Trial by Fire.
"Ah," said Gudako, never one to easily learn from experience. "So that is what happens when you tug Artoria's ahoge off! Now, I wonder what will happen if we do the same to Nero-chan...?"
Minutes later, Chaldea was going up in flames as the Red Saber played the violin.
Darkness approaches. Armageddon awaits. Suddenly, MHX has a refined understanding of the purpose for her existence.
Originally Posted by Elf
Fated to Redo.
"Ah, Rin," Kirei smiled, stepping ahead to greet the visitor at his church. "I'm glad you finally could summon your--" Here he paused, staring at the scantily clad exact lookalile of Rin standing next to his protege.
The Tohsaka heiress sighed, placing two fingers on her forehead. "This is Archer, Kirei. And no, don't ask, I don't really have an answer either."
Archer smiled sultrily at the quietly stunned man of the cloth. "Good evening, Priest. However, while I do not mind being any man's object of worship, perhaps one who serves another God should not devote so much of his attention to one such as me..."
Sitting deep at the back of the church, pouring himself a glass of wine, Gilgamesh suddenly felt an extremely uncomfortable chill running down his spine. He looked at the drink dubiously for a moment, then shrugged to himself and took it to his lips, but put the rest of the bottle aside as soon as he was done, regardless.
Kotomine finally regained his cold aloofness, folding his arms behind his back. "I am naught but a mere arbiter, and the exact nature of each Servant does not matter to me, nor their resemblance to anyone else. As long as you have been summoned as a Heroic Spirit, then I will--"
The church's doors were slammed open from the outside, and Archer and Rin spun around identically, one readying a bow, the other several gems between her fingers, to face a sheepish looking, downcast Matou Sakura slowly following a much livelier, longer haired, cheerful Matou Sakura who bounced in energetically, extending her arms at her sides. "Yahooo! Hey, NPC Priest!" this different Sakura waved at the once again stunned out of his mind Kirei, while Rin could oly let her jaw hang loose. "My my, we're big on reusing assets nowadays, aren't we? How do you do, I'm Servant Moon Cancer, and me and Master came here to register after deleting a few annoying bugs back at home!" She came to halt before a wincing Archer, tilted her head aside curiously, looked at Rin next, and asked her, "Shouldn't you be blonde here?"
Kirei only could hope during the tense silence that ensued, if hope was a word that could ever apply to him at all, that things wouldn't get more unpredictable and thus more difficult to manipulate from here. With any luck, the Assassin he had procured himself would bring more uplifting news after his nightly patrol, at least in the way Kirei understood a word such an 'uplifting...'
---
Emiya Shirou was not having a good night at all. But obviously someone thought different.
"Rejoice, boy," solemnly intoned the tall, imposing man advancing towards him. "For not only I will grant you a quick demise, but you will be spared the horrors to come upon this world. In a way, intruding upon the conflict between Lancer and I was the best thing that ever could happen to you..."
"W-Wait, aren't you the priest of the local church?!" Shirou kept on backing away until his back touched the shed's wall, finally recognizing the man's dark clothes in the nocturnal blackness. "What did I ever do to you?! Doesn't your religion forbid you from killing?!"
He raised the huge, black blades he held in each hand. "What can you know about the forces from above, and what they intend for us?" he asked, but just as he brought his Black Keys down, they were blocked by a single, much longer blade, and Shirou shielded his eyes with an arm from the sudden glow that had exploded forth between him and his attacker. One from which rose a sword wielding figure, in black pants and a single long scarlet sleeve, his lean, yet muscular bare chest and torso almost glistening under the light enveloping him. Shirou blinked, completely marveled, because this savior who was now roughly pushing the Assassin back and out, sending him flying through the opposite wall of the shed--
-- and now turned back to him, with a stern expression on his face and saying, "I am Servant Saber. Are you my Master?"--
-- was, clothes aside, physically identical to him in every last detail.
Things were only getting even stranger from here on, were not they?
---
On top of a small hill overlooking Fuyuki City, two small girls sat on a gigantic polar bear, staring down at the urban lights in a thrilled, expecting silence. Admit it, as far as anime beginnings involving bears goes, this is far less cliche than 'a panda chased a redhead across the streets, under a heavy rain...'
Until one of them pumped a fist up. "Yes, that's what I was talking about! Get ready to rumble, Onii-chan! Your little sister is back in town...!"
