The Kings In The Mountains

[Seika]

No they won't; human genetic diversity is super-low. There are interesting theories, but in the end, it's something we've observed: compared to many other species, we're just not that diverse.

ME canon is that we are one of/the most genetically diverse higher life-forms in the galaxy. Got brought up in the first novel, IIRC, as well as by Mordin at the krogan hospital. While it's probably mostly an excuse to keep re-using the more difficult-to-create alien models, fan theory is that it's a nod to the whole 'aliens kidnap people to do scientific experiments' thing.

I'm thinking it will be difficult to bring a story as incoherent as ME before a details-oriented crowd like this though....

As I said, I'm keeping this focused more-or-less on itself: working through the rest of ME and nit-picking it isn't necessary. Just have to accept that there are big, bad alien invaders and this is the point when all the king in the mountain legends are meant to activate.

[NewAgeOfPower]

~Seika.

Epic introduction paragraph!

[IhaxlikeNoob]

^.^ Funny how they took single handedly took down Sovereign class-Reapers which would need at least a large dispatch of battleships to destroy.

[Seika]

Oooh, bugger. Forgot to put up the notes, which might draw your/other people's attention to something re: their defeat. (But where are you getting that these are Sovereign-class, anyway?)

[IhaxlikeNoob]

Hmm? They're not? I read this chapter a long time ago, so I didn't read it now; I guess I was misremembering.
Still taking down Reapers (Destroyers I guess) by yourself is a big deal.

[Seika]

Double bugger, I uploaded from the wrong document. Excuse the technical difficulties, all shall be repaired soon enough.

[kilopi505]

Have you written another chapter other than the chapter with Chu Chullain and Fergus?

[Seika]

So it is that Cú Chulainn and his old comrade meet once again on Ulster's green plains, a little way outside Belfast's sprawl. Fergus mac Roích offers his nephew a fierce smile, and has it returned with added bloodlust. Then, in sync with each other as only family or warriors who have depended on each other in battle's crush can be – and these two fit both categories – they turn to watch the four monstrous machines stalking over the city.

“Big buggers,” is Fergus' deliberately unimpressed observation.

“That they are.” Culann's Hound is less practised at feigning diffidence, and his eagerness to see how well the metal constructs will die seeps through. Fergus's smile broadens for a second, amused at the constancy of his relative's willingness for battle. “And I'm taking first shot at them.”

“Your spear's good, kid. It's not that good.” Fergus would back his foster-son against thousands of men – has seen him live up to those expectations, but these invaders require more than skill and strength. “Not reckoning they've got hearts for you to destroy. Your witch's tricks aren't so helpful against these bloody things.”

“Maybe so, maybe so.” Prideful little bastard. The boy obviously has something up his sleeve, and he's enjoying defying Fergus' expectations. “But my spear and the old runes I learnt from the witch? That'll do it.”

Fergus frowns. He's had his own army held back by those runes before, and the spear's not to be underestimated but still …

Cú Chulainn is entirely unbothered by his uncle's silence and is already scratching runes into the ground. He has speed born of practice, learned under the harsh tutelage as a boy in the Land of Shadows and refined in Ireland's constant raids. Two circles of runestones now surround them. The tight inner one is complete, eighteen markings already drawing in power to feed his spear. The outer one is missing its last, held in his hand for the necessary moment.

“This is going to take some power, Fergus. Watch 'em for me.”

Fergus nods and turns his gaze towards the colossi wreaking havoc in Belfast. Even if his nephew's likely over-reaching himself, he's not going to insult him by interfering. Family and warriors together – the code is clear. Neither of them would so pain the other's pride.

Cú Chulainn eyes the inner circle with an unusually considered glance, waits a few seconds longer, and leaps. Thirty feet he jumps into the air, spear held ready to throw. And as he rises, the runes begin to shine. From the first, directly facing the sun, and then around the circle as the sun would travel. Dipping down into the west, circling through south and rising again in the east until it reaches the first stone in the north. When each lights, it sends a streamer of white into the air, spiralling upwards and curling around Cú Chulainn's red spear until it seems that he has not leapt, but merely stands on a tree made from light. And in his hand he holds not a lance, but a ray of the sun itself.

And then Ireland's Son of Light lets his missile fly.

Like light it seems, and like light it travels. In half an instant, it has torn through the air and slammed into a Reaper. Magic and ancient power contend with high-density steel compounds and metals never known to humanity. The gods' spears could not break it: not Lugh's Brionac, called the Five Thundering Stars, nor Odin's Gungnir, called the Declaration Of The Elder God.

But the immortal gods have run to the hidden places of the world. Men, dying but always changing and adapting and bettering themselves, remain. And Cú Chulainn has bettered the gods with his spear.

