. "We would not want to inadvertently damage the Grail."
"Ah." sighs Azula in disappointment. "Sorry. It's been a while since I have had the opportunity to properly stretch my muscles. I got carried away"
Sure enough, the flashes of lightning seem to slow down and the cloud decreases in size until it only encompasses the castle. Satisfied with the amount of power built up, Azula releases a lightning strike upon the castle and watches with a triumphant smirk as the one of the castle's wings is demolished.
"You know… you remind me of this lady that used to come by Dun Scaith to spar with teacher and the old man." says Cu as he looks at Azula. "Her name was Aife, and she had the most sadistic smile whenever she was sparing or using lightning."
Just remembering her makes Cu shiver with unease, which is only made worse when Azula turns to him and smiles that very same sadistic smile. Unknown to Azula, Scatach, or Ambrosius, Cu possesses a subconscious fear towards the woman. It started out with their first encounter, and was very built up during the times that she would visit and spar with him and Ferdiad. Her ruthlessness, sadistic smirk, and the gleam in her eyes very much unnerved the two students at the time. The situation was only made worse by the fact that, unlike Ambrosius and Scatach, Azula had no qualms with making their spars as painful as possible to make sure that pain would never be a deterrent for the two in a fight. While Cu is very much thankful for her making him almost impervious to pain, seeing that smile once again brought about memories of his training that he buried.
Before anyone can answer Cu, an enraged roar can be heard coming from the direction of the castle and approaching the group. Azula, seeing a charging Kintoki, duck's under the swipe of his maskari axe and punches him in the solar plexus, sending him flying back. Meanwhile the other masters retreated away from the pair to escape being caught in the crossfire.
"Azula,-" says Scathach. "-did you not claim that Kintoki was turned into magical energy by the Grail?"
"I did." replies Azula with a frown. "And I am almost certain that my scrying was successful."
"Ohoho." comes a giggling voice as Circe deastralizes next to a recovering Kintoki. "Did you truly expect for your scrying to go unnoticed when I, Circe, was summoned. It was simple to cast an illusion and make you see what you saw."
"Do you mean to tell me,-" comments Azula with a vicious smirk. "-that I was fooled by a short little pipsqueak like you, who doesn't have the sense to sleep once it's their bedtime."
Hearing Azula's words about her height, Circe cannot help but become enraged and prepares to retaliate. Before she can, however, Sakura appears behind said servant and grabs her by the neck and crushes a stone in her hand. Once crushed, the stone glows a faint blue light before transporting the duo away from the group and into an unknown location.
The action was so sudden that Kintoki, who has been prepared to once again launch himself at Azula, takes a second to process the disappearance of his comrade. His hesitation cost him however, as Azula takes the opportunity to launch herself at him and teleport them away, leaving Bazett, Rin, Scathach, and their servants behind.
"Well damn. There goes Jason's plan" comments Achilles as he deastralizes, his spear loosely held in one hand as it leans on his right shoulder. "Man you guys are really a troublesome bunch. First the bomb, then you guys destroy Jason's plan in seconds."
"Finally." replies Cu with a savage grin as he approaches Achilles. "I thought that I would have to come get you from the castle."
"Oh?" answers Achilles with a smirk as he cocks his head to the side. "Fine, we'll see who wins. I am Rider Achilles."
"And I'm Lancer Cu Chulainn." replies Cu as he summons Gae Bolg. "I hope that you can give me a good fight."
"Hehehe, I never thought that I'd be facing you of all people." chuckles Achilles. "So what are the rules? One on one combat, just skills, and to the death?"
"Sure." replies Cu with a shrug. "I wanna see which one of us is better."
With a smirk on his face, Achilles activates the duel field of his noble phantasm (Meteor Spear): Spear-tip of the Star Traversing the Skies. Upon its activation, the combatants are transported to a separate dimension outside of time that is comparable to a Reality Marble, so that when the duel within concludes, it will have lasted only a second from an outside perspective. Due to Hector not wishing to fight Achilles with the advantage of his immortality, he developed the ability so that they could evenly fight where inside the field all forms of immortality, including his, became moot.
Bazett, who has been observing the interaction behind Cu, cannot help but slightly worry about him. While she knows that he is the greatest hero to come from the Ulster Cycle, she also knows that he will be facing Achilles, one of the most famous heroes in the world. However, she decides to not interfere since this is what the original plan entailed, isolating Achilles so that Cu may defeat him.
Turning her attention back to the remaining participants of the war, she notices that Karna has arrived and is already battling Arjuna.Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Bazett slips the package that she has been carrying from her shoulders and gently places it on the floor. She opens it to reveal Ambrosius' second underhanded plot, the noble phantasm Fragarach.
Earlier in the day, while she was taking part in her morning exercise, Ambrosius pulled her aside to give her the order that she is about to execute. According to him, Karna possesses a noble phantasm that is always active, Kavacha and Kundala. It is an armor that reduces all damage inflicted upon Karna to one tenth of its power no matter what the source of said damage may be. This is where the Fraga family's noble phantasm comes into play.
Fragarach: Gouging Sword of the War God, also called Answerer: That Which Comes Later Cuts First and The Retaliator, is a Noble Phantasm and Mystic Code with the ultimate form of counterattack. It warps causality to always strike the opponent in the heart with a needle thin concentrated blast right before they unleash their ultimate attack. The condition for its use is that the opponent must use their strongest attack, and Fragarach must be used directly after the enemy's strike. It would normally be that Fragarach would kill the enemy, and the opponent's attack would also simultaneously destroy Bazett. However, this is not the function that she will be using. The second effect is far more suitable for this situation.
