Snorri Klausson of Clan Winterhearth Complains About Cities and Adopts Three Children
(A Fate/Grand Order Crossover)
If you were to ask Snorri Klausson of Clan Winterhearth what he was feeling at the moment, it would be a rather even split between confusion and grouchiness. Confusion, for he had suddenly awoken in this smoldering, wrecked Hold of a style thoroughly unknown to him, clad in Barak Azamar and Skarrenbakraz with Zharrgal and Karaz-Kazak-Rhun holstered at his hips, and grouchy because the beardlings who must've built this place clearly had no understanding of the proper way things are done!
Look at these buildings! Placed with no rhyme or reason or any consideration to good hold planning! No clear demarcation between zones of business, zones of pleasure, and zones of residence! There weren't any
outer walls! How were you meant to properly defend this place? What's with all the Valaya-damned
glass? Not only is that
not a sturdy building material, how is anybody supposed to have any
privacy? Even if this place
wasn't clearly dilapidated and damaged, he'd still be harboring thoughts of taking whichever fool of a beardling plotted all this out over his knee and disciplining them, and he wasn't even a member of the Builders' Guild!
Just about the only thing Snorri could call
passable, if you chopped off his arms and legs, wired his jaw shut, restrained him to a slab, and held a razor up to his beard, was the foundations of these strange, tall buildings. They were solid, and were an earthquake to happen, they'd
passably keep whatever was built atop them standing upright... for the most part. He doubted all of the damned
glass would survive, and it certainly wasn't built to survive whatever brought about that massive
gouge running across the hold, like an az-wound chopped into some poor dwarf's arm.
The smell of smoke and ash and death was thick in the air. Magic pressed against his senses. Snorri had some idea of what had brought about this hold's end, and he found himself rather displeased. These people had foolishly let
Mages work and live in their hold and suffered the consequences when things
inevitably went wrong.
Bah. Just standing around wouldn't solve anything. He had a hold to get back too. If only the smoke wasn't blotting out the sky, then he could figure out which way was North and start walking. Snorri supposed he would have to try and find somebody to shake down for answers.
Much to his consternation, Snorri realized quite quickly that he might actually have a moral imperative to stick around and help out to some degree, rather than immediately making his way back towards Dwarfen territory (
this place certainly wasn't part of the Dwarfen Holds, not with its shoddy construction). That reason was the rampant necromancy. Within ten minutes of wandering, Snorri had turned a blind corner and come face-to-face with a gaggle of
skeletons, wielding swords made of bone and... not having any skulls, for some reason, just the jaws. They certainly weren't
Dwarfen skeletons, their frames were much too tall and skinny. The closest things Snorri could draw comparisons to were those human bodies he had seen in his raids against the Fimir and the Elves.
Putting some thought into it, Snorri concluded that these were bespelled human skeletons, and that he was in a hold of humans, not Dwarfs. The Elgi, he knew, lived amongst trees, and Snorri had not seen a tree around for kilometers.
Thankfully, the skeletons were as fragile as he expected them to be. Unfortunately, he had encountered almost a throng's worth of skeletons so far, and not a single living being. This entire hold might've been enveloped by fell magics... in which case, it was his duty as a proper Dawi to see all of these poor souls properly laid to rest, so that whatever Gods these people worship may properly shepherd these lost souls to their rightful places.
His ears, sharpened and honed as the ages went by, picked up the sounds of metallic clanging and shouting. Those skeletons didn't have any metallic weaponry, so those noises must belong to living souls. Thank the Ancestor Gods, some folk still live... although the damned wazzocks apparently fell to infighting instead of banding together like right-thinking Dwarfs...
Bah! Beardlings! They must be beardlings and plaitlings. Foolish youths, falling apart without any elders to guide them. Snorri immediately pivoted towards the clamor, pumping his legs faster. Damned buildings, so many blind corners.
As he rounded a corner, he
finally caught sight of the fight. The first thing he noticed was that his earlier hunch was right. This was definitely a human hold, for those were definitely humans he was seeing in front of him. The second thing he noticed and cataloged were the two sides of this spat: closer to him was a group of three. Two noncombatants and a combatant. Snorri's brow furrowed as he felt the humming of magic around the fighter. The waif was up against two others, both of whom had the buzz of magic surrounding them.
Bah! At least one of the foolish mages had enough sense in their head to protect the humans affected by their big screw-up...
The third thing Snorri noticed was...
Bah. Bah! BAH!
BAH! What in Grungni's hallowed name was he looking at?! That waif-mage was lugging around a shield as big as she was! She was
smacking her opponents with it! She had no proper weaponry, and she wasn't even wearing armor! Her opponent was swinging around a
farming tool! That was meant for reaping your wheat, not drenging, you fool! It said something sorry about the state of the warriors in front of him if the only person even close to being properly armed was wielding
daggers! Daggers, of all things! Bah, bah, BAH!
Snorri broke out into a sprint, making sure Zharrgal was grasped firmly in his hands. May Valaya give him the wisdom to properly guide these younglings to safety... and actual armor and weaponry.
