The desert is vast.
The sky is broad.
The army is endless.
Each person, each soldier standing there, roars as one, proclaiming superiority. They are not fighting; their cry is not a war cry. It is a communication of intent, a promise of execution with no chance of appeal. They are merely an instrument, delivering a King's judgement.
He is being sacrificed.
The Hero understands that, somewhere in the back of his mind, where he pays it no thought. He knows why he is here: his master, coward that he is, has ordered an impossible task.
It's hot, and the sun is bright. There are no clouds to shield him from the blaze. A twinge of longing appears in Lancer's heart. He wishes for a hill to lie upon, chewing on a piece of fried meat, and watching the thousands of clouds drifting along, unfettered.
What brought about his Master's decision? Was it fear, knowing he could never earn the respect of his own Servant? Was it anger, seeing his orders followed despite all that, as if from pity? Or was it merely impotent jealousy, seeing his 'beloved' melting under in the arms of one who should have been naught but a tool?
Yeah, the Hero thinks. The last one might've been it.
"HEROIC SPIRIT!"
The voice carries across the sands without losing strength. The desert winds propel it far enough to bridge the gap between horde and Hero.
The King bellows from his chariot, adressing the sacrifice personally. "Your Master and mine are of different calibers, but you are an excellent fighter! I've seen your mettle tested against Saber and Berserker, and Caster's pets, and it speaks of great skill and strength!"
"Aye, this one knows flattery," mutters the Hero, but his words vanish into the sands.
"You were sent here to die, but that need not happen. Come! Join my army! Swear fealty to me, the King, and we shall conquer the world together!"
It's actually quite refreshing. The Hero doesn't dislike such people. This red-bearded giant reminds him of home, albeit through a filter of prissy words and preachy dialogue. Were he still young and impressionable and looking to spit death in the face, he'd have seriously considered the offer. But now, at the end of yet another life...
The Hero tries again. "I've given my loyalty to another!" he hollers, and the redheaded King hears, hands tightening around the reins of his chariot. "And that still holds true, though we're both dead and dusted!"
"Even when you see my glorious army before you?" It is a challenge and a demonstration of power. The King spreads his hands. "Each one of my friends has your mettle, Hero of the Lance! If a King is his people, I am ten thousand times greater than the one who earned your loyalty. Does that not make me ten thousand times more worthy of it?"
It's flowery stuff. The Hero can't bring himself to hate it. He recalls hundreds of similar conversations between foes, across frothing rivers and deep wounds in the earth. Platitudes and compromises and desperate offers. Fathers, sons, evil witches, best friends. There were people more desperate than this King. There were prouder ones and crueler ones, and kinder ones. But this one...
This guy's got something else.
"If we're talking numbers, then..." The Hero leans on his lance, eyes scanning the ranks of the army. They stand, attentive, each one without a shred of doubt in their hearts. Except... no, that's silly. Probably just a trick of the mind. "I'd be worth ten times what you've got here. Don't compare me to some trashy Spirits that could only manifest by latching onto someone brighter."
Has the false sun's heat instensified? Is that wind rougher, sharper? Lancer knows this isn't the normal world. It reminds him of his teacher, who lived in something similar, a temporary place created for one purpose.
The King's smile is wiped away. Not by a frown of anger, but by curiousity. Of course he doesn't understand the Hero's words. To the King, his army is is pride and glory, and their bonds unbreakable. He doesn't understand, and the Hero knows that.
"Rider, was it?" the Hero asked, stretching upwards and spinning his lance, dropping it across his shoulders and leaning his head back, completely relaxed before the means of his exection. "Words won't get you anywhere. Not with me. So let's cut the bullshit. Forget about Masters and Servants and this War. Why don't you let your weapons do the talking for you?"
The King laughs. "Are you mad, man?"
"Am I?"
The King stops laughing. His brows furrow, and slowy a broad smile reemerges from his beard like the sun rises above the horizon. "A needless question! It matters not to me whether you are. A wager it is, then, Hero! I am Iskander, King of Conquerors, and I shall have you join me! Mad men like you are to be preserved in these times."