Fragarach is an "Ace-Killing Joker" and the "ultimate counter code" that responds to the "trump card" of the enemy, such as the Noble Phantasm of a Servant. Against passive trump card abilities that are constantly activated, such as Kavacha and Kundala, it can be used against them at any time, and against an attack used by a mount, like Bellerophon, it kills the Pegasus rather than the rider. If used in the proper conditions with the "Answerer effect", it activates as an A Rank attack after calling out both of its names. One major weakness is that it is useless against enemies without a special ability, such as an all-rounded magus like Caster.
Normally she lets a metal ball float in a diagonal rear movement a few meters behind her in anticipation of the enemy's trump card. However, considering the fact that the noble phantasm is already active, the attack begins. The ball glows and begins to be electrically charged and a blade is generated. By this point Karna and Arjuna's battle has reached its crescendo and Karna seems to be ready to dismiss his armor in order to use Vasavi Shakti. Meanwhile Arjuna seems to be preparing Parshupata to counter Karna. Calling out her noble phantasm's name, Bazett punches it towards the enemy for the strike. As the blade launches towards Karna, Bazett's glove and hand are burned as an aftereffect, and the sphere, as a one-use weapon, loses its grey color as well and drops to the floor. However, Bazett does not stop and repeats the process two more times, launching two more blades at Karna.
Like predicted, the blades turn into beams of light and pierce Karna's heart.
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Arjuna had not expected to meet Karna of all people in this Holy Grail War. While he answered the call of the summoning, it was due to the fact that he hoped to be able to use it to have his rematch with Karna. One can imagine his surprise however, when during yesterday's briefing it was mentioned that Karna was summoned. He had been looking forward to his battle with Karna especially when the faction's leader decreed that he would be facing his rival. Unfortunately, the excitement was short lived as it was later decreed that he would be receiving aid. So like a true hero, Arjuna remained silent, but unfortunately it is also part of his nature to plot on how to receive what he wants once he has been slighted. He even remained silent when it was mentioned that his faction had bombed the opposition, making him question their honor and whether or not he found himself on the 'evil' side.
When he and the group had arrived in the clearing, he had been glad to find out that the bomb did not have the desired effect that was reported. Since every servant of the enemy is very much still alive, then that means that he can face Karna on his own. After having dispensed of the pleasantries and having his master taken to a safe distance, Arjuna cannot help but follow Karna's lead and throw himself into the fight, which is how he finds himself dodging Karna's spear and retaliating with a kick to his opponent's chest that sends him flying a short distance away.
Recovering quickly, Karna launches himself into the sky before launching himself at Arjuna once again. However Arjuna has no intention of facing Karna on his terms and proceeds to shoot his fully powered Agni Gandiva at the approaching lancer.
Agni Gandiva: Flame God's Roar is one of the two Noble Phantasms of Arjuna. It is a Bow of Flames that essentially cannot be handled by humans (mortals), awarded to Arjuna by the Flame God, Agni. Normally just a regular bow, by activating its True Name, its arrow becomes a missile engulfed in flames. It is not a homing missile, but since Arjuna is an archery genius and possesses the Clairvoyance Skill, its precision is similar to that of a homing missile. It is also a noble phantasm that is capable of fully damaging Karna as if ignoring his armor.
Knowing this, Karna does not attempt to block nor does he tries to dodge, instead he makes use of his third noble phantasm Brahmastra Kundala. It is a Noble Phantasm obtained by Karna from the Brahman Parashurama, a projectile attack that is granted his fiery attribute and resembles fiery beams. Karna launches the projectiles at the incoming arrows canceling them out.
With renewed effort, Karna attempts to close the distance between him and Arjuna while dodging the standard arrows and canceling out the fully powered ones. As he reaches a few feet away from Arjuna, Arjuna increases his rate of fire and Karna is forced to take the full brunt of an arrow head on. While the damage is not crippling, nor does it hinder his performance, it is still a substantial amount and Karna is certain that his master does not possess enough magical energy to heal him.
Knowing that his armor is not of any use to him during this battle, and it serves as more of a hindrance due to it restricting him from utilising Vasavi Shakti, Karna prepares to remove it from his person.
Meanwhile Arjuna, who takes notice of Karna's action, readies himself to counter Vasavi Shakti with Pashupata. Before either of them can finish their actions, three beams of light pierce through Karna's heart, or at least that is what seems to have happened. With his clairvoyance, Arjuna is able to perceive Karna being teleported away as Circe appears next to him and completely heals him. At the same time, he notices his comrades, Medea and Sakura, appear next to him with frowns on their faces.
"What has happened?" questions Arjuna.
"The plan was a failure." replies Medea. "Circe managed to escape the barrier that was set up to separate her from her faction."
"It was my fault." claims Sakura. "I was the one who set up the barrier and forgot that she is a magician from the Age of Gods."
"It doesn't matter anymore." replies Medea. "From now on she will be reinforcing Karna to give him an edge in your battle. However, you don't have to worry, I will be reinforcing you to match him."
Arjuna simply nods and looks towards the direction from where the beams of light emerged. There he sees the woman named Bazett fighting a blond portly man, Gorde, along with what seems to be a dozen homunculi.
Turning his attention back to his opponent, Arjuna sees a recovered Karna approach.
"It seems that we will have to escalate our battle." comments Karna.
"Indeed." replies Arjuna. "Are you ready?"
As if given an unseen signal, the duo launch themselves at each other.
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As Medea watches Arjuna clash with Karna, she makes sure to reinforce him as much as possible while sometimes launching volatile balls of magical energy at Circe, and making sure to defend herself against Circe's ranged attacks.
"Maybe I should engage Circe in melee combat?" questions Sakura.
Medea glances at her master, who has managed to endear herself to her, and nods.
"Be careful." warns Medea.
Before Sakura can make her way to Circe, she is forced to dodge an overpowered Gandr shot.
"You will do no such things." comes a male voice from their right.
