Chapter 12: The Gang Recommits the Original Sin
"Alright, let's get the lead out!" Trent roared as he ushered his group out of the crypt. "We got almost no time, and little in the way of use for it! Let's go, go, go!"
Carmilla shook her head as she strode out after him, amusement plain as day on her features. "Honestly, it's almost amusing to see you so enthused, Master."
Kairi snorted. "'Amusing' isn't the word I'd've used, but Blackmore summoned you for a reason, I guess."
"My Master and I've quite the odd compatibility, something that I've noted before, to his chagrin," the vampiress responded, a haughty smile on her features.
Trent huffed a little as he prepared yet more familiars and feathers as weapons. "I'd normally be quite happy to have good compatibility with a beautiful woman, but we've got it for all the wrong reasons, sweetie."
"Quite," the Assassin responded with a chuckle.
Mordred broke in with an impatient growl, "Less talking, more moving! I've been waiting this whole damn war for a good fight, and like
hell I'm missing the final battle!"
"Oh, hush, Mordred, this is hardly the time to fly off the handle all gung-ho! We must be precise with this, because holy shit are we in trouble!" the blond replied, getting ready to roll out. "Where the fuck are the others?"
Even as he asked this, they turned a corner out into the clearing, where Chiron and Fiore stood, waiting for them. Fiore seemed to be telling her Servant something, but as the group approached the duo, Fiore gave a decisive nod and walked over to Trent, a determined look on her face. He noticed that she was wearing her Mystic Code on her back, though it was yet to be deployed.
"Glad to have the two of you with us! Are Fran, Caules, Jekyll and Johan sticking here for the moment while we roll the vanguard?" the Canuck asked, feathers spilling out of his pockets by the bucket-load.
Fiore nodded. "The doctor is going to need a bit of time to modify his formula, and he said that having Fran on-hand is important for him making sure he gets it right. My brother wants to stay behind because he's a worrywart, and Johan doesn't want to risk getting killed early and cutting off the mana to our only way of killing Adam."
"Well, I suppose that makes sense," Trent remarked, trying to get everything puzzled out. "We all ready to hit the road? Carmy, you'll need to go PC so you can get the drop on el Hermano de Arjuna."
"The fact that I can't even find fault with your statement irks me, though it's necessary," Carmilla replied as she faded out of view, a grimace of distaste on her beautiful visage.
Looking around at the group, Trent clambered into the back seat of Kairi's car and all but yelled, "C'mon, nerds, we got a Primordial to murder!"
In the deepest corner of the crypt that the White Faction had commandeered, Doctor Jekyll brewed a fell philter to unleash the latent power sleeping within Frankenstein's Monster. Despite the seemingly ominous nature of the setting and the events occuring, the process involved no striking lightning, no bubbling cauldrons of unnatural ooze and a below-average number of maniacal cackles.
No, the process was incredibly mundane, so much so that Caules was struggling to keep his eyes open. Johan, for his part, was focusing on his tome, finally having the downtime to see if there was anything within it that would be both useful
and something he could figure out how to use in the time they had left.
Results...weren't very promising.
Fran, meanwhile, was just sitting on a coffin beside Jekyll's work space, swinging her metal-capped legs and humming under her breath.
After a little over an hour, during which time Caules
had fallen asleep and Johan managed to find a single work of Magecraft that would be of
some use, Jekyll straightened from where he'd been poring over his makeshift lab, a smoking vial carefully held in his gloved fingers.
"It is done," he said reverently. "I give you, the Extract of Variable Ethos, designed with the idea of bringing out and maximizing the 'Eve' nature that was left in Fran by Victor."
Caules, who'd snapped awake at the good doctor's words, asked, "And you're certain it will work?"
Jekyll frowned. "Nothing is ever
certain, least of all an experimental process such as this." He looked Caules in the eyes, a firm resolve sharpening his gentlemanly features. "However, I have put every bit of knowledge, skill and effort available to me into making this work; if it does not, all is lost."