The completely identical girl in furs sitting behind her on the bear grunted faintly. "Control yourself already, will you, Alter Ego?"
Honestly, even a Caster would have been better than this.
Ranma reference is nice, but where's the Tiger-Jaguar duo? Even if Taiga wasn't a Master, that'd have been awesome to see
I couldn't think of a proper way to include her without stretching the gag way too much.
---
Movies.
"Master, Master!" the Servants asked. "Let's play the movies game!"
Fujimaru Ritsuka laughed good naturedly. "The movies game? Which movies, anyway?"
"Enter the Dragon," Lancer Bathory said.
"The French Connection!" Rider Astolfo said.
"Puss in Boots," Rider Drake smiled, clicking her heels together.
"The Spy who Shagged Me?" Assassin Mata Hari smiled.
"How to Train your Dragon!" Kiyohime said.
"Chariots of Fire!" Rider Medb said.
"Sister Act," Alter Ego Kiara said.
"Child's Play..." Archer Kuro purred.
"The Italian Job," Saber Nero said.
"You, Me, and Everyone we Know," Saber Fergus said.
Ritsuka blinked, starting to feel nervous for some reason.
---
"You're saying they did WHAT to Sempai?!" Mashu gasped in horror.
Da Vinci shrugged. "Basically, Some Like It Hot, so he got Tangled in A Series of Unfortunate Events. With The Usual Suspects, of course, and--"
"And--?!"
"A Few Good Men."
"What?!"
"Don't worry, they used Grease."
"W-Where?!"
"Where the Eagles Dare."
"Circe-san, too?!"
"It was a Clash of the Titans, after all."
"Inglorious Bastards!"
"While You Were Sleeping," Da Vinci nodded.
Mashu raised her shield and howled furiously, "Apocalypse Now!!"
"... This is the End," Da Vinci concluded quietly, and she was right.
Last edited by OverMaster; November 8th, 2018 at 04:35 PM.
A Typical Afternoon in the Offices of Type-Moon.
"Okay, then, how about Heroic Spirit Assassin Edward Gein?" he suggested next. "He inspired both The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho, so we can mix Leatherface and Norman Bates into a single Composite Servant! And he'll be easily recognizable without us having to pay royalties to either movie franchise!"
"My God!" one of his colleagues said. "That's it! You're brilliant!"
"We can get Takehito Koyasu to voice him!" suggested a second one.
"Maybe we can rework him into a kawaii girl, though?"
"Oh dear," another soberly realized. "Our lives, what in the world are we doing with them...?!"
Was Gein the one who believed his victims' souls would become his slaves after death?
I remember actually considering writing him up as a Servant a while ago (as a Rider/Assassin Double Summon with a Ghoul Car NP) and would've given him a Psychopomp (False) Skill based off that anecdote.
Put Your Hand Behind Me.
"That... That won't work, at all," Bathory said, as the newest Servant in Chaldea kept on stroking her tail with a small, yet forceful hand. "It isn't like yours, you idiot..."
Temptress, better known in life as Momo Belia Deviluke, pulled her hand back, disappointed. "Oh! What a shame, then..."
"Did I, at any point, ever imply you should stop regardless?!" the Lancer growled back at her, roughly grabbing the hand and putting it back on the tail.
Fantastic Fou.
"This," Da Vinci smiled, gesturing towards the impossibly complicated looking latest device, "is my latest invention! The Accelerator of Cosmic Energy! It can gather and channel the universal forces out from outer space and super charge objects and even individuals, granting them fantastic abilities far beyond those of humans or Servants. Of course, it is still in the experimental stages of--"
"Sensei, Mash, look out!" Ritsuka cried. "It's about to explode!"
"... well, it didn't take long this time!" Caster observed while she, Mash and the Master quickly rushed out of the way to safety. Someone else, however, was not as fortunate...
"FOUUUUUUU!"
---
"FOU!" Fou said, turning his upper limbs into super stretched legs that strongly walloped Avenger Jeanne across the room.
---
"FOU!" an invisible Fou's voice suddenly startled Lev, and then a massive invisible shield rammed against him, knocking him several blocks back...
---
"FOU ON!" Fou shouted, jumping up, turning his whole body into flames, and then blasting down a supernova at Alter Cu, frying him down.
"Oh my God, you've killed Cu-chan! You aren't human! You bastard!" Medb screamed, and thus this story's standard Cu Chulainn Death quotient was fulfilled.