"The Hound of Culann," responds the blue-haired Lancer lazily. "A promise, then? If I lose, I'll join your little band of merry men, for as long as I remain in this world."
"And the reverse?"
Lancer shrugs. "Hadn't thought that far yet. How about I come up with it while kicking your ass?"
They both laugh. For an instant the whole thing seems silly. A meaningless battle in a meaningless war, between two meaningless ghosts. Lancer and Rider both understand it; the blood spilt upon this sand shall be meaningless as well.
But Man is such that he creates meaning of his own, when none is given to him.
Lancer is the first to stop. He raises his spear, pointing to the heavens. Rider stills. His army tenses.
The crimson spear descends and is levelled towards the mass of Heroic Spirits, held with one hand. The other rises. Lancer presses a thumb against his own neck, tilts his head up, and jerks it across his throat in a universal gesture.
"FORWARD!" Rider's cry has no mercy contained within.
His peerless army moves, but in the time it takes them to make a single step, Lancer is ten ahead. He surges, a blur blur on the pale sand, streaking across dunes without losing any of his footing. He charges straight towards Rider, who sits behind the thickest mass of warriors. A frontal, all-or-nothing assault. They surge forward to match him at a fraction of the pace, moving like a single-celled organism.
It is a battle between one man and ten thousand. The conclusion is all but certain. Were he some near-omnipotent being beyond humanity, perhaps Lancer could wipe away the opposing force with a divine power. But he isn't and never was so fortunate; no miracles had and ever would save him.
When the distance between them is halved, Rider jerks on the reins of his opulent chariot and belts out an indescribable war-cry. Select troops along the back of the lines echo it, sending the message to ten thousand souls in seconds.
The sides of the army extend further outwards. Infantry cluster towards the center and slow their advance, while two arms of cavalry stretch outwards and forwards, broadening the wave so they might halt Lancer's future retreat. At the same time, a volley of arrows begins, with a thousand bowmen firing at the same target from the back lines. In an instant they blot out the false sun, and Lancer finds himself charging into a rain of death.
They aren't normal arrows. Simultaneous fire was invented so that mediocre archers could inflict casualties on large, massed groups. Against a single person, such a tactic would be a waste. Most of the arrows wouldn't land anywhere near the target.
But it is for that very reason, the fact that they're Heroic Spirits, that they can surpass that rule. Each arrow is perfectly aimed, perfectly timed to pierce and kill. Men and women that could have been Archers all attack with killing blows, some with unblockable steel rods, others with blessed darts, and even more with a spray of killing shards.
They all miss. Rather, each one is deflected. Simultaneously. Continuously. Endlessly. Arrows thud into the sand beneath Lancer's feet. His approach isn't even slowed by the carpet bombing. Metal screeches by, sometimes grazing his cheek or parting his hair, but never bringing him even close to hesitating.
For a Heroic Spirit of his caliber, each shot is merely something to be knocked out of the air like a child crying out for attention.
And then the distance is reduced further. In seconds, the certain-kill barrage ceases, as the Archers recognize its lack of effectiveness. Now, when Lancer is so close to their own lines, they'd do more harm than good.
Rider sees this and raises his hand, sending yet another signal. The infantry lines halt and fold over themselves. Lancer finds himself facing a mass of muscled terrors clad in heavy armour, wielding gigantic weapons that could cleave a man in half, and shields that could stop a comet. It's a challenge, to see if his offense can surpass a strong defense.
The distance between them is one kilometre.
Still, Lancer doesn't hesitate. He sees the light glinting off of armour and doesn't slow down.
Seven hundred metres.
He smells sweat and blood and surges forward.
Three hundred. The arms of the cavalry have closed around his back. He is in a rapidly shrinking circle. Retreat is no longer an option.
He glimpses the whites of a man's eyes and-!
A flash, and a casualty.
Rider doesn't see it, but he hears it. A man crying out in agony that even a Hero couldn't hold back.