It tears through the Reaper, leaving a gaping hole in it as if a giant fist had smashed through the Old Machine. The metal corpse remains upright for a few seconds, until power to its legs gives out and it falls like a landslide. So dies the first Reaper on Earth, to a spear and to a system of writing that had made do with stone because its civilisation had not yet created paper.

For a split second, all is still, in recognition of this insanity (though it is a powerful madness, which all men create and which possesses all men). For a mortal army, the shattering of invulnerability would have caused a much longer pause, perhaps even a rout. But the Old Machines have no use for morale. It is a weakness of the Unascended, to be used and broken mercilessly, but it is not theirs. So a shift, a slight glow from one of the remaining monsters is all the warning Fergus gets.

“ 'Ware!” he barks and his nephew, even as he falls back to earth, flicks the final runestone into its place. The Reaper's crimson blast is held back by an invisible barrier, wasting itself on thin air. But even Cú Chulainn's mastery of runes is challenged by the alien power. His carved stones glowed at first, but now they blaze like white fire.

And then one cracks, its light flickering.

“Shit!” Fergus grabs his panting foster-son and dives to the side, just before scarlet metal carves through the bounded field, through the space where they had stood, and through the landscape behind them, painting the fields with a white scar of slag, quickly cooling to black.

The Reapers turn away again, having to give their attention to the renewed series of attacks within Belfast, perhaps inspired by the first giant's fall. All those who Ascended into processes of each machine Nation concur that even in the vastly improbable event that the two survived, they must have been unable to carry away a weapon of the necessary mass to reproduce that anomaly. Even conceding the absurd possibility that millions upon millions of years of science can be surpassed by primates who have discovered writing barely five thousand years ago, priority must be given to the city's attacks. They are certain to cause damage – the two unknown figures should not even be alive.

The Irishmen untangle themselves from each other quickly. Lives of war ensure that – even when battle knocks you down hard, you stand back up. For pride's sake, and for the sake of not getting stabbed in the throat whilst you're helpless. A quick glance confirms that the Reapers' threat to them is gone … for a time.

“Well then, Hound,” Fergus says. “You had your turn – mine now.” He is slower to rouse than his son, but his warlust is no less fierce for that. He reaches down to his side and draws his sword from its scabbard. It seems large, even for Fergus, and clumsily proportioned. Worse yet, it is made of wood, soft and pale. No-one could believe that this was a hero's blade.

“My core is twisted into madness!” So proclaims Fergus, and the wood falls away to show the true sword. It is his father's – Léte's Sword. It is his goddess' – the Badb's Swift Messenger. It is the Harshblade. It is Caladbolg. A spiral of sharp-edged steel, still oddly shaped but now seeming to fit with Fergus.

Cú Chulainn frowns for a second. “I've seen that. Not just when I was alive, with you, but since I came to the Throne. But … I haven't seen you.” His questioning tone (made more hesitant as he struggles to match up the half-memories one acquires in the Throne's space, kept outside of time's reach) is well warranted. No hero could make proper use of another's treasure – it is only by taking and making it your own that you become worthy of immortality in the Throne of Heroes – and only one such could have met and battled Cú Chulainn.

Fergus snorts and dismisses the riddle. “It's time to remind you of the real bloody thing then! Last time you saw me with this blade, I gave the Máela Midi their names – the three Scalped Hills of Meath.” The bared-teeth grin is back, full of blood-lust. “And I'm reckoning these bastards are smaller than they were.”

Fergus crosses his right hand over his body, so that Caladbolg points out to his left. Then he snaps it around in a half-circle until his arm is straightened out to the right. The sword's tip traces a line in the air which distorts all the light that passes through it, breaking it into prismatic shards of colour – a rainbow in miniature.

Then, “Caladbolg!” The line rushes outward, racing towards the skyline of Belfast, racing towards the Reapers that stand over it. And it hits.

Before, it was a war of power: kinetic energy matched against the toughness of armour. The Spiral Sword is not so straight-forward. It twists space without regard for what it holds within it – in the past, it tore apart men and shields and weapons and land all the same. Now it rends the Reapers, warping their armour, crushing their shells, tearing their insides. The Reapers can face power – have seen desperate Unascended build futile weapons which harnessed immense and absurd amounts of energy, beyond even what the Reapers employed. And the nations who Ascended from those children recall creating such things in fear and ignorance before enlightenment came to them. But this is concept, imposition of the abstract onto reality. It is something against which the Old Machines have no defence.

Two sounds ring out over Belfast, jarring painfully against one another. The first is the deep horns of the Reapers, far louder than before, as if they at last remember panic. Or death. The second is much higher – the wrenching sound of metal twisted beyond its limits and torn apart. A Reaper falls; the distortion has cut straight through its core and nothing remains of the old nation who inhabited the great mechanical war-shell. A second collapses; its core had been missed, but its power was gone, and so an accord of millions fell silent. The third stays – it too has been shorn in two, but its core is whole, and enough systems remain intact. Not to survive – it too will be lost within the minute – but to relay a desperate message to its kin. Humanity brings an unknown power against the Ascended. Beware, beware! The signal cycles out once, and has to let a painful lapse of seconds pass: that is the limit without instantly annihilating the cooling systems or overwhelming the transmitters. The second cycle at last goes. Then the third nation slumps, falls into the dust of its unconquered city and dies.