Looking at the direction of the attack, Medea sees Darnic Preston Yggdmillennia himself approaching them as he continuously launches curses at Sakura. Without saying a word, Sakura easily dodges his attacks and begins to retaliate with streams of fire and air towards him. Unfortunately, Darnic seems to have a defensive magecraft that blocks all of Sakura's attacks. This does not seem to worry Sakura however as she jumps into the air and launches a pillar of fire at Darnic with an axe kick. Seeing that Sakura has things well in hand, Medea turns her attention back to her own battle where Circe has begun to take control of the battlefield itself and is making use of illusions, curses, and poisons to affect Bazett, Rin, and Sakura.
Dodging one of Darnic's curses as she lands on the ground, Sakura begins her counterattack. Channeling magical energy throughout her body, Sakura performs a mana burst to close the distance between her and Darnic. Moving so fast that she appears to be teleporting to Darnic, Sakura arrives in front of him and coats her left hand in lightning as she drives it through his heart and uses her right hand to snap his neck. Once Darnic's body falls to the ground, Sakura turns her attention to Circe.
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Rin has never been involved in such a dangerous situation before, and her training certainly has not prepared her for it. The battle between servants is certainly a sight to see. She knew that servants were very much overpowered, especially the ones with old legends like Arjuna. However, knowing and experiencing are two different things. Their battles seem to be straight from the pages of a manga. What makes the situation worse is that she knows that the majority of her fellow masters can face them head on. Earlier this morning she saw the battle royal spar between the other masters and Cu Cuchlainn. Somehow they all managed to keep up with Lancer of all people in melee combat, and although she was not as powerful as the others, Sakura was able to keep up. Even if it was barely, it still makes Rin feel somewhat inadequate.
"Pay attention to your opponent." comes Scathach's voice from behind her and breaks her from her train of thought just in time to dodge an incoming metallic limb.
Her opponent is Fiore Yggdmillennia, heir to the Yggdmillennia family. Sometime after the beginning of Arjuna's battle with Karna, the majority of the masters of the Yggdmillennia family took to the field. Rin caught a glimpse of Darnic engaging Sakura while Gordes attacked Bazett with the aid of his homunculi. Meanwhile she is faced with the Yggdmillennia heir as an opponent.
Fiore Yggdmillennia's way of battle is utilising her wheelchair which she turns into four robotic limbs that are attached to her back. It is eerily reminiscent of Doctor Octopus from that American comic book she once read, which is why Rin is currently leading the battle back into the woods. Rin takes cover behind a tree just as Fiore pelts her previous standing spot full of bullet holes. With a frown on her face she climbs up the tree, turns back, and launches herself down at an unsuspecting Fiore. Unfortunately, she is suddenly struck with the worse she can possibly be imagined resulting in her losing her concentration and getting smacked back into the clearing by one of Fiore's metallic limbs. As she lands on the grass, Rin is struck by violent tremors across her body as the pain subsides. Without an impressive amount of effort, she stands back up and regards her opponent with a glare. Reinforcing her limbs once more, Rin sprints towards Fiore as she launches spells of Gandr and Fin shots at her adversary. Caught off guard, Fiore is unable to react allowing Rin to reach her. Without giving the poor girl time to react, Rin punches her on her left temple knocking her out.
"Not bad." comments Scathach as she approaches Rin. "You have plenty of potential. Even managing to fight through that curse that inflicts pain."
"Thank you." answers Rin with a slight blush. She didn't expect to be complimented by the wife of her idol of all people.
"Come." orders Scathach as she picks up the unconscious girl. "Bazett is almost finished with Gordes."
With a nod Rin follows her.
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As Bazett dodges another halberd, she cannot help but pour her frustrations into her counterattack punch. She doesn't know what annoys her the most, having to fight these homunculi and their weak master or the fact that she failed to kill Karna because Circe interfered. Maybe it's because her current enemies are distracting her from trying again, or maybe it's because of all the poisons and curses she would have fallen victim to if she wasn't protected by the runes inscribed on her suit. Even then, she can feel the amount of magical energy that she has reduced the longer the battle continues, thereby reducing the amount of times she can use Fragarach after she finishes with these annoyances.
Dodging the strike from the sole remaining homunculi, Bazett closes the distance between them and snaps his neck before he can react. Not bothering to pause, she runs past the corpse towards a panicking Gordes and launches a kick towards his face.
Before her foot can reach him however, Bazett is forced to retreat as Jason deastralises while swinging his sword at her leg.
"Tch, you're so useless that I have to take to the field just to save your life." comments Jason.
Jason makes to speak again, only to suddenly decide not to and grab Gordes as he dodges a bolt of lightning from Bazett.
Watching Jason dodge her attack causes Bazett to frown even more. Jason is the last servant that she wanted to encounter, not because of his combat prowess, but because of his skill Insight in the Jaws of Death. It's a skill that provides him with flashes of inspiration and foresight when acting to throw his life away, essentially making it so that he can survive any dangerous situation. While it doesn't increase his combat skills, it does increase his chances to survive by escaping or dodging attacks exponentially, and the more dangerous the situation is for him the better it works.
Before she can form a plan of attack, Gordes' body slumps the ground and blood can be seen leaking from his forehead.
"NO!" exclaims Jason. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"
Since they did not see the projectile, Bazett and Jason are forced to look around in order to spot the culprit. Soon enough two figures can be seen walking towards them from the left, Scathach and Rin.
"Fine." says Jason with gritted teeth as he takes a few steps away from Bazett. "Since I'm going to be taken out anyway, I might as well bring you with me. Astrapste Argo: The Dazzling Ship that Splits the Heavens."
Astrapste Argo: The Dazzling Ship that Splits the Heavens is Jason's Noble Phantasm, Reinforcement from the Argo. The heroes that sailed on the ship begin a simultaneous attack. Which is why as soon as Jason finishes calling the name of his noble phantasm, Berserker Heracles, Archer Atalanta, and Caster child Medea appear behind ready to attack. With a roar Heracles launches himself at Jason's opposition while Atalanta nocks her arrows, child Medea prepares a magical attack.
