Ultimate Anti-Chaldea Secret Weapon.
Ritsuka blinked. "They... They must be joking..."
The horde of naked, disgusting, fat bald men descended upon his party, howling, flaccid parts dangling.
Artoria sneered and stepped ahead. "Excalibur," she said, and blew them all apart.
From his safe vantage point, a troubled Beryl Gut stroke his chin. "That's strange, it always worked in doujinshi!"
The Unmentionables.
Meuniere stared into the distance.
"Penny for your thoughts," Mash smiled, approaching him from behind.
He shrugged. "They're not worth that much."
"Come on, don't say that," she said, ever so friendly. "You are a good f--"
"No, sorry, they are, this time, worth it," he sighed. "I was thinking of them."
She blinked. "Them?"
He closed his eyes. "You're living in a different world, now."
"Huh?"
"And... you know, I can't blame you. I really shouldn't," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "When was the last time you could allow yourself, thinking of them?"
"Oh," Mash said very quietly. "Them..."
Meuniere went back to staring into the featureless distance through the narrow window. "I've never seen a Servant approaching me, or Sylvia, or Kawata, to speak about them. Any of them, approaching any of us, really. Only you care."
She lowered her head. "I'm sorry on their behalf, really. I'm sure most of them share your pain, it's just, well, you said it yourself, most of them are busy all the time, and several aren't that good coping with loss, and--"
He repressed the urge to tell her of how they hadn't lost anything themselves, not this time at least, since they still had their Master. He didn't mention, either, how they had plenty of time to rayshift into summer vacations, or play silly romance games around the Master. What would the point be? It'd only feel like he was pettily bitter about it, a little man daring to compare his importance, and those of similar dead lessers, to the plight of the last light of mankind.
After all, it was fair, right? Servants kept themselves to Servants, and to their Master, there was no point on trying to pretend any of them would ever connect with lessers. It was the way things were, and it was logical. What could they even talk about with the First Emperor of China, with Thomas Alva Edison, with Cleopatra? Even if they tried, they were on completely different planes of existence. No, he had no right to be jaded about it all.
And yet...
He just kept on nodding as Mash talked, not listening, and then she patted his shoulder with affection, turned around, and walked back to her larger than life world of daring do and adventure, of great drama and larger than life stakes.
For the dead, larger than life stakes did not matter anymore.
For those waiting to die next under the shadows of oblivious giants fighting each other, stakes did not matter much more, either.
The last time he'd ever seen a Servant approaching a staffer to ask more than three questions in a row, it had been before the disaster, and Carmilla had been trying to seduce Miriam into her room.
Miriam, poor little Miriam, was now buried, like so many others, under the Antarctica. Not by Carmilla, but that was not the point. The gods kept on fighting with valiant smiles and courageous hearts, for as long as the Master stood, there would be hope.
For all but for those lost, so far away, into that distance.
From where he sat, he could hear the Master and Mash happily laughing, his laugh a bit shaky, while Nursery Rhyme and Jack the Ripper no doubt pulled on his sleeves again.
Dang, that's dark. Makes me wonder (not being a player) how much GO has acknowledged the whole "all of humanity wiped out" thing as anything other than a plot-device for why Ritsuka has to save the day. Ritsuka is such a blank-slate lead (or just has hella' compartmentalization abilities, I guess) I can't see him ever angsting about losing family members or whatever, but other characters could still mention it.
Stranger Faker than Fiction.
"Ah ha ha ha!" Saber laughed, slapping his knee as he watched the colorful movie about funny animals. "They nailed him! Even the thumb sucking! How did they know, for real?"
Ayaka blinked. "Uh, okay... Nice to see it doesn't offend you, then..."
Why so Blue?
Gilles smiled, riding onto the battlefield and stroking his long, blue beard.
"Jean," he said smoothly. "Good to see you again. What do you think of this? I spent all these months grooming it carefully..."
She stared on and, ever unable to say a lie, finally spoke, "It's horrible! Shave it off!"
---
"-- I actually spent more time growing it than having it, but I still never lived it down!" Saber Gilles finished, in despair. "Did she have to say it before everyone in the troops?!"
"Ah ha ha ha, yes, I remember...!" Caster Gilles cackled fondly. "Even your innocent cruelty is wonderful, Jeanne...!"
Jeanne Alter frowned. "Really, did she say that? I think one would look great on you...!"
The differences between regular and Alter continue to grow.