But the Reapers elsewhere are already finding out that humanity has surprises for them.

Making Of

Fergus' relationship to Cú Chulainn is rather complex, being both his foster father and his blood uncle or adoptive uncle (depending on what exact version of the myth you use for his birth), which is a bit weird. The word Cú Chulainn tends to use of him in my translation of the Táin is 'Comrade', but that sounded both a little off for the Fate/Stay Night version of him, and oddly Soviet-Russian. So it got cut.

Gáe Bolg is indeed compared favourably to both Brionac and Gungnir. So I couldn't resist a little diversion on what happens to that comparison when Cú Chulainn goes all-out with his runes. (According to Nasu, he stands a chance of beating Herakles and his Twelve Labours resurrection spell if he utilises them. Which – if you interpret it to mean he can annihilate Herakles with one super-charged attack – means he could make something roughly on par with Excalibur. Cú Chulainn is scary.)

The Mass Effect 3 Reapers are absolutely awful at keeping their barriers up whilst on the ground. I presume it's impractical, either because their mass renders the fine-tuning of shields to not repel the soil impossible, or for some other reason from the Codex I don't recall. In either case, this 'fic presumes that there is a reason and that therefore it's “only” the tremendous strength of the Reapers' armour that has to be contended with.

Caladbolg's wooden → real status is a reference both to its simply peculiar appearance in the Fate series, and to the way that it was stolen from Fergus whilst he was sleeping with Queen Maeve (who, alas, was married at the time). To avoid massive loss of face, he carved a wooden sword to put in his scabbard. Caladbolg was returned to him in time for the final battle of the Táin Bó Cúilange, at which point he gives a few lines of verse naming it as Caladbolg - literally 'Hard-Blade' or 'Harsh-Blade' - as his father/Léte's sword, and as the Badb's swift messenger of doom.
I shamelessly appropriated the intent of those lines, though 'of doom' felt too purple even for this 'fic. (The Badb is one of the aspects of the Old Irish goddess/goddess-triumvirate of war). Subsequently, he performs the famous feat of chopping the tops off three hills – the version found in the Book of Leinster says that this happened because Caladbolg could become the size of a rainbow whenever he swung it. Frankly, I again thought that was a tad over the top (in general, I think the Irish writers don't handle going OTT so well as, for example, Greek mythographers, though I'm surely biased. And goodness knows that the Greeks got it wrong too – witness the Shield of Herakles). And whilst I was prepared to give some extra power to the sword for not being a version traced by Archer, I wasn't going to go that far. Still, I got a reference to it in, as (I think) a reasonable consequence of the spacial distortions it creates.

[kilopi505]

Where's chapter 2?

[Seika]

~Seika.

Epic introduction paragraph!

Thank you.

Hmm? They're not? I read this chapter a long time ago, so I didn't read it now; I guess I was misremembering.
Still taking down Reapers (Destroyers I guess) by yourself is a big deal.

They're of the Unspecified ship class - assign whatever powerlevel to them you're comfortable with.

And, yeah, that's why Cú and Fergus are Heroic Spirits.

Have you written another chapter other than the chapter with Chu Chullain and Fergus?

Yes. This whole thing has been entirely written. Prologue, three chapters, epilogue, two bonus chapters.

Where's chapter 2?

Two answers to that:
1) In my document for this project.
2) But being uploaded tomorrow.

[Fafnir]

Insta-subscribed.

[kilopi505]

I'll be WAITING.

[Seika]

Chapter 2: Britain

Always in Avalon it is high summer – the time of Vivian, Lady of the Lake. Unripe, yellow wheat stands high between the hedgerows of apple trees and the sun shines down from an unclouded sky, making the water glare white with its reflection. And here the young queen Artoria rests, healing away her wounds and waiting for Britain's time of need.

It is that time.

In Avalon, a way opens. It has no frame, nor hinges, nor a door to cover it but it is a opening to Old Britain. When it forms, Artoria is by one of Avalon's many lakes, sitting with her toes dipped in the water. This is where her final wound is – a spear that stabbed through her foot, pinning her to the earth for vital moments at Camlann. But as the way appears and a colder wind blows through Summer's country, the bleeding ends and the flesh seals.

It is that time.

Artoria smiles – her duty is joyously taken now – and picks herself up. She strides out onto the water's surface, to the centre. Just as it did once before, an arm extends from the lake, and the Last Phantasm is held in it. Excalibur: the wishes of humanity crystallised into truth in the core of the planet; the golden sword given to the fairies' safekeeping until humanity needs its dreams made reality once more.