Before Heracles can reach far however, twelve Gae Bolgs impale him in fatal locations, immediately killing him. Following through with her previous attack, Scathach launches herself at Atalanta and child Medea with a Gae Bolg held in each hand. Atalanta attempts to evade by jumping back, unfortunately she is too slow and dies with a spear through her throat. Child Medea takes to the skies, but does not make it far as a Gae Bolg impales her through the heart.
"Dammit!" mutters Jason as he slowly dematerialises due to running out of magical energy after using it up to activate his noble phantasm.
"That was too close." comments Bazett.
"Yea." replies a dumbstruck Rin as she watches Scathach with admiration clear in her eyes.
"Come you two." orders Scathach as she makes her way towards where she can sense Medea and Sakura.
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Dodging Achilles' spear, Cu retaliates by stabbing his spear towards his opponent, only for it to be also dodged.
"You're pretty good." comments Achilles as he gathers himself.
"You're pretty good yourself." answers Cu.
They have been exchanging blows for an unknown amount of minutes, and so far no one has been able to decisively dominate the battle. It's as if their fighting styles were specifically designed to counter each other even though they are opposites. Not even Achilles' superior speed has been able to tilt the battle into his favor. Achilles' style takes the basics to an extreme level. It is simple yet effective with no wasted movements and making use of every part of the user's body. Cu's style however is anything but simple. It's savage and looks very impressive, almost as if the user has lost their senses and the only thing matters is their enemy. It makes full use of Cu's demi-god physique and takes it to the next level.
After settling themselves back into their fighting stances, the two warriors launch themselves at each other. Cu begins with a powerful swing of his spear that is redirected by Achilles who follows through with a stab towards Cu's opening. Cu tilts his head to dodge the spear as he collects his own and slashes at Achilles' shoulder tendon. Achilles, who had been prepared to turn his stab into a slash, is forced to abandon that route to block with his spear and leaves his stomach open. Cu takes the opportunity and sends Achilles flying with a kick. Achilles quickly recovers, jumps into the air, and throws his spear at Cu who is sprinting towards him. With his spear, Cu blocks his opponent's attack and sends the weapon back into the air. Making use of his impressive speed, Achilles follows his weapon and catches it.
"This is getting us nowhere." comments Cu.
"Yea, it looks like in terms of spearmanship we're pretty even." replies Achilles.
"Hand-to-hand?" asks Cu as he dismisses his spear and takes a fighting stance.
"Hand-to-hand." answers Achilles as he stabs his spear into the ground and follows Cu with a fighting stance.
Looking over his opponent, Achilles can't help but frown at the slight similarities between their fighting stances. However, with a shake of his head Achilles puts it out of his mind and rushes towards Cu. Cu's first move is a straight punch towards Achilles' face. Achilles tilts his head to dodge and retaliates with his own punch towards Cu's open left only to be surprised as Cu grabs his wrist and punches him in the solar plexus, knocking the breath from his lungs and breaking a few ribs. Cu follows through with a leg sweep towards Achilles' heel forcing him to hop back in defense.
"That fighting style." comments Achilles as he catches his breath.
"Once you reach your opponent,-" begins Cu with a smile.
"-be sure to destroy it." finishes Achilles with a smirk.
"That is the basis of Pankration." comment the two together.
"How do you know that?" asks Achilles.
"That old man taught me hand-to-hand combat. According to him some lady called Lupa taught him that." answers Cu.
"Lupa? Like the wolf goddess?" replies Achilles.
Cu merely shrugs in answer before rushing towards Achilles. Achilles lets him get close enough before jumping into the air and kicking towards his opponent's face. Cu weathers the assault to grab Achilles' left heel and attempt to break it. His opponent however launches another kick towards his temple, forcing Cu to let go.
As he lands on the ground Achilles launches his knee towards Cu's face, but his opponent raises his arms and blocks. Following through, Achilles launches an assault of punches at his opponent. Cu answers in kind by deflecting and sending his own punches that are also deflected. As it begins to look like every punch will be deflected, Cu sees an opening that he takes advantage of. Grabbing hold of Achilles' left arm, Cu snaps it at the elbow and follows through by sending his own elbow at Achilles' face. However, Achilles dodges the blow and kicks one of Cu's knees, snapping it.
Despite their injuries, the two do not stop fighting. Achilles sends a full powered punch towards Cu's left ribs snapping a few and sending them into his heart. In retaliation Cu grabs that very same arm and snaps it, then he proceeds to grab Achilles' neck and breaks it.
Exhausted and injured, the two retreat from each other with heavy breaths.
"I win." claims Cu as he sits on the floor.
"Barely." replies Achilles with a strained voice as he drops to the floor.
"You lost that battle as soon as I first punched you in the solar plexus." says Cu as he begins to cough blood.
"Yea." strains Achilles with a smirk. "Break… bones… into… heart. Happy… fight… you."
After saying his peace, Achilles' eyes close and his body breaks down into magical energy for the grail.
"Yea." replies Cu as he too is turned into magical energy.
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With an impassive face Karna blocks an arrow and fires his projectiles at Arjuna who also dodges. They had been fighting in this stalemate for a while now. Similar to their encounter before the interruption, not one of them has been able to hold the upper hand for long. The only time one of them has been able to truly gain the upper hand is when one of the caster's reinforcement would stop due to being put at a disadvantage in their own battle.
Dodging a thrust of Karna's spear, Arjuna retaliates by shooting Karna with fully powered Gandiva arrows on the chest, sending him flying. Recovering quickly, Karna takes to the skies.
"This is taking us nowhere. Perhaps it would be best to decide the winner with one final attack." says Karna.
"I agree." replies Arjuna as he also takes to the skies.