---
"Fuu fuu fouh fouing fuuuu!" Fou proclaimed, armoring himself up with an orange rocky body and leaping onto Goetia, starting to brutally beat a bloody path through his chest...
---
"-- and that's why we really don't use Servants anymore," Ritsuka finished explaining, holding Fou before the new Director.
Gordof's face twitched just a little. "I... I see..."
Abuse.
"We have come," Koyanskaya said, "to collect all your assets, seize your organization, and, oh yes, execute you, over the--"
Ritsuka interrupted her, standing his ground defiantly. "Over what? Over your goals to annihilate mankind? To succeed where Goetia failed? To--"
"Actually," she said, gesturing aside, "we are here mostly on reports of extreme animal abuse and cruelty."
Ritsuka followed her pointing hand with his gaze, towards the filthy, smelly cages where they kept a stupified, drooling Fou, a badly beaten and softly sobbing Tarasque, a shaken, battle weary Lobo with old wounds all over him, a few tropical island boars, a Tamamo Cat cramped into a small cage twirling a spoon within a steaming pot, and a panda who held his cage's bars while shouting "There's been a mistake! I'm actually a man! And I don't belong here! I'm from Melty Blood...!!"
Ritsuka grumbled, "Okay, fine, but having us executed over that is still a bit..."
Last edited by OverMaster; January 1st, 2019 at 08:55 AM.
Eyes on the Prize.
"Okay," Ritsuka grimly said. "There's work to be done, no matter the risks. Let's get going."
"Yes," the Artorias said as one, nodding at the same time, and then Saber, Lily, Lancer, Lancer Alter, X, X Alter, Foreigner, Santa and Archer walked out the door.
Saber Alter was the last to exit, but just walked directly against the wall instead.
As she took a moment to wince and rub her face over the black mask covering her eyes, Ritsuka voiced a shy, "Um, you know, maybe it's time you stopped wearing that--"
"I will not hear anything on the subject," Saber Alter proudly said, finally marching out the door and then procceding to trip and fall down the stairs right outside.
Spiked!
"Come on, Avicebron," Ritsuka said, leading the way out of the room. "There's still a lot to do."
"Yes, Master," the Caster said, following him quickly... only to have the huge golden spikes at each side of his cape clash against the door's frame, pushing him back.
With a murmur of annoyance, Avicebron twisted around to stand left shoulder first against the doorway, and stiffly walked out that way.
---
Gilgamesh grinned widely, entering the Chaldea bar and taking off the jacket he had been wearing over his casual clothes. "Listen, Dog of Uster!" he feistily called over to the now sighing barman. "Get your best liquor ready, I have just started to party tonight! Ah ha ha ha!" he laughed, moving towards the bar after hanging the jacket up.
Twitching slightly on his chair where he'd been sipping on a glass through a straw connected to his mask, Avicebron, Gilgamesh's jacket now hanging from one of his spikes, mumbled a simple, "This is no way to spend an evening..."
---
"Aaaaaahhhh!" Nursery Rhyme laughed, kicking the ball back to Jeanne Alter Lily.
"Wheeeeeeee!" Jeanne Alter Lily giggled, kicking the ball in turn to Jack the Ripper.
"Hohoooooo!" Jack the Ripper said, kicking the ball at Nursery Rhyme...
... only to have it deflating as it landed on one of the spikes of Avicebron, who was passing by.
The male Caster, looked up from the book he had been reading, and at the deflated ball now hanging from him. "What is this?"
The three little Servants stared up with huge watery eyes, then broke into wailing. "MAMAS...! THE EVIL CASTER BLEW OUR BALL UP...!"
One moment later, Avicebron was surrounded from all sides by the irate Raikou, Boudicca, Atalanta, Altera and Blavatsky.
"What did I do?" he managed to ask right before the punishment started.
---
"-- so I just need to know, how do you manage to get by with THOSE?!" Avicebron asked, pointing up at the just as huge and sharp horns on the Assassin's helmet.
"FOOL! Whatever makes you believe it does not happen to me all the time?! It just happens that I simply behead them whenever it does!"
Inspiration.
Goetia stood triumphant over the beaten, humbled Servants felled all around him, laughing maniacally. "Is this the best mankind has to offer in their defense? Pathetic! Don't you see how broken and hopeless your futile attempts are?! Stay down already, fools! There is nothing you can do to prevent your end..."