It is that time.

“I thank you, Vivian,” she says, bowing slightly towards the arm. “I swear once again that your treasure will be returned.”

“This is why Excalibur exists, beautiful Artoria,” whispers the summer breeze over the lake. “It was made to be wielded in such times when all your people were threatened. And though we no longer live there, we have not forgotten our land. We made it as the fortress of Nature, set apart from infection and the hand of war, and wrapped it in mist to hide it. Though Man came, and we left, we love our creation still. And these damned things which assault it, who have neither land nor life, they are anathema in the World's eyes. You and all that go with you will have the blessing of the Lake so long as our power lasts. Destroy the Unworlded, and I will never hold a debt against you, until life's end.”

So she bows again, more deeply. She takes the sword. She wraps magic around her, and forms it into armour. She brushes aside the wheat, and she walks through the doorway.

It is that time.

---

When she emerges into the human plane, it is in a tunnel of rock, echoing with the sound of waves and lit by streams of light coming from a cracked and dripping roof. Dimly, she can make out a widening before her, where the tunnel must open out into a cave proper. As she moves towards that cave, her armoured foot nudges something on the ground. It chimes, and she just catches the sound of dull groans from ahead of her.

“Ahhh ...” She knows this place, and she knows its purpose. Taking care not to sound the small bell her foot knocked, she picks it up and walks forward into the cavern. Though the gaps in the roof here are no bigger or more numerous than in the tunnel, it seems somehow better lit, and she can see what she had hoped would be there.

An enormous table, perfectly circular in shape, directly in the middle of the cave. Seated around it sleep her knights, whose wounds have slowly healed just as hers did. Their rest is vigilant, each dressed in his armour and each with his right hand on his sword. Their armaments are what illuminate the cave – polished steel reflecting light all around. But, unlike her, they slept the dead sleep of ages, and the call did not rouse them. They are hers alone to wake.

So she takes her place in the lone empty chair and strikes the bell. Lowly, tiredly, they groan the question it demands of them once again.

“Is it time?”

They have been bothered by unwary thieves, unsuspecting travellers, curious myth-seekers for fifteen hundred years. Not daring to wake the mysterious warriors, each has said, “It is not time. Sleep again.” But at last the bell rings truly.

“It is that time, knights! It is that time! Time to wake, time to march, time to war! Britain begs you and your king demands of you – get up and fight!”

It is the voice which led them to ten victorious battles and drove away the Saxons. It is the voice of their king. Not one disobeys. To her left, Lancelot's eyes flutter open – to her right, Gawain. Then Bedivere, Percival, Bors, Ector, Kay, Llenlleawg, Agravain, Sagramor, Tristain, Culhwch and all the rest, the thousand knights of the Round Table.

Lancelot speaks first, “My king …” He falls to his knees, and then flings his whole body down at her feet. “I ...” A sob wrenches itself from his throat, but he's still trying to mouth his apology even as his words are swallowed up by the tears.

“No, Lancelot.” She wonders if she should make that a rejection of the false 'king' as much as of his apology. Make herself anew, without the cold barrier of deceit she brought between herself and her knights. No, they know Arthur the warrior-king, not Artoria (does she know who Queen Artoria might be, herself?). There's no room for doubt or questions, not at this time. “I have seen your grief, and the madness you drove yourself to. I could not punish you for doubting me, and if I had hated you, I could demand no worse punishment than what you gave yourself.” Gently, she raises him back to his feet, and holds him there until she thinks he won't throw himself down again.

Her champion steadied, she raises her voice, so all the knights can hear its high sound once again, the tone of the immortal youth who once ruled them. “This is a new time. But it is our time, just as much as the one we left. Britain still stands; Britain still remembers us. And, as it was when we all first came together and won our highest glory, she needs us. We all love our country, and we all know war in the marrow of our bones. That will be enough, whatever happened in times which are now long gone. Let us march, Knights! For Britain!”

They cheer, cheer that they have so clear a purpose once again. Cheer that they no longer have to worry about an inhuman king and who is for or against him. They cheer Arthur. And when their resolve is united, the cave has fulfilled the purpose humanity gave it. The walls split, rocks tumble, and the evening sunlight pours in.

---

“We go south first.” She's giving orders again – an old feeling, but still comfortable. Perhaps more comfortable now than it was before, somehow. “Over the waves, to Ynys Enlli. One more to wake before we go.”

“One more, my king?” Boyish Percival pipes up, his voice nearly as high as hers. They were the two golden-haired younglings of Camelot, though if their similarities had ended there. Where her youth spoke of divine favour and power, he had been mocked for being a stripling lad, not old enough to squire, let alone be a knight. Where hers was eternal, he had grown into broad shoulders and strong arms, even if he kept his child's innocence. And where hers had made her alien, a symbol instead of a person, he had worn down the older warriors with sheer cheerfulness (and a couple of well-timed duels, granted) until he had been one of her court's most popular knights.