Neither does the victim see it. The largest and meanest of the bunch, he howls, hands clutching at the silver arrow protruding from the eyesocket of his helmet. The heroes around him are distracted by the dying pleas of a man being afflicted by Hydra venom, and are slow to react when the person who threw that arrow launches the five others he grabbed out of the air mid-flight.
The second barrage isn't nearly as effective, not as unexpected as the first. Hasty blocks stop a hasty assault, but it does the job of shaking up their defense, so that when a crimson typhoon smashes into it, he isn't the one rupturing.
Momentary chaos. The pride of the Macedonian army is impeccable organization and the unbeatable phalanx, but Rider's army is compromised by the exceptional nature of its soldiers. These are Heroes, not used to fighting in rigid rows beside commoners. They are individuals and fight as such. Despite their attempts to act as one, such cohesion has already collapsed under the first sign of strain.
One woman, wielding a stick twice the length of Lancer's, tries to sweep the flying Servant out of the air and is stopped by the shoulder of the man to her right. She almost manages to finish a curse before a spear point takes her in the throat.
When a dozen blades strike that spot, the offender is already gone.
Lancer has seen it many times. It's one of his guilty pleasures: taking apart the cohesion of a superior foe, exploiting their strengths and bringing it down to the level of a pure battle. He grins as he observes his handiwork, knowing he's blasted away all of the enemy's hesitation.
A Hero is dead, leaving thousands more.
A dark-skinned creature twists unnaturally and stabs forward towards Lancer, leaving the safety of the line. They curl around the thrusting red spear and brings their knife towards Lancer's neck, only for it to be caught between the Hero's teeth. Lancer's grimace extends into a grin, and his hand doubles back, wrapping tightly around the makeshift Assassin's neck, ignoring their retaliatory kick to his kidney.
His forward momentum halts and the two skid forward on the sand, before Lancer whirls and with a great heave, launches the other soldier back, where they are impaled on a dozen spears expecting someone completely different.
Three down. That's what Lancer thinks as he kicks back and dances away from the advancing line, aborting his would-be rush. Three down and too many more to go.
Is there any value to such a person? Such is Rider's thought as he sits at the back of his army, listening to relayed reports and gazing from above at Lancer's plight via the scrying spell of one of his few mages. If the man's wish were victory against all odds, he could understand it, but what sort of person throws themselves into death so readily?
Well, it isn't something that can be solved by pondering it. When the Hero falls – and he will – Rider will take his time asking questions.
It's inevitable, after all.
The surprise of fighting a new foe was a momentary advantage, but it's gone in a flash. Barely half a minute into the melee, Lancer jumps back from a hundred killing blows, scrabbling on unstable sand with one leg completely numb from the knee down and a hand completely stripped of skin. He blinks away blood and heaves his lance upwards, deflecting a stray arrow aimed at his face.
He swears, realizing he can't move anymore. A pair of arms has emerged from the sand and stabbed into his good foot in two places with knives as wide as his wrists. The hidden Assassin starts dragging him down. With a burst of impromptu rune magic to heat the sand to scorching levels, Lancer manages to weaken the grip enough to escape. Just in time, as yet another potentially fatal thrust scratches his cheek while he ducks it.
For a moment he's alone, and then the circle snaps shut, with horses galloping in from behind and angry blades slashing at his front. To complete it all, a final rain of arrows blocks out escape from above.
Lancer's about to die, and he's having the time of his life. A second, false life that should be cut short in moments, save for a miracle.
"Aw, damnit."
For whom does that miracle arrive? Is it Rider, who sought an ally instead of a corpse, or Lancer, who wish only to die fighting? The miracle cares not for reason, only its purpose.
With his mouth half-open, an oath to meet again ringing through the air, Lancer disappears from Rider's world to save his incompetent Master from a new threat.
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Bored and suffering from Writer's Block, so I randomly wrote something my 16 year old self would think was the tightest shit ever. Just a huge fight scene. Had more fun than expected.
Might continue it, maybe. Probably. A three-parter sounds good.
Enjoy.
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Originally Posted by ItsaRandomUsername