At last, indeed, the human kind's greatest were subdued in body and spirit by this unbeatable foe.
"Yes... It's all been in vain, after all..."
"We were so naive, all of us...!"
"I can't move anymore... I don't have the strenght..."
"It's all lost, all lost!"
"Uuuuuu..."
The only one still standing, Merlin, bit on his lower lip and cursed to himself. "Damnation! Well, it'll be necessary resorting to this, it seems..."
He began gesturing with both hands, wildly, invoking a large rip on the fabric of time and space over the battlefield. "I summon forth, the most compelling vision in creation! Behold, Master of Chaldea! Behold, Heroic Spirits! Be reminded of what you fight for!"
"... what...?" Goetia looked up, seeing a simple sequence of a young redhaired boy trying time and time again to jump over a high bar, never succeeding. "Have you lost your mind, Merlin? What is this pitiful display meant to--"
He was interrupted by a myriad of impressed, loud gasps and sighs of admiration all around him. The Servants were staring up as well, fixedly, as the boy kept on getting back up and trying to make the leap, time after time.
"Such perseverance!"
"What a drive!"
"I feel ashamed of myself now..."
"This is good civilization."
"If he's not going to give up, neither will I!"
"Uuuuuuu..."
Only Emiya remained unmoved, grouching to himself on the dirt. "Stupid jump and stupid bar..."
"Oh, for the love of--" Goetia groaned, annoyed, right before over a hundred of enraged Servants descended upon him.
---
"And that," Merlin finished his tale with a smile, sitting at the table across Shirou, "is why we had to come and see you as soon as possible!"
Shirou frowned, ignored the uneasiness of Sakura and Rin sitting behind him, and looked all over the starstruck, awed and swooning huge crowd of colorful figures and a single perfectly normal young mage sitting along Merlin at the other side of the table.
Then, and only then, Shirou glared a hill of swords at the archmage. "I can see now why Saber would feel that way about you...!"
"I'm right here, Shirou!" a hand was raised from somewhere in the crowd overstuffing and literally pouring by the sides out of his dojo.
Taiga blinked, then pointed at Jaguarman. "Okay, but how does any of that explain why she looks just like me?"
Hah, that's a good one. Reminds me an awful lot of that comic strip where everyone in Fate Stay Night and Kiritsugu's ghost tries to start a Shirou route.
Poor EMIYA, though.
My Boy.
He left with little warning, one sunny day, with a sad little smile, a hug, and a promise of returning soon.
He'd write often at first, from several points of the world, allegedly working as a contractor, and over time he'd write less and less.
Every once in a while, Rin would come by on some business or another, and I would ask her about him. She'd always say, "Oh, he's okay, I saw him just last month!" and that would put me at ease.
I only saw him once afterwards, when he dropped by without calling first, and he was huge now, tanned and white haired, and I really couldn't recognize him at all at first. He hugged me, told me fondly "You haven't changed at all, Fuji-nee!" and we spent all day laughing, drinking and reminiscing before he left again. Only when he was gone, I realized how sad he actually had looked the whole time.
The pattern repeated itself after that, in that he'd write a fair lot at first, and then not so much, and finally he didn't write at all.
I once heard he had been executed. Another time, I was told he'd died in a warzone. I heard so many stories, and Rin never confirmed any of them.
We grew old and grey and had families of our own, and that soothed the pain of the loss, somewhat. But I never could forget my little brother, my poor lost Shirou.
My boy.
I'm here to laugh, not to feel
Servants who Never Should be Summoned.
---
Rider.
In the Eyes of a Ranger, the unsuspecting stranger
Had better know the truth of wrong from right.
'Cause the rule of law and order starts at the Texas border,
With the Lone Star of the Ranger shining bright.
Saber and Lancer stopped their duel when this strange song began sounding out of nowhere and everywhere, looking in the general direction of a man strolling confidently out of the shadows, followed by a meek young man with short black hair. The other man was tall, well muscled and red haired, past his prime years but still standing strong and vital, with a shade of a few days with no shaving, and a slight smile on his lips. He wore blue jeans over a red shirt and long, open yellow coat, and a cowboy hat on his head.
'Cause the Eyes of a Ranger are upon you;
Any wrong you do, he's gonna see.
When you're in Fuyuki, look behind you,
Cause that's where the Ranger's gonna be.