“Yes, Percival. A man was confined all the time you slept and it is time to release him from his prison.”

“Oh! … Do we have to, lord Arthur? I mean, well -” he says with an impish smile.

Her lips twitch, and he blinks in surprise – that his stone-cold king understood his humour, or that she could actually find it amusing? “He's an irredeemable fool? Indeed. But a wise man too, one whom we need. And he was there at the beginning of this all, when I first took the sword from its stone. He should be here now as well, to see Camelot's second birth.”

“I didn't really mean we should -”

“I know, Percival, I know. No need to explain yourself.” But she's getting caught up in everything, all the old comrades, and all the new emotions she can express – and yet she must be slow and careful about them. She doesn't have to be the cold king any more, but war still demands that she keep ice's clarity, if not its chill. Perhaps when the fight is done, she and her friends can … she cuts her thoughts and the conversation short. “Enough waiting! Come, let's be off!”

So the thousand knights of Camelot march on the waves with fairy-blessed steps to Ynys Enlli, the Tidebound Isle.

There they find an apple tree, the single one of its type in all the world, taken from Avalon's Isle of Apples to be planted in the mortal realm. It clings to the hillside above a cave, and that cave is where Merlin has lain imprisoned by glass for the last fifteen hundred years.

---

Approaching his transparent coffin, she can see Merlin's lips moving, as if he's holding a conversation in the isolation of his prison. A spell perhaps, one meant to shatter the glass and free himself? Has he somehow heard of these new invaders, already begun preparing himself for battle?

But when she tosses aside the lid, she is not treated to gathering magical forces and words of power. Instead, Merlin is holding a rapid-fire debate with himself on the nature of passion. As he chatters on, apparently oblivious to his freedom, a smile crosses her lips for a second. Hadn't she said but knowing that old man, I am sure he is still casually talking about love? Then she raps firmly on the side of the coffin with her gauntlets. He looks up.

“Oh. Hello, Arthur. Took your time, didn't you?”

She gives him a level stare.

“Right, right, fine. Youngsters haven't got any patience these days. Sad, very sad.” He picks himself up out of the coffin and stares at it in distaste. “You know how boring it got in there, Arthur? No, no you don't. You got to sit in fairyland with all the pretty girls. Bet you had fun there. All the while your poor, ancient teacher gets shut in a glass box he can't even see out of. How is that fair? Bloody witches ...”

Ignoring his implications of fairy … debauchery, she patiently waits for his muttered monologue (seemingly directed more at the coffin than her) to end. The day when Merlin would weary of his own voice has still not dawned, apparently. And if fifteen hundred years just listening to himself ramble hadn't tired him of it, that time probably wasn't ever going to come.

Merlin does stop eventually, though his eyes keep themselves fixed on his glass container. She's about to remind him that she is still there and bring him up to speed when his gaze hardens into a furious glare and he starts a rapid chant.

“Belí's fire take you,
Belí's fire twist you,
Belí's fire melt you,
Belí's fire unshape you!”

From the floor of the cave, hands of flame rise to claw through Merlin's prison. As he repeats his spell, more and more appear, until the coffin is no longer visible for the inferno which grasps at it.

When the fire at last dies back, the coffin lies melted in a pool. Merlin leans over it and touches a finger to the centre. Artoria winces: she felt the heat from where she stood and the glass pool still glows hot. But he seems unconcerned, and straightens back up. As he does so, a stream of red glass is drawn upwards with his finger until he has a thin trail of it reaching his eye level. Merlin mutters another verse and a second streamer is drawn up, curling around the first. Then a third, fourth and fifth. Eventually, the whole coffin has woven itself into a thick glass staff for the mage. He stamps it on the floor and all the colour, all the heat, seems just to fall out of it, shed like an old cloak.

“There. This bound me and now I bind it. A fitting little revenge.” His voice has lost its normal amused edge. A rare occasion; she remembers this tone from only a few times in her life. The first time she'd heard it … when he'd seen a girl throw away all her feelings, all her love, and resign herself to being hated so that her country could stumble on a few more gasping decades.

“Well, enough of that. Come on, you got me up for a reason, Arthur. Old man needs his sleep, you know. What's this all about?”

“The time we knew of has come: Britain's hour of greatest need. Vivian told me of invaders, anathema. She called them the Unworlded.”

“Ohhh, did she?” Merlin almost looks serious for a second. It passes. “Well, you know fairies. Flighty, very flighty. They'll give a fancy name to anything they feel like.” He sighs theatrically. “Come on then, I'm sick of this damn cave. Let's go - I assume the rest are with you?”

“All of them, yes. Come and see.”