If you were to ask Mash why she was about to be gutted like a fish, she'd tell you it was because she had no training in the art of combat. Oh, sure, she was certainly accumulating a good deal of
experience throughout today, but actual training? No, she had no such thing to go off of, only her instincts. That's not even considering Ritsuka's inexperience as a commander.
Was this an
excuse? No, not at all-- well, okay, it
was an excuse, a very reasonable one in her mind, but that wasn't how Mash was intending these thoughts. Rather, it was more an explanation as to why Mash was about to have her stomach and chest opened up like a pair of doors with a scythe. The shadowy Assassin had thrown her and her shield off-balance, and the Lancer capitalized on Mash's weakness with all the ferocity and speed of a wolf. Not that she had ever seen a wolf, what with living in a secret facility in the Antarctic, but she had heard that wolves were vicious little things...
As the scythe swung down, Mash squeezed her eyes shut and tensed her shield arm as tight as she could, hoping that somehow, someway, she could swing the giant slab of magical metal into position to block the blow.
CLANG!
"Wh-What?!"
Hmm. How curious. That was certainly the sound she expected to hear if she miraculously managed to interpose her shield, but the sensation of pressure against her limb, of it being pushed backward by force, was distinctly missing.
Mash opened her eyes to see a thick, heavy mallet slam into the gobsmacked face of Lancer, the Servant being thrown backward by the force of the blow. Mash looked down at her savior... and goodness, it felt so strange to have to look
downwards. Servants, in her mind, were all tall figures, whatever other qualities they may have. They were quite literally the incarnation of larger-than-life figures, of
heroes. Never had she ever expected such a figure to be
shorter than her, even while wearing armor.
Yet even as the figure raised their hammer, head alight with golden flames with just a hint of teal, and swung, sending a fireball sailing towards the Assassin, Mash couldn't help but fixate on the fact that her savior didn't even reach her shoulders.
"M-Mash, focus!" Ritsuka called, drawing Mash from her trance. "They're still--"
"They're about to find out why I've managed to live through three wars." her savior interjected, voice wisened and clear. "Unless these foolish youths wish to put down their...
weapons and surrender?"
The two enemy Servants collected themselves, tense and ready to strike. Mash watched as Lancer picked herself up off of the ground, the anger in her face swiftly turning into smug superiority as she took in the new factor in play.
"Hmph.
Me, surrender? You're far out of your league, old man." Lancer readied her scythe and crouched, legs tensing. "That armor won't save you when I put
effort into my swing." Mash flinched at the jab to her combat ability. Was she truly losing to an opponent who hadn't even put in any real effort?
Lancer sprung forwards. "NOW DIE-- OOF!!" Mash's savior rammed his shoulder into Lancer's gut, and Mash watched on, stunned, as several things happened all within mere moments. A construct formed out of the asphalt, leaping forward to tackle Assassin to the ground and start pummeling it. The old man in immaculate armor threw Lancer to the ground and slammed his hammer down on her skull, just as the stone-- er, asphalt golem brought both fists down upon Assassin's. Both Servants vanished in flashes of golden light.
Her savior watched on in silence for a moment or two, the golem smoothly standing and making its way over to his side. "Bah.
Magic," the short old man muttered as he shook his head, quiet enough that Mash probably wouldn't have heard if she wasn't a demi-servant herself. Her savior finally turned around to face her and Ritsuka and Director Animusphere, somehow seeming to loom even as he directed his stony gaze upwards at them.
"Are you alright, younglings?"
The End
Initially, I intended for this to feature a POV from Ritsuka, who would be characterized as a stressed out internet kid who's teetering on the edge of having a breakdown and rapidly losing his patience for Olga and her bullshit, but it felt like it was starting to drag on. Maybe I'll make another one covering Olga's and Ritsuka's perspectives.
Anyways, in regards to Snorri bodying Lancer and Assassin... well, first of all I would like to state that my only experience with the Fate Franchise is the first three or so chapters of Fate Grand Order and thus I don't really know the sorts of feats Servants have demonstrated throughout the franchise. I'm operating mostly on osmosis'd information and Vibes™
From what I understand, Fate Grand Order had an awful lot of power creep when it came to Servant power levels. In Fate Stay Night, Servants were like... the upper end of Street Level? I think? Like, leveling entire neighborhoods/cities with one use of a Noble Phantasm is supposed to be an example of the very high end of Servantdom, not the middle of the pack. So since Shadow Servant Assassin and Lancer!Medusa are based on Fate/Stay Night Servants, I had Snorri body them because this guy has fought armies worth of opponents and won handily. Like, if Snorri with Barak Azamar equipped can survive being melted/fused with his armor in the center of a storm of magic, I sincerely doubt anything Shadow Assassin or Medusa Lancer could do would damage him in any significant capacity, unless a Noble Phantasm was brought into play. We'd have to bring one of the extra-bullshit Servants like Karna or... begrudgingly Gilgamesh, I suppose, into play before I start thinking Snorri might actually have to worry about getting got.