Caules opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, a firm, humming growl came from Fran, who'd hopped down off of the coffin and walked over to the two of them. She patted Caules' shoulder, then grabbed the vial from Jekyll's hand and tossed it back like a six-time drinking contest champion with a jello shot.
Johan watched in a mix of awe and shock as light engulfed Fran's body. As it faded, her hair grew at an accelerated pace, green shooting through it as her eyes glowed a soft crimson from behind the curtain of her emerald tinged bangs. There was a sharp cracking noise as her entire body shifted and grew, her arms and legs lengthening as their metal casings fell away in pieces. She let out a grunt as greenery started to overtake and consume her clothing, making it look more like a barbarian's wardrobe put together from scraps of cloth and vines while spores of luminescence fell around her. The metal horn upon her head shattered as an osseous substitute erupted from the skin on her forehead, small and unintelligible runes carved into the bone. Finally, there was her mace; instead of the contraption of steel, it looked more like the limb of a tree, torn off and covered in apple blossoms, despite its bulbous head.
"Now we. Go," Fran—no,
Eve said, her voice stilted but clear and bright. The sound of her voice filled Masters and Servant alike with a sense of lightness as an intangible but all too real blanket of maternal love settled onto their shoulders.
And so, go they did.
The air of the field was alight with frenetic energy as Mordred, Siegfried and Karna clashed, the Son of Surya lashing out with volcanic gouts of flame to try and force them away from Achilles, who was busy holding back Eden. The Knight of Betrayal let out a roar of anger as crimson lightning flashed between her and the Lancer, who simply absorbed the attack while parrying a slash capable of sundering mountains from Siegfried.
The Hero of Charity let out a hum of approval as he fought them, relishing the fight despite the fact that his orders to defeat anything trying to stop Eden clashed with his desire to battle to his fullest. "Truly, I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to battle with warriors such as you, even should my orders conflict with actually fighting with all my might."
Seigfreid remained impassive in the face of this remark, but Mordred
erupted, slashing at her opponent with abandon. "The hell d'you say to me?! You pale bastard, I've heard about you, you're just some shitty knock-off of that Gorilla!"
Karna arched an eyebrow as he turned back the assault. "Is that so, Saber? I cannot say that I know of who you speak, but I assure you, I am no 'knock-off' of any kind."
"Feh! You ain't hot shit! So just hurry up and die on my sword already!" the Saber of Red roared back as she let out another wave of red lightning, trying to crush the Lancer. Simultaneously, Seigfried lunged forward with a slash at Karna's flank, letting out a loud cry of effort as he did so.
Undeterred, the Son of Surya twirled his spear, a banner of flame intercepting the crimson lightning even as the gleaming golden spear turned aside the silver blade of Balmung. "Regrettably, I must decline. I have my orders, and I cannot allow myself to fall until my Master's will is realized. I must ask that
you perish, instead." With that statement, Karna pulled back his spear, white flames engulfing it as he intoned,
"O' Brahmastra, Curse Me…
"
Brahmastra Kundala!"
The field was suddenly lit up as if it was midday, Mordred forced to try and contend with the blast as the attack bore down upon her. Siegfried appeared beside her, Balmung held to guard the attack, and with their combined might they deflected it toward Adam, where it simply fizzled out.
Meanwhile, within Castle Yggdmillennia, a venomous woman with piss-yellow eyes and a shaggy grey ponytail glared at her Servant. "I don't
care!" She snapped. "If you don't at least
try, it's
my ass on the line. Now use your Noble Phantasm and
get out there!"
Astolfo cocked his head to one side, causing his pink braid to flop to one side. "I meeeeean, I guess I can? But listen, Master, look at it this way? You can experience all sorts of new things if I don't do it! Think about it, you could try having a stake shoved through your hands, or your neck, or your chest! It's a neat experience!"