They both duck to exit the cave, Merlin following Artoria. She looks back, and notes that the mage is being uncharacteristically unsentimental. By which she means he is only kissing the earth to celebrate his release into fresh air, instead of actually trying to eat it. Eventually he recovers and bothers to acknowledge that she still exists, and that hundreds of knights behind her are watching with amusement.

“All together again, eh? The best of Camelot, to make a new kingdom for Arthur -”

“No! No, Merlin. Perhaps Britain's dux bellorum, as the Romans would have had it, but not rex. That time has passed and we saw what came of it.” Artoria speaks lowly, but with a certainty she didn't know she had about her position up until that very second.

Merlin fixes his gaze on her and a smile slowly creeps onto his face. “A mere warlord instead of a king, hm? Well. You have changed, Arthur. Changed indeed, in the eternal land ...”

Shaking his musing off, he turns back to her assembled knights, and his secretive little smile broadens into a full grin. “All right then, boys! Time to walk the worlds!”

“Walk the worlds, Lord Merlin?” Sir Derfel asks. He was Merlin's guardian knight, who had made this island his home when his beloved old teacher had been imprisoned. She heard before Camlann that even Mordred's soldiers hadn't been able to drive him away, were slaughtered in their boats by his might. It had given them all hope: one of the Round Table who would survive no matter how their desperate battle turned out, a good and loyal knight.

“Yes, yes, keep up! I can't jump us around here, but I can drop into any other world anywhere I like. So we take a stroll over there, and then I open the way back just outside old London. Simple enough, even your little brain should get it.”

“Yes, lord,” replies Derfel, with all the love and patience that long association with the mad, old trickster has bred into him.

“Right, just a second.” Merlin makes a gesture and thumps his staff on the ground. The wind suddenly picks up, ready to carry his words to the whole British host. “There. Now I don't need to shout at you lot any more. Poor old man, don't want to wear out my voice, you know how it is.” He waits for the ensuing murmur of laughter to pass before continuing. “So, everyone, the door'll appear in front of us. All you need to do is walk through. Couldn't be simpler! On three. One. Two. Three!”

Then, of course, he opens it beneath their feet.

They fall. They fall through sky, an alien sky of gold mist and red clouds. An alien sky for an alien world which turns below, streams of obsidian rock flowing over white fields. A world which is quickly coming up to meet them: fast, too fast, going to hit it -

They fall through another portal.

For how quickly they had been dropping, they land strangely softly. Even so, the knights are jarred, some winded and some just panting for air. But none of them are so hurt that they cannot glare furiously at Merlin. He smiles blithely.

“There we go. Ought to have your blood up now, boys.” Artoria returns for a second to the old question of whether Merlin uses that address so often to tease her for her secret or just because he likes to belittle everyone else. “Go on, have fun swinging your little swords around. I'll just watch.”

Artoria sighs as he wanders off, leaning on his staff heavily enough that she can believe he needs it for once. And, in all fairness, moving a thousand knights through the walls of the universe and back could hardly not tax him, however powerful he is.

Time to plan, then. Britain's modern capital was hit early and hard, she judges. The square which all her knights have suddenly been crammed into is as much rubble as pavement: a tall column in the centre has snapped and fallen, though the lions at its feet still keep their watchful guard. She walks over to them, stands on one of their platforms. All around, towering buildings have been brought low and the huge invaders, their weaponry still carving apart the city, are the highest things in sight. On the horizon beyond them is the same evening sun which had greeted everyone so warmly when her knights left their Anglesey cave. But it now paints enormous metal shells in a dull, menacing red, echoing the glare of the fires they have sparked all through London.

For a moment, her teeth clench and her eyes narrow. But anger is one of those emotions she's never thought well of, as king or before. It clouds her judgement and when facing down these monstrosities, Vivian's Unworlded, she cannot afford that. She briefly strokes the lion at her side, running her fingers over its smooth, metal surface in soothing motions. Britain still holds these beasts dear; from Camelot then to London now, some things were remembered. Enough. To work.

She calls the knights together around her impromptu speaking platform and scans the crowd. Picking one out, she beckons for him to join her. “Gawain, is there still enough light?”

“Galatine and I will make it be enough, sire.” He's smiling like so many of the others have been since their awakening and their lord's return, but it's edged with a hard determination. Whatever the strain it might put on him, he'd no more fail his king than he'd stand by while Britain fell.

“Well said, friend,” she replies and gives him a nod. She looks down to another of her warriors. “Llenlleawg, if you'd come up here?”

The little Irishman, ever-loyal, climbs up to stand by her and her lion. When he's on a level with Artoria, she holds out Excalibur to him and lets him run his fingers over it gently, tracing the steel.