Noticing the duo's actions, Medea and Circe cease their actions on the battlefield and turn their full attention to reinforcing the two.
Raising his right hand into the air, Karna gathers as much magical energy as he can. As a result miles of land is burned to cinders as what seems to be a second sun appears above his head.
"I have enjoyed this battle between us rivals." comments Karna. "Should we meet again, let it be with the knowledge that a victor has officially been decided."
Floating until he becomes across from Karna, Arjuna also gathers as much magical energy as he can. Unlike Karna however, he gathers the magical energy into his hand and compresses it into a ball.
"Indeed, this battle has been most satisfactory." replies Arjuna.
With small smiles on their faces, Arjuna and Karna call upon their noble phantasms.
« "Holy Ground Expansion, Space Fixation, Divine Punishment Enforcement Period Establishment... All Clear. By Shiva's wrath, your life ends here..."
"Pashupata!!! »
« "My father, I ask for your forgiveness. For the first and last time."
"End everything, Vasavi... Shakti! »
The two demi-gods release their noble phantasms into giant beams that clash with each other, neither one willing to submit. However, as the clash continues both fighters suddenly find themselves out of magical energy, cancelling their noble phantasms. At the same time, two beams of light pierce their hearts, killing them.
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Finding Circe is proving to be harder than Sakura thought it would be. The child like Caster has turned the entire clearing and the castle into her territory with Territory Creation. This certainly explains why she was able to teleport straight here after breaking through Sakura's barrier. As a humble person Sakura may never admit it, but her magecraft is only below the likes of her teacher Azula, Morgan, Scathach and other magus of that caliber. That is to say that no one from this era can defeat her in a battle of magecraft. Then again Circe is not even a magus, she is a magician from the Age of Gods. One who is on par with Medea of all people.
"Pluto. Jupiter." whispers Sakura as she activates her magic circuits and concentrates on finding her foe.
The arias that she whispered, Pluto and Jupiter, are the arias needed to utilize her personally invented spells, The Olympia's. Being raised by Azula, Sakura has heard countless stories of the Greek and Roman gods to the point that she could name them based only on their personalities. She also became fascinated with their abilities and has researched on ways to replicate them. While she hasn't truly replicated them, she has been able to replicate aspects of their powers. Jupiter for example can be used for simple lightning manipulation or creating a full on lightning storm. And while some may seem like simple elemental manipulation, they are actually more powerful than any elemental spell of modern magecraft.
Sensing the wind with Jupiter, and the ground with Pluto, Sakura is able to easily find Circe flying to her right.
"Mercury." whispers Sakura as she takes off towards the Caster with a speed that would be impressive even to a Lancer.
Arriving near Circe, Sakura makes use of her spell 'Diana' which creates a bow that is capable of shooting arrows of any variation, from pure magical energy to curses, or poisons. Not only are the arrows versatile, but she also knows from testing that they can't be sensed, not even by a Caster of Medea's level. While Circe seems occupied with her battle against Medea, and reinforcing Karna as much as possible, Sakura shoots her with three arrows. One to the head, a second through the neck and a final one to the heart, killing her.
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"Was that necessary?" asks Rin as she looks on as Karna and Arjuna turn to magical energy from losing their links to their masters and due to having a Fragarach blade killing them.
"Yes." replies Bazett as she puts away the noble phantasm.
"Do you feel Setanta's link?" asks Scathach to Bazett.
"It was broken a few minutes ago." she replies solemnly.
"I see, and judging by the fact that Achilles has not assaulted us then that means that the battle was mutually destructive." answers Scathach as everyone nods in affirmative. "Then that leaves, Gilgamesh, Ozymandias, Mordred, Circe, the berserkers and the assassins."
"Circe is dead." claims Sakura as she approaches the group. "While she was occupied with her battle against Medea, I killed her."
"One assassin, and one berserker." says Morgan as she teleports in front of the group with Reika, Kiritsugu, Mordred, and Jack, and throws an unconscious Roche and Caules to the floor.
"Actually." calls out Azula as she too appears before the group. "Make that zero berserkers."
"What happened to Li Shuwen and Caligula?" asks Scathach.
"After we destroyed the remains of the homunculi chamber, disposed of the vermin Celenike,-" says Morgan as she begins to explain "-and captured these two, he decided that he had spent enough time in the land of the living. So to receive his wish of once more participating in a worthy battle, he challenged Mordred to a one on one battle. One that she easily won."
"As for Caligula,-" says Azula as she looks at her nails. "-well the battle between him and Kintoki made him even more mad. So I had to put him down after his victory."
"I see." replies Scathach. "Then that only leaves Ozymandias and Gilgamesh."
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"My, what a boring performance." says Gilgamesh as he looks at the television that displayed the events of the Holy Grail War. "It is good that you are here to provide me with ample entertainment King of Kings."
"Indeed." replies Ozymandias as he and Gilgamesh stand from their collective seats. "Now that the teaser is over, perhaps it is time for the main event."
"Hahaha."laughs Gilgamesh. "Perhaps it is best that we skip the 'warm up' Sun King." says Gilgamesh. "Watching these mongrels has made me weary, and I wish to quickly finish this."
"HAHAHA.Very well, Golden King." answers Ozymandias with his own boisterous laugh. "If it is a swift battle that you wish, then it is a swift battle you shall have. I shall give you a reward, lightless one."
« "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and bow down! My infinite brilliance. The sun descends here! "Ramesseum Tentyris"! »
As Ozymandias finishes summoning his noble phantasm, my hotel floor is replaced with his reality marble, Ramesseum Tentyris.
"This is Ramesseum Tentyris: The Shining Great Temple Complex." boasts Ozymandias as he opens his arms in presentation. "It is my greatest trump card, similar to and a kind of Reality Marble. The Great Temple Complex, the might of the Pharaoh Ozymandias, embodied as a Noble Phantasm. It is the manifestation of how I, the glorious Pharaoh, contains within my body the various Egyptian gods, thus it contains a number of mystics."