"I'm Servant Rider," the man said, and even the Archer, watching from above, felt a sudden chill running up his spine, under the shiny gold armor.
In the Heart of a Ranger, he'll never know the danger
From desperate men with nothing left to lose.
The Ranger keeps on coming; so there ain't no sense in running,
'Cause he's bound and sure to make you pay your dues.
Since Saber, Lancer and Archer were not insane, they gave up. Since Caster and Berserker were insane, they were spin-kicked in the face. Something happened to Assassin, whatever, who cares. The corrupted Grail was dealt with when Rider ripped his shirt off and manhandled it while easily shrugging the black mud off. When Waver went back to Clock Tower, the other Magi were spin-kicked in the face too just on general principle.
When a Ranger's on your trail, he won't know how to fail
And you can't buy him off at any price.
So if you decide to ramble, and with your life you'd gamble,
Know where you are before you roll the dice.
The Last Master.
The Greater Grail had been dismantled, and peace had returned to the city at last.
And so, a man with long black hair could finally go up that hill overlooking Fuyuki, crouch down on the grass, and start setting up the candles for the fallen.
He set a candle for the man whose legacy he had inherited, for despite all his many flaws, now he could understand him better.
He set a candle for the doomed puppet of an ancient evil, who died without ever having his love returned.
He set a candle for the demented dog who would flood the streets with the blood of the innocent, for even the worst have to be remembered, lest we fail to learn from their misdeeds.
He set a candle for the proud and rich owner of the land who ended up losing everything.
He set a candle for the broken man of the grand dreams who had brought ruin upon his own family for their sake.
He set a candle for the foolish child twisted by his family's evil.
He set a candle for the obscure man who had failed to achieve anything at all, because of his own hubris and shortsightedness.
He set a candle for the jaded man of the dead eyes who gave everything for his love.
He set a candle for the tiny woman who never could mature because of others' choices.
He set a candle for the one who was backstabbed by that she trusted the most.
He set a candle for the perverse thing that had once been a human being.
He set a candle for the man who never could find solace in anything but that he had been taught to hate.
He set a candle for the young man who burned his life off for an ideal.
He set a candle for the loving girl who kept on waiting to the end for someone who never came back.
He set a candle for the brave young woman who fought along him to bring the nightmare to a definite end, and paid the price for it.
He sat down on the ground and paid his tributes in the necessary silence.
Finally, a younger man with much lighter hair came up the hill, smiling. "Aren't you done yet, Professor?"
He sighed, getting up as the wind blew the candles off. "Yes, I am now. Let's head back, boy. We have finished here."
Waver Velvet and Flat Escardos began the long way home.
Last edited by OverMaster; January 18th, 2019 at 08:56 PM.
The Real Reason Why Archer Gave His Arm to Shirou.
"Wait," Rider paused as he placed the blade down against his shoulder. "What are you going to--"
For all answer, Archer forcefully and swiftly brought the weapon down.
---
Sakura trembled and shook into Shirou's embrace as he pounded hard and relentlessly on her. "Oh, Sempai! Sempaaaaiiiiiii!!"
Firmly held behind Sakura's naked back, and without Shirou himself actually noticing, Archer's arm raised a thumb up to itself.
Split.
"Okay," Tenchi tapped on the blackboard with his pointer. "This is how we're going to do it, now Itou is dead. I get all the aliens, since Rito obviously isn't interested and Ataru just isn't worthy. Issei gets all the devils and angels. Keitaro gets all the freeloaders and rounins. Negi gets all the schoolgirls. Mahiro gets all the Lovecraftian abominations. Ranma gets all the martial artists. Araragi gets all the Oddities, and Itoshiki-sensei gets all the psychopaths. Otaru gets all the Marionettes. Shirou gets all the Servants and Magi."
Ranma raised a hand. "What about martial artists who are psychos? It happens way more often than you think!"
"That depends on whether they are more of the former or the latter, naturally," Tenchi explained. "Same thing with all other cases that interlap with each other. Any objections?"
"That's... fine with me, I guess," Araragi shrugged, scratching himself on a cheek. Most of the others followed this with a nod, but Itoshiki, who was too busy hanging from the ceiling to object.
"But... I still get Sairenji, right?" Rito asked. "I mean, that's all I have ever really--"
Tenchi coldly blasted him with Lala's gender changing device. "Both of you are assigned to Negi from now on..."
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