“Its wonder has not faded a bit. Thank you, sir, from the bottom of my heart,” the mage-knight says, and nostalgia rushes through her. His admiration for her sword was never dulled in all the time he was at her court, and the same applies even now, centuries later. He pauses for a second, a frown of concentration setting itself firmly on his face. He takes a deep breath. “Be thou born!”

A flash, and he holds another Excalibur in his hands. Not a sister to hers, as Gawain's Galatine is, but a full twin in gold and blue and spiralling fairy letters. As there always was, there's a little intake of breath from the gathered warriors, only the sheer number of them making the sound audible at all.

“It's beautiful, my knight – good work indeed. Use it well. Now, you both should stand ready,” she says. They give short bows in reply. “Kay ...”

And so she directs each of the knights whose power she thinks might be sufficient to their targets; a dozen stalking horrors are picked out for destruction. Those whose speciality lies elsewhere have other assignments: Bedivere takes command of a detachment to gather and protect civilians; Derfel takes another to strike at their enemies' ground troops; the royal general Pellinore is the best to liaise with the modern fighters who are still keeping up a resistance; and Lancelot has left to appropriate some enormous modern weapon he spotted amidst wreckage in the river. (A remark from the back of her army that Lancelot's infamous 'subtlety' survived the ages well was met with grins all round). Artoria's war machine swings smoothly into action without waste or argument. Everyone understands the others, knows strengths and weaknesses, who they should cover for and who can cover them. As good as it had ever been before. Better.

Satisfied, she leaves her knights to their tasks and concentrates on the moment. Gawain is the first of the six standing to her right, and Llenlleawg the first of the six to her left, as she begins the count to London's first strike against the Unworlded. Three blazing Excaliburs are raised. Galatine's light is darker, having to gather up the evening sun. Llenlleawg's imitation glows a little paler than hers, unable to live up to the glory of its original. And between the two, Excalibur itself is radiant. Summer's blade shines like the sun at solstice.

The swords are swung, their power unleashed. Day brighter than day dawns over London, and the Reapers die.

---

Making Of (I told you these section were going to get long)

I have placed the Knights' sleeping place on Anglesey, in one of the many Welsh places named Ogof Arthur/ “Arthur's Cave”. In the spirit of the Nasuverse, lots of elements are stolen from many other cave legends concerning Arthur, though the inclusion of the Round Table is was my own idea (I don't dare call it an invention, because I'm certain it's not).

Ynys Enlli ('Island in the Tides') is indeed fortunate enough to have a suitably mythical name for me to translate. Ditto its unique brand of apple tree, although cuttings have begun to be distributed to try and build up the strain. A cave on the hillside above the mother tree is legendarily Merlin's prison (as are hundreds of others around the British Isles, of course, just as many caves throughout the world are where dead kings sleep. Sometimes, the same cave will host both legends, because why not?). This neatly ties in to Avalon's association with apples; which is most easily summarised by telling you to look at part of Avalon's Wiki page.

The entire staff-making sequence came from me noticing that Merlin had an unexplained staff in later scenes. I think its insertion is just awkward enough that you can tell, but I liked the idea of him taking a kind of revenge on his coffin enough that I kept it.

Derfel is a historical figure – a saint who probably ministered around the Llandderfel area. He is also entangled in Welsh Arthurian myth, although we have lost most of his parts of the tale. He is named as Derfel Cadarn – the Mighty – and in some traditions one of the seven knights to have survived Camlann, by virtue of his strength. Most famously in modern times, Bernard Cornwell (author of Sharpe and others) uses him as the protagonist in his interpretation of the Arthur myth: the connection to Merlin is drawn from there, though the connection to Bardsey/Ynys Enlli (and therefore one of the many places Merlin is supposed to rest) is not – he is one of the 20,000 saints supposedly buried there; he may have been an abbot at a monastery on the island; additionally the monastery's founder and first abbot, St. Cadfan, is supposed to have been his cousin.

Merlin's place as the Magician of the Second is my own conjecture, derived from all the future-based magecraft he seems to do. It's more than a little iffy, since Merlin seems to still be at least partly alive in Nasu canon, and Zelretch is nevertheless running around (and it seems to be the case that there's only one Magic-user at a time). I'm claiming both that Merlin doesn't count as a Magician whilst he's confined and unable to use the Second, and that I have authorial fiat.
(Whilst we're at it, Teleportation is part of some Magic, but it's also not certain to be the Second. I kinda think it makes sense, given how much the Second fits into movement and travel, but it's arguable. For the sake of cleaving to canon, I used a work-around rather than direct teleportation. Seems plausible that you'd get to choose where you popped out in a parallel world, since it'd be a right pain in the backside otherwise.)

I got fed up enough with everyone's variant spellings on Llenlleawg that I just went to some online pictures of the Culhwch and Owen manuscripts (both the Red Book of Hengest and the White Book of Rhydderch – thanks to the National Library of Wales and our own Jesus College for having those images open) and checked through to have a look at the direct source. Such fun, given that w was inconsistently written as something resembling a 6, final g as c and the fact I don't speak Welsh, let alone badly transmitted, mediaeval Welsh in cramped, stylised handwriting. Well, I tracked it down anyway.