Inside the temple a number of divine protections and curses take effect. The first is a divine protection that grants immortality to Ozymandias and his Guardian Beasts, making total destruction of both the temple and Ozymandias himself necessary to defeat him. The second is a divine curse of an Ancient Egyptian Divine Spirit that acts as poison to any invaders, killing typical creatures in two seconds and weakening Servants by ranking down their parameters and occasionally weakening some of their Skills. The third and final is a curse of the gods that stops enemies from activating Noble Phantasms by sealing them. However, should one possess a high enough divinity, then the curse becomes moot.
"Truly an impressive structure." proclaims Gilgamesh. "Yet, can it withstand the power of my ultimate noble phantasm?"
As Gilgamesh speaks, a golden portal opens above his hand and the golden handle of a sword emerges from it. Unlike a regular sword, the blade of the sword has no edge and is instead rounded like a tournament lance. The tip also is not sharp and is instead flat. Surrounding the rounded blade are intricate red patterns over the black background.
Looking at the weapon, I can feel my godly powers over weapons attempting to comprehend what it is that I find in front of me. However, no matter how much it tries all I can feel is gibberish and a terrible migraine. Eventually I decide to turn away from that abomination and instead focus on the Golden King himself.
« I have enjoyed myself in your presence King of Kings, as such I shall allow you the pleasure of witnessing this.
I speak of genesis. The elements amalgamate, coalesce, and bring forth the star that weaves all of creation. Pay homage in death. Enuma Elish! »
As Gilgamesh nears the end of his aria, every single one of my senses scream for me to leave. Never one to ignore my danger sense, I immediately activate one of my trump cards, a teleportation array that is designed to allow me to leave Reality Marbles. I feel space twist as I am ejected from Ramesseum Tentyris and arrive in the teleportation chamber of my castle. As I catch my breath, I feel sweat roll down my brow and realise how close to death I just was. Wiping the sweat from my brow I focus on the teleportation marker that I placed in the hotel and activate it.
Arriving outside of the hotel, I notice that nothing seems to be out of place, not even my floor is destroyed.
"Planeswalker." calls out Gilgamesh as he walks out of the hotel. "As a show of respect towards the Sun King, I elected to swiftly kill him and leave the building undamaged. You may be thankful. As for you… Well, I see no better time than now to finish this so called Holy Grail War. Come, show me your worth."
As Gilgamesh finishes his statement, countless golden portals appear and fire noble phantasms at me. With a smirk on my face I summon my trident and proceed to deflect and block every weapon thrown at me while my divine powers from Bellona proceed to read and record every weapon that I lay my eyes upon.
As I dodge more weapons, the quality of the noble phantasms increase until I find myself satisfied with the variety of weapons that I will now be able to conjure. With renewed effort I begin to fight back by approaching him.
"An adequate performance mongrel, you may yet be worthy of my respect." says Gilgamesh as he summons more portals.
Knowing what earning Gilgamesh's respect entails, and wanting absolutely nothing to do with it, I decided to stop holding back and completely speed blitz him. Before he can process what has happened I appear before and drive my trident through his throat, killing him.
- Location
- RS,brasil
ah the Edmond Dantès strategy to combat Gill
- Pronouns
- KingPenguin
When is this getting updated cause I need more
Sorry about the lack of updates. I'm trying to write an aftermath chapter with them relaxing at the beach before going to the next world, but I can't seem to get it right
- Location
- Tampa Florida
Any spoils on what's the next world cause I'd like to know just in case idk the verse
DC Universe. At first it was going to be mainly Young Justice, but I've decided to just use DC as a base while drawing inspiration from different sources. So some characters and stories while be similar to the comic books while others will be similar to the animated universe
Pre-DC Universe
AN: Alright, so this chapter was supposed to be an aftermath chapter with the main characters relaxing on his private island's beach. Unfortunately it wasn't working out, and the chapter just wasn't good at all, no matter how I tried to write it. So I decided to scrap it for now in favor of bringing you guys a better chapter with the same concept sometime later in the story. As for updates, I'm going to try to go back to one chapter per day instead of one chapter a week. This next world is the DC Universe. Originally it was supposed to be Young Justice, but I've decided to take inspirations from different sources like comics and animated shows with the Young Justice show serving as a base for the world. So expect some character origins from different sources
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Name: Ambrosius Malphas
Gender: Male
Age: ~2000 (Looks 27)
Height: 5'11
Hair Color: White
Eye Color: Crimson Red
Build: Medium
Body Type: Athlete
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: EX
Endurance: EX
Agility: EX
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: B+
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: Runes
Elemental Affinity: Divine Letters
Sorcery Trait: Rune God
Metavore: Retain physically fit body no matter how much or what you eat as long as it's enough to keep from becoming malnourished
Cosmic Warehouse:
Belt O' Tools: Batman graciously seems to have loaned you a belt containing the tools that he'll be using for this adventure. This includes stuff like remotely applied explosives gel capable of bringing down walls (though never seems to kill when blown up near someone's feet), to a cryptographic sequencer able to track signals, hack terminals, and listen to live radio broadcasts. ...How did he know you'd be needing this stuff?
Animal Suit: A high tech set of body armor themed after an animal of your choice (DCAMU Damian Wayne Robin suit). The head piece contains advanced electronics equipment that scans the environment for information and clues relevant to the situation. It can pick up anything from gaseous alcohol molecules that'll lead you to a crooked guard, to traces of tobacco on the ground to lead you to a hostage. You may also import a set of armor you already own to gain these qualities.
Bat Wing: Hmm, seems like you've picked up one of Batman's spare vehicles. The Batwing is a supersonic aircraft faster than many jet fighters, possess advanced stealth systems that make it invisible to radar, and can be operated remotely, or operate autonomously.
