Fate/ Stone Ocean: A Fate/stay night x JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Crossover
Prologue 1: Merlin
It was a beautiful day in the Garden of Avalon, with clear skies, lush green trees, verdant grassy fields, and a lake that positively gleamed in the sunlight, all clearly visible from his tower abode. It would have been quite the sight for Merlin, if he hadn't seen the same unchanging tableau for 1,500 years, ever since that cold woman trapped him here. At first, he was devastated/frustrated by his fate, for it barred him from helping his king in her time of need, and later, he grew to miss the more creature comforts the world had to offer, especially those of the fairer sex. However, his isolation wasn't absolute. Even though he was doomed to live until the end of the World, and he could never ascend to the Throne despite mankind's reverence towards his legend, he was able to see what was going on from his prison using his Clairvoyance, and once the internet came to be, he was able to covertly buy a computer and to convert his Tower abode into a Wi-Fi router. Furthermore, he had until recently the company of his faithful familiar Cath Palug, and at present, his protege had finally come to rest with him.
His main focus no matter when he checked on the World was always Artoria, his King and the girl he manifestly failed. He knew she had made a foolish contract with the World to keep fighting until she could get her hands on the Holy Grail to redo her rule, and he knew the mindset that led her to this path of suffering was one he was responsible for. In any case, he initially didn't watch the World often because he saw neither hide nor hair of her for many centuries, nor any object of any power that might have the power she sought. However, he did still observe some interesting events during this long waiting period, including the failed reign of Richard the Lionheart and his desperate attempts to reclaim Artoria's legend. It was almost sad how much the fool strove to emulate his idol, even as he became the antithesis of everything his protege believed in, and it was interesting to see that odd time-traveler who accompanied the boy as some twisted parody of himself.
About 6 centuries later, he finally got a lead as to where Artoria could be summoned when he managed to observe three mage families, the Einzbern, Tohsaka, and Makiri, come together in the Far Eastern nation of Japan in an attempt to recreate the Third Magic, or Heaven's Feel, to punch a hole to the Root. While mages attempting and failing to reach the Root was nothing new for Merlin, the presence of a Holy Grail to collect the copies of Heroic Spirits summoned to the World caught his attention. Artoria would no doubt answer the call, willing to fight for her perceived chance of salvation, even if it was simply as the pawn of these ambitious and desperate magi. In any case, the first ritual quickly turned out to be a failure, since the magi didn't have any means to control the Heroic Spirits they summoned nor did they have enough energy to complete the Heaven's Feel, even though the foundation for the Greater Grail was created by the sacrifice of the representative of the Einzbern representative. Most importantly, Artoria was nowhere to be found amongst the participating Servants. The Second Ritual is where the ritual became a Holy Grail War, and the competing magi, or Masters, now had the means to control their Servants, Command Seals. Still, it failed as all the Masters killed each other, and once again, there was no Artoria.
Because there was 60 years between each of these rituals, Merlin couldn't hyperfocus on the Grail Wars, and he idly looked around the World, but especially Britain, for interesting people to watch. It was in one of these sweeps of the country after the Second Grail War that he found the boys who would be entangled in a fated conflict that would last to this day, Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando. The moment they came into contact, when Lord Joestar so kindly adopted the latter from the slums of London, Merlin could tell they were destined to fight. Jonathan to him was an embodiment of light itself, a peerlessly kind and considerate gentleman who could match any of the Knights of the Round Table, but he reminded Merlin of Galahad the most. Dio, on the other hand, had the makings of a dark messiah. He was smart, talented, and charming, gathering followers like flies, but underneath his facade of a dutiful adopted son was an oppressive darkness that scared even Merlin. With a Stone Mask also present in Joestar manor, things were destined to get ugly, and they most certainly did.
Merlin definitely had to admit to enjoying the drama between brothers like some sort of soap at first as Dio tried to undermine Jonathan's standing in the community and at home in order to become "number one", stealing his friends, killing his dog, and finally forcing him apart from his lady love. After an epic beatdown delivered by young Jonathan, which Merlin watched with glee, there was no action for 7 years, but afterwards, things got interesting. Dio, as he had half-expected, became a vampire with the power of the Mask, and Jonathan barely escaped with his life in a battle that left Merlin on the edge of his seat. Soon afterwards, he met a Hamon warrior named William Antonio Zeppeli, who taught him the ancient art to defeat Dio and the mask. After a quest that was equal in danger to those of Artoria's knights, accompanied by a band of loyal comrades, Jonathan defeated Dio in a climactic battle on the parapet of a castle, and he was prepared to go on honeymoon with his now grown-up first love. Alas, Merlin could only sigh in resignation as the brave and pure hero was struck down by his still alive and disembodied adopted brother, but not before saving his new wife and a random baby and destroying the boat they were on, sinking Dio under the ocean by then. As it turned out, Erina Joestar was in fact pregnant at the time, and this only promised more adventures from that bloodline clearly marked out by fate.