In Culhwch and Owen, Llenlleawg grabs Arthur's sword, swings it once and kills all their opponents during the retrieval of Diwrnach's Cauldron. He seems to be an Irishman like Diwrnach, which is pretty interesting. Overall, a neat little character, more than a little obscure and bound up in the multi-kill aspect with the Nasuverse has kept with Excalibur. So he got included and (given the strictly individual functioning of Noble Phantasms) turned out to be a middle finger to Nasu's decision that Shirō can't project that sword.

Artoria has, of course, ended up in Trafalgar Square by Nelson's Column. Because why not?

[YeOfLittleFaith]

Fuck yeah, Knights of the Round Table, kicking ass and being awesome.

[eddyak]

I love your Merlin.

[IhaxlikeNoob]

Man this Counter-Forceish reaction to the Reapers presence is sure hitting them hard.

Still hard to believe that HSs can take down 'The Unworlded' down though.

It doesn't change the fact that it's awesome though.

[Emy]

So you've posted the prologue, chapter 1, and...

Chapter 3: Britain

chapter 3?

I am confused.

[Seika]

Fuck yeah, Knights of the Round Table, kicking ass and being awesome.

They're fun. Also pretty broken, judging by the samples we have so far, which is why I felt OK about sending them up against the Reapers. (Just wish I could see what happened when Lancelot finally did get hold of ME-verse anti-materiel weaponry).

It's also the variety that interests me. There's so many great things attributed to the Knights, and exploring them's very enjoyable. Llenlleawg's a classic example where I went, "OK, he is definitely tracing Excalibur" on seeing what he did in Culhwch ac Olwen. Or Kay, whose habit of crossing bodies of water by walking along the sea-floor or riverbed I really wanted to work in, but couldn't find how to work it into the flow.

I love your Merlin.

I often like characters who are typically frivolous (even in serious situations) but can switch to powerful and focused very quickly as the mood takes them. And the contrast to Artoria and her rather careful, responsible knights is fun too.

I will suggest that he may pop up again. We'll see if you like his participation there.

Man this Counter-Forceish reaction to the Reapers presence is sure hitting them hard.

You'll get a broader and more balanced overview in the epilogue. The chapters themselves are me taking canon characters (with some additions for spice, like Fergus or Llleanleawg) and throwing them at the Reapers. And the canon characters are really broken as unfettered Heroic Spirits: the most famous hero of Ireland, the most famous hero of Britain (and her knights who are around her power-level), and the most famous hero of [censored] next chapter. (It's obvious, I bet most people have guessed by now).

Still hard to believe that HSs can take down 'The Unworlded' down though.

The fairies, as Gaia's creation, are majorly freaked out by beings that can survive without the lifeforce of a planet. Much the same reaction as Gaia had before Notes, and that resulted in incomprehensible horrors descending on the planet to wipe out humanity (and nearly succeeding). They're confined to the Back of the World, but they'll give whatever help they can to Artoria.

So you've posted the prologue, chapter 1, and...

chapter 3?

Yeah, my bad. It's chapter 2.

[NewAgeOfPower]

So, she no longer cares about being King?

[Seika]

So, she no longer cares about being King?

Rather the point of her character, wasn't it? That she wanted to stop being king, have someone else take up the role?

But, yes. Saber departed to Avalon much more at peace with her reign, but that doesn't mean she wants to rebuild Camelot if/when the Reapers are defeated. I would suggest that Artoria went into her first reign as a young, idealistic girl, thinking that a king had the most power and therefore she must be able to do the best for her country there (as well as a king being necessary for the country at that point in time). Now, Saber's never not going to be an idealist, but she's acquired some wisdom since then. Neither she nor Britain are the same. There's no prophecy hanging over their heads - and Mass Effect's Britain probably has its own monarch, for that matter, assuming they haven't been killed yet - so she doesn't need to throw herself into that role again. She can serve Britain in other ways, hopefully just as effective. (And her rule was very much suited to the Britain of the time - because it was so specific, she knows that she's not necessarily the best candidate for this throne).

And there may well be some selfishness in there. If Britain was doomed without her as king, she would obviously take up the crown again. But since it's not, she will listen a bit more to her personal desires, even if it's not consciously. And she does want to get to know all her cherished knights as proper friends instead of as a distant king. She does want to be able to have an actual gender instead of being an idealised symbol. And I think that 'king' still smacks of all those things to her, of putting away her emotions and thinking always about justice over friendship. So she opts for this other title, 'warlord'. What she actually thinks that means, in terms of responsibilities and power, is something I want to leave to the reader. But this Artoria has a definite distaste for 'king'.