Bat Cave: A series of platforms and bridges situated within a small cave. Contains a computer with immense analytical abilities, a landing platform for any aerial vehicles you have, and some workshops for working on gadgets and gizmos. After the jump this can either be attached to the warehouse, or will appear somewhere nearby.
Assistant VI: Top of the line assistant model Virtual Intelligence. Can be stored in an omni-tool and keep track of large amounts of data.
Weapon Locker: Cache of mid to high grade weapons of all types. Enough to outfit a battlelion.
Armor Locker: Cache of mid to high grade armor of all types. Enough to outfit a battlelion.
Conflict Minerals: Massive stash of various rare elements.
Fine Clothes: A very fine and ornate set of clothing. The equivalent of the finest you'd expect to get in your starting region.
Land Deed: A deed to an area of land close by in your chosen region. It will be accepted by all authorities as rightfully yours. This updates each jump but is generally not a particularly large plot of land elsewhere.
Dragonglass Cache: A black cloak with a few obsidian dagger, arrowheads, and spearheads.
Poison: A woman's weapon to be sure, but it can't be beaten for efficiency or for matters of subterfuge.You have a replenishing chest of poisons from around the known world. From vials of the Tears of Lys to Sweetsleep to crystals of the Stranger. There is bound to be one that suits your purpose.
Valyrian Steel Spear: An excellent weapon of your choice made from Valyrian steel. Light and exceptionally sharp. Serves as a symbol of status. Gives an impression of great strength and brings dread to your enemies. (It looks like Gungnir from Thor 2011 movie)
Companions:
Custos - Black panther (can import for free)
Azula (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Scathach (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Morgan Le Fay (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Mordred Pendragon (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Psionic (-400 cp): You are able to read surface thoughts and emotions of creatures. You are also able to perform mild telekinesis of up to 300 lbs. Even mentally nudging someone to do something. Trained creatures or those who have a strong will can resist your powers. With long years of meditation and training you can improve your powers
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp): You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
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Name: Azula
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown (Looks 27)
Height: 5'10
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Gold
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: B
Endurance: A
Agility: A
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Javelin (-400 cp): : A ship capable of traveling underwater and into deep space. Has enough room to seat 6 comfortably. Lightly armored, armed with advanced laser weapons, and equipped with a wormhole generator.
Lair (-100 cp): You possess a secret lair. It has a computer similar to the BatComputer, a vehicle pad, and multiple secret entrances to use to your liking.
Small Fortune (-100 cp from Azula, -50 cp from Ambrosius) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
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Name: Scathhach
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown (Looks 27)
Height: 5'9
Hair Color: Purple
Eye Color: Crimson Red
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: A
Endurance: EX
Agility: EX
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Deep Breath (-200 cp): You can breathe in water, the pressures of the ocean no longer bother you, an exceptional swimmer, and able to communicate underwater clearly.
Items:
Arsenal (-50 cp): – You have an arsenal of mundane weapons such as swords or throwing stars.
Lair (-100 cp): You possess a secret lair. It has a computer similar to the BatComputer, a vehicle pad, and multiple secret entrances to use to your liking.
Small Fortune (-150 cp) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
Motherbox (-300 cp): A small highly advanced living computer from New Genesis. Capable of scanning and copying sources of information such as books, computers, and even the internet allowing for later viewing of the information. If the user is severely injured it can offer short term medical care to prevent death. It is extremely loyal to you.
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Name: Morgan Le Fay
Gender: Female
Age: ~1500 (Looks 27)
Height: 5'9
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Green
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: B
Endurance: B
Agility: A
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Psionic (-400 cp): You are able to read surface thoughts and emotions of creatures. You are also able to perform mild telekinesis of up to 300 lbs. Even mentally nudging someone to do something. Trained creatures or those who have a strong will can resist your powers. With long years of meditation and training you can improve your powers.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
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Name: Mordred Pendragon
Gender: Female
Age: Biologically 7 (Looks 14)
Height: 5'0
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Green
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: A
Endurance: A
Agility: A
Magical Resistance: B
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: ?
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 12
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Deep Breath (-200 cp): You can breathe in water, the pressures of the ocean no longer bother you, an exceptional swimmer, and able to communicate underwater clearly.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Skills:
Master Detective (-100 cp): You can't always be at a place at the right time to stop a crime. You are exceptionally skilled at finding clues, and piecing them together.
Master Planner (-150 cp): You have a way of putting some of the best plans together. You can look at problems and quickly put together a plan to deal with it in the best manner possible. That doesn't mean you have the resources to pull it off though.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp): You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well
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Name: Ambrosius Malphas
Gender: Male
Age: ~2000 (Looks 27)
Height: 5'11
Hair Color: White
Eye Color: Crimson Red
Build: Medium
Body Type: Athlete
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: EX
Endurance: EX
Agility: EX
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: B+
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: Runes
Elemental Affinity: Divine Letters
Sorcery Trait: Rune God
Metavore: Retain physically fit body no matter how much or what you eat as long as it's enough to keep from becoming malnourished
Cosmic Warehouse:
Belt O' Tools: Batman graciously seems to have loaned you a belt containing the tools that he'll be using for this adventure. This includes stuff like remotely applied explosives gel capable of bringing down walls (though never seems to kill when blown up near someone's feet), to a cryptographic sequencer able to track signals, hack terminals, and listen to live radio broadcasts. ...How did he know you'd be needing this stuff?
Animal Suit: A high tech set of body armor themed after an animal of your choice (DCAMU Damian Wayne Robin suit). The head piece contains advanced electronics equipment that scans the environment for information and clues relevant to the situation. It can pick up anything from gaseous alcohol molecules that'll lead you to a crooked guard, to traces of tobacco on the ground to lead you to a hostage. You may also import a set of armor you already own to gain these qualities.