Fast fowarding to the Third Holy Grail War, there were some interesting twists to the whole ritual. First, the Church at this point had decided to step in, sending a young, impressionable priest by the name of Risei Kotomine, and as part of his job, the suspiciously aged Zolgen Makiri relinquished the unused Command Seals of the previous war. Next were the numerous cheats by Masters. An enterprising Finnish magi family somehow summoned two copies of the same Saber using their Sorcery Trait, and the Einzberns...in their desperation, they summoned what seemed more like a mass of curses than a Heroic Spirit. Despite its intimidating mien, the latter had no combat capabilities or Noble Phantasms of its own, so it was taken out of the equation relatively quickly, though Merlin had the sinking feeling that wasn't the end of it. The war went on with surprisingly brutal tactics, and once again, it failed to complete, as the vessel for the Lesser Grail, a cup, was destroyed before the energy of defeated Servants could be channeled into the Greater Grail, and once again, Artoria was nowhere to be found.
Less than a year afterwards, his two favorite tales of the modern era collided in a sense when young Kotomine went on a pilgrimage to Italy and by chance ran into Jonathan's grandson Joseph, who was fighting the ancient super vampires known only as the Pillar Men. Merlin watched this all with great interest, since the Pillar Men were ancient beings as old as the Age of the Gods and possibly older, and they were either feared or revered in the Moonlit World. Joseph was far less knightly than his grandfather, being a trickster and conman-type character, but at his heart, he retained his family's decency and sense of justice. Also, Merlin totally watched a certain Hamon master bathe quite intently, and that may have been the inspiration for years of fantasies, though that is irrelevant.
And then 50 years later, DIO finally returned from his 100-year slumber at the bottom of the ocean, and he sought to remake the World in his own image using the power of his Stand, aptly named The World. The Joestars, along with an oddly assorted group of Stand users, had to go through DIO's minions, and Joseph's grandson Jotaro finally put down the vampire with his own Stand, Star Platinum: The World. The boy was stoic and abrasive to a fault, and he reminded Merlin of Sir Kay to some extent.
Then came the Fourth Grail War. Finally, Artoria answered the Grail's call as the Saber class Servant of the War. The Einzberns had somehow found the scabbard Avalon, the location of which even he didn't know, since he was trapped in the island not long before it was stolen, and they hired an outsider, Kiritsugu Emiya, to fight as their champion. Although Kiritsugu was a ruthless killer of magi and outwardly disdained Artoria's heroic ideals, Merlin knew the fool was of fundamentally the same nature as his protege, even if their methods were diametrically opposed. Naturally, the two simply could not get along, or more like Kiritsugu never tried, and all interactions were mediated by the vessel of the Lesser Grail, a delicious young woman by the name of Irisviel von Einzbern. This was also the war where Merlin realized something was utterly wrong with the ritual, since the Caster class Servant summoned was an abberation who could not be summoned in previous wars. Finally, this war truly tested Artoria's resolve, with the King of Heroes and the King of Conquerors mocking and dismissing her ideals, Kiritsugu frequently trampling on them, and Lancelot causing her to feel great guilt over her actions. All in all, the war ended with Artoria being utterly broken with a new desire to erase herself from existence, and at that Merlin could only despair. He truly had failed.
Then came the Fifth War. Artoria was summoned again, but completely on accident, by Kiritsugu Emiya's adopted son, Shirou, and she quickly had to save him from the Lancer class Servant of the War, the Hound of Ulster. Soon afterwards, they formed an alliance with a more experienced Master, Rin Tohsaka and her red-clad Archer Servant, who Merlin could immediately tell had some greater connection to Shirou. Shirou on the surface seemed much like Artoria, but upon further examination, it seemed the boy had a certain emptiness that could only be filled by service to others, an extreme Artoria never got to. In any case, this War was when Artoria rejected the Grail of her own volition, and she finally came to Avalon. Technically, she came to Avalon 1,500 years ago, but that was irrelevant, since Avalon technically existed outside time.
The important part was that she came back noticeably freer and with something he hadn't seen from her since before she pulled the sword out of the stone, a true, genuine smile. Although he already knew what happened, he let Artoria tell him about her two best friends Rin and Shirou, the good times they had together, and how she finally could move on from her past. It was clear to Merlin that he owed those two a huge debt for helping his king finally overcome her own doubts, and it was for this reason, and because Artoria begged him, that he frequently checked up on them as they lived out their lives.
In doing so, and in the course of his routine checking in on Jotaro Kujo and his daughter, he stumbled upon a potential disaster. Not only was the Fuyuki Grail, filled with the unused mana of defeated Servants, close to completion in only 7 years, but another Grail War ritual was being set up in parallel in the American state of Florida. Jotaro Kujo's family was there, and based on their cursed blood alone, he knew the Joestars and the Speedwagon Foundation would get involved. To make things worse, a few former followers of DIO, including an extremely devoted priest, were hanging around the area, and men that Merlin could identify as DIO's sons were also coming as if pulled by fate. The combination of a Grail War and a Joestar conflict only promised mass devastation, and for the first time in a while, he felt compelled to act in some way. At the very least, he'd allow Artoria to go and help her friends as she'd inevitably ask him permission for. Whatever the case, he needed to look into the situation further.