Celenike, fool that she was, took this as an insult, rather than the genuine suggestion that it was, and turned an unhealthy shade of puce. An incoherent mix between a growl and a shriek escaped her throat, and Astolfo turned and ran, preferring to brave the ravages of Eden to facing the anger of his Master.
"Let's go!" he yelled out,
"Otherworldly Phantom Horse!"
He leapt into the air, and a pillar of light appeared between his legs.
"Hippogriff!"
A majestic beast, a cross between an eagle and a horse, appeared such that Astolfo landed perfectly astride its back, and a pair of massive wings pummeled the air. Moments later, Rider of Black crashed through the front doors of Castle Yggdmillennia, erupting into the field of effect of Eden. Even as its corrosive, transformative energy closed around rider and steed, Astolfo yelled, "Dimensional Shift!"
And then everything went sideways, inside out, and backwards.
The Rider flew through the field, somehow managing to teleport through it and out the other side, while upside down. He flailed his arms, staying attached to the Hippogriff's back through the sheer strength of his thighs. "Ah! Master, it didn't work! I told you it wouldn't work! Maybe you should try! Your entire bad bitch with a bad attitude schtick might let you break through! You're a big snake in the grass after all! Also, cobras are deadly, but I survived, even after one bit me down low when I was taking a piss!"
A telepathic shriek pierced his cranium, before his Master snarled,
"Look around you!"
"Oh," Astolfo looked around at the melee, despite being upside down, and after a few moments of thought,
again despite he and the Hippogriff being upside down, pounded a fist down on the flat of his hand. "Talk about flying out of the frying pan and into the flapjack pit!"
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a head of blonde hair (which was attached to a rather shapely armored woman's body), and dived down to meet with the Servant that could only be Ruler, (of course still upside down). "Hi Ruler! I made an attempt! Tell my mean Master I made an attempt! She's gonna do all sortsa weird stuff, like whip me, stab me, and ride me like she does little boy corpses! Meanwhile, I'd much rather ride you like my hippogriff here."
Jeanne flushed, then shook her head. "Now is hardly the time for tomfoolery, Rider of Black. But now that you have arrived, you may as well make yourself useful." She turned to regard the treeline, from which Jekyll and the Eve-ified Fran emerged. "I need you to take Berserker of White over the peak of Eden and drop her on Adam."
Ignoring the byplay between the two, Karna kept up his attempts to get past Mordred and Siegfried, absentmindedly batting aside a jar, which immediately shattered. The hissing, electric blue paste inside it splashed out and covered his front from the waist down, earning a sharp intake of breath from him as he tried to fight through the terrible pain of having his dick burned off by acid on the level of what nearly choked Shiva.
"Roger that!" the paladin chirped as the hippogriff flipped over and winged above Jekyll, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Alright, mister noodle-man! I dunno what's going to happen, but I'm sure you'll mess up Adam! Berserkers work like nonsense, right? So I get it! You and me are hedgehogs of the same hoof!"
Jekyll flailed a bit, then gestured to Eve. "Not me, her! I may be frail in this form, but a woman I am
not."
"I mean, I'm not one either, but people get me confused for one all the time! It must be because I'm so cute! I should go on a world tour someday!" As he cheered that, the hippogriff let go of Jekyll and grabbed Fran of its own volition, sharing a pained look with Ruler. It then shot into the air, earning a whoop from Astolfo as he was nearly bent backwards by the g-forces, the Eve-influenced Fran letting out a sharp sound as the head of her mace started flashing with incandescent might.
As they reached the apex of the flight, it let her loose, sending her blasting towards Adam with her weapon reared back. "The Earth. Remembers! All Humanity. Remembers! Adam, fall! This is it, the beginning. Of Humanity's journey, without gods! The First Sin, once again!
Blasted Empyrean Fruit Tree – The First Stone Against God!"
Adam looked up at the beacon of heretical light thundering towards him, his expression changing for the first time as his mouth opened, and he let out three words.
"Eve, welcome home."