Bat Wing: Hmm, seems like you've picked up one of Batman's spare vehicles. The Batwing is a supersonic aircraft faster than many jet fighters, possess advanced stealth systems that make it invisible to radar, and can be operated remotely, or operate autonomously.
Bat Cave: A series of platforms and bridges situated within a small cave. Contains a computer with immense analytical abilities, a landing platform for any aerial vehicles you have, and some workshops for working on gadgets and gizmos. After the jump this can either be attached to the warehouse, or will appear somewhere nearby.
Assistant VI: Top of the line assistant model Virtual Intelligence. Can be stored in an omni-tool and keep track of large amounts of data.
Weapon Locker: Cache of mid to high grade weapons of all types. Enough to outfit a battlelion.
Armor Locker: Cache of mid to high grade armor of all types. Enough to outfit a battlelion.
Conflict Minerals: Massive stash of various rare elements.
Fine Clothes: A very fine and ornate set of clothing. The equivalent of the finest you'd expect to get in your starting region.
Land Deed: A deed to an area of land close by in your chosen region. It will be accepted by all authorities as rightfully yours. This updates each jump but is generally not a particularly large plot of land elsewhere.
Dragonglass Cache: A black cloak with a few obsidian dagger, arrowheads, and spearheads.
Poison: A woman's weapon to be sure, but it can't be beaten for efficiency or for matters of subterfuge.You have a replenishing chest of poisons from around the known world. From vials of the Tears of Lys to Sweetsleep to crystals of the Stranger. There is bound to be one that suits your purpose.
Valyrian Steel Spear: An excellent weapon of your choice made from Valyrian steel. Light and exceptionally sharp. Serves as a symbol of status. Gives an impression of great strength and brings dread to your enemies. (It looks like Gungnir from Thor 2011 movie)
Companions:
Custos - Black panther (can import for free)
Azula (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Scathach (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Morgan Le Fay (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
Mordred Pendragon (must always import. In exchange can import for free)
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Psionic (-400 cp): You are able to read surface thoughts and emotions of creatures. You are also able to perform mild telekinesis of up to 300 lbs. Even mentally nudging someone to do something. Trained creatures or those who have a strong will can resist your powers. With long years of meditation and training you can improve your powers
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp): You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
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Name: Azula
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown (Looks 27)
Height: 5'10
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Gold
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: B
Endurance: A
Agility: A
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Javelin (-400 cp): : A ship capable of traveling underwater and into deep space. Has enough room to seat 6 comfortably. Lightly armored, armed with advanced laser weapons, and equipped with a wormhole generator.
Lair (-100 cp): You possess a secret lair. It has a computer similar to the BatComputer, a vehicle pad, and multiple secret entrances to use to your liking.
Small Fortune (-100 cp from Azula, -50 cp from Ambrosius) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
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Name: Scathhach
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown (Looks 27)
Height: 5'9
Hair Color: Purple
Eye Color: Crimson Red
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: A
Endurance: EX
Agility: EX
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Deep Breath (-200 cp): You can breathe in water, the pressures of the ocean no longer bother you, an exceptional swimmer, and able to communicate underwater clearly.
Items:
Arsenal (-50 cp): – You have an arsenal of mundane weapons such as swords or throwing stars.
Lair (-100 cp): You possess a secret lair. It has a computer similar to the BatComputer, a vehicle pad, and multiple secret entrances to use to your liking.
Small Fortune (-150 cp) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
Motherbox (-300 cp): A small highly advanced living computer from New Genesis. Capable of scanning and copying sources of information such as books, computers, and even the internet allowing for later viewing of the information. If the user is severely injured it can offer short term medical care to prevent death. It is extremely loyal to you.
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Name: Morgan Le Fay
Gender: Female
Age: ~1500 (Looks 27)
Height: 5'9
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Green
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: B
Endurance: B
Agility: A
Magical Resistance:
Age of Gods Magic: A
Modern Magic: Complete immunity
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: Average One
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 27
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Psionic (-400 cp): You are able to read surface thoughts and emotions of creatures. You are also able to perform mild telekinesis of up to 300 lbs. Even mentally nudging someone to do something. Trained creatures or those who have a strong will can resist your powers. With long years of meditation and training you can improve your powers.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp) : You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Mordred Pendragon
Gender: Female
Age: Biologically 7 (Looks 14)
Height: 5'0
Hair Color: Blond
Eye Color: Green
Stats (Without Enhancements)
Strength: A
Endurance: A
Agility: A
Magical Resistance: B
Origin: ?
Elemental Affinity: ?
DC Universe
https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1408477495304.pdf
1000 cp to spend
Age: 12
Drop in: You start off in the middle of your starting city. No one knows you or what you can do.
Powers:
Regeneration (-200 cp): You heal very quickly and are difficult to truly kill. Even limbs and certain organs can be regenerated. Most wounds will heal in seconds with more grievous injuries taking a few minutes. Organs and limbs take up to a couple of hours to regrow.
Deep Breath (-200 cp): You can breathe in water, the pressures of the ocean no longer bother you, an exceptional swimmer, and able to communicate underwater clearly.
Mental Resistance (-200 cp): Maybe you have a strong sense of self, maybe you have magical protections, or maybe you're really good at picturing a brick wall. Whatever it is, you have proven to be capable of defending against the strongest of mental assaults and intrusions.
Skills:
Master Detective (-100 cp): You can't always be at a place at the right time to stop a crime. You are exceptionally skilled at finding clues, and piecing them together.
Master Planner (-150 cp): You have a way of putting some of the best plans together. You can look at problems and quickly put together a plan to deal with it in the best manner possible. That doesn't mean you have the resources to pull it off though.
Items:
Small Fortune (-150 cp): You have $10,000,000 in the bank. You also gain a decent sized home and even a butler to maintain it. You have the contacts to get a nice paying job. You can choose to have the secret identity benefits as well
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