Sighing, he retreated from the window to his computer. Normally he'd be searching the web for adult content or trolling desperate manchildren as Magi Mari, but this time, he entered in Green Dolphin Street Prison, the seeming location of the imitation Grail War, into the search bar. As he looked at the information, he noticed a couple of pecular details. One, the prison was built over what he already knew to be strong spiritual land starting in 1937, the year the Third Grail War ended. He thus suspected that the prison from the beginning was meant to host a Grail War, and the people in charge had somehow stolen a fragment of the Fuyuki Grail around that time, meaning that whatever corruption infected it after the Third War likely would affect this ritual as well. Secondly, the prison burned down some 15 or so years ago prior to being rebuilt. While not the most unusual detail, since buildings always burned down, the involvement of magi from its inception suggested a deliberate blaze and a conscious remodeling afterwards to create a more ideal battleground. Finally, from what he was able to find on the web, it was a prison with an unusual set of rules regarding inmate conduct. As long as you had money, the guards would look the other way and allow you whatever freedoms you desired, and every prisoner was on his/her own. All this combined with its isolation made it the perfect place for magi to conduct a secret battle royale. However, his contemplation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps at his door.
"Merlin, what are you doing here?" asked Artoria, standing at the entrance to his room. "Normally I'd find you relaxing near the lake, but it seems you haven't left the tower all day? Is there something the matter?"
"Well, in checking on your little friends, I may have stumbled on some...disturbing news." he answered, trying to be as cryptic as possible.
"Disturbing...might this have to do with the Grail?" she asked him, and he noticed she looked somewhat hopeful at the prospect.
"You would like that, wouldn't you, Your Majesty?" he teased, and to that his liege blushed red like a tomato, a reaction he would never get tired of.
"N-n-no! Of course not how could I wish for such a horrible thing I just-" she blathered before Merlin gently cut her off.
"I'm not judging, and I understand you want to fight alongside your friends again." said Merlin, chuckling in amusement. "In any case, yes it is. The Fuyuki Grail is close to completion once again, and the Magus Association has already begun to mobilize in order to collect it. Of course, your friends will obviously be against this and will want to destroy it for good, so a new Grail War is going to happen in 6 months."
"I see. However, I'm not a true Heroic Spirit, and I renounced the Grail and my contract with the World. How could I possibly aid Rin and Shirou?" Artoria asked him morosely.
"Don't worry about the details, my King." reassured Merlin. "I can fix that. I have long ago devised a way for myself to manifest a projection of myself as a Servant in the World, and it is relatively self-sustaining. I can use a modified version of it to help you manifest as a Saber-class Servant. You will operate much like you're used to, the only difference being that you will be manifested by Avalon and me as opposed to the Grail. Of course, you'll still likely need a Master for an anchor to the World, but that's something that will already be arranged."
"For a Master, it'd probably best for Rin to take on that role." responded the King of Knights. "With her, I'll be at full power and can use my Excalibur to destroy the Greater Grail without risk of exhausting my mana reserves immediately."
"Indeed." agreed Merlin. "Emiya-kun has improved since you last saw him, but he still doesn't have the circuits and mana to support you and fight at his best. Tohsaka-chan will be our best bet."
"Is that all then?" asked Artoria, quite visibly excited to go back to the World, even as she tried to act all regal and hide it.
"There is an additional complication." said Merlin. "This isn't the only Grail War ritual taking place. Another one is taking place on the other side of the World, and let's just say things are infinitely more complicated there. The saga of the Grail Wars shall combine with the destiny written in blood of the Joestar family, and who knows what untold carnage shall be unleashed..."
"Joestar family? Who are they? What are you talking about?" asked Artoria.
"You'll figure it out soon enough." he answered. "Run along now, I've got more work to do." At that, she puffed up all cutely, but she left, knowing he wouldn't give any more answers.
"Now then, about this prison...A significant portion of inmates are Stand users, yet there have been no successful escape attempts. Mundane defenses such as swamps, alligators, and location don't mean as much depending on the ability, which means there must be something more, aside from Whitesnake. In addition, there appears to be someone using a spirit room hidden inside the prison, a boy. Is this his Stand ability? Interesting, must contact him. He no doubt will meet Jolyne Kujo in the future. Finally, don't forget to send a dream message to Tohsaka-chan about summoning Artoria, and possibly coordinate with El-Melloi II. Actually, let's send that dream message before I forget..."
As he got up to find Rin Tohsaka's dreamscape, the main thoughts swimming in his head were how interesting and how complicated things could get.
Originally Posted by FSF 5, Chapter 14: Gold and Lions I
Though abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
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