Originally Posted by Elf
Inspired by the recent Carnival Order special.
Sun and Games.
He stood on the snow, with wide open arms and a large, pleased smile on his face. Eyes closed, he basked on the light wrapping him in its warmth.
"Ah, the sun!" the blond man said. "The Sun at last! Invigorating me back, with all the might we share...!"
Clark groaned and took his cape off. This hadn't been what he'd expected when he answered the League's distress call warning him of those massive explosions in the Antarctic.
"I'm glad for you, sir," he said, offering the cape to the contented blonde amidst the snow blanketed smoking ruins. "If anyone can understand a healthy appreciation for the Sun, that's me. But please, cover yourself with this while I bring you some pants!"
- - - Updated - - -
A Reclamation.
Someone knocked at the doors of Chaldea.
Every Heroic Spirit and the few staffers left tensed up in attention.
Fran of all people was the one who made it there first. Never fearing, she opened them before anyone could say otherwise. She cocked her head aside and, through the thick bangs of red, looked at the stranger standing on their doorstep.
"Uuuu?"
The red haired young man under several thick layers of coats and jackets, a scowl barely visible between his fur hat and the scarf, huffed. There was a single, yet noticeably large streak of white in the front of his hair. "Where's Artoria Pendragon?"
Chaldea's original Saber walked closer, blinking. "Shirou? What are you even doing her--"
"It was far faster than running all the way up to Avalon, okay?!"
Merlin pouted. "Booo, you aren't fun at all, lad...!"
No Pants, No Service.
"It's just so frustrating!" Martha wheezed, running her fingers through her hair. "I can't get that child to put on some pants like a decent person her age!"
"I did it, once," Mash quietly confided her. "Just once, though, afterwards she's never wanted to put them on again..."
"Eh? Martha asked. "Did she tell you why?"
--
Jack smiled to herself as she passed by the desk of the Master, hips swinging ever so slightly in her new, fancy pants from Auntie.
Mum just ignored her altogether as he kept on working on his report for Da Vinci.
Her heart sank.
---
"She didn't want to say," Mash sighed. "I suppose that she just found them uncomfortable."
---
Jack smiled to herself as she passed by the desk of the Master, hips swinging ever so slightly in her usual old, same old attire.
Mum stopped working on his report for Da Vinci and looked intently at her lower back as she walked away.
Jack's smile grew silently.
---
The Paradox.
"Hey, Achilles, listen to this they've just sent me," Cu chuckled while looking through his phone. "Achilles is in a footrace with a tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 metres, for example. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time, Achilles will have run 100 metres, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, say, 10 metres. It will then take Achilles some further time to run that distance, by which time the tortoise will have advanced farther; and then more time still to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise."
"No way?!" Achilles blinked. "Is that for real?!"
"Ah ha ha, yes, in a way, I suppose!" Helena laughed. "It's a well known paradox first thought by Zeno of Elea, and concerning the concept of infinity. But it's just a theorical rethoric, of course!"
"Hah ha! I'll say!" Achilles said. "Losing a race to a tortoise, who has ever heard of something so stup--"
Then all three of them fell into stunned silence as they watched Atalanta pass by, wearing a bridal gown and carrying a tortoise in a tuxedo in her arms.
"Don't ask," Atalanta said bitterly, without even looking at them.
Comic Books.
"What's this?" Medb asked, looking at a stack of magazines in the library.
Edison looked up from the book he was reading. "Oh, those are one of the great art forms of America, the superhero comic book. Where colorful mighty icons born from corporate vision strive for the betterm--"
"Ah, yes, yes, like manga, right?" Medb picked one and began flipping through it. "They have nice looking muscular men so they can't be all that bad. Let's see--"
Edison went back to ignoring her as she sat down and read. After a long while, she put the last magazine in the pile down and grouched, "These are all frauds. The Punisher never gets into any domination, the Man-Thing is only an ugly monster, the Flash never flashes himself, and Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, never rents his body..."
Hah! Ah, Medb, you're looking in the wrong places (or rather the wrong parts of the comics) for that kinda thing.
Servants who Never Should be Summoned.
---
Saber.
"Saber, tell me," Ritsuka asked, bringing his hands together. "What is the best thing of life?"
The large, muscular shirtless man with the very big sword pondered this grimly. "Actually," he said after some consideration, "since my arrival to Chaldea I have taken an interest on extreme mountain biking. It is surprisingly competitive and exciting, and Artoria and I have been--"
"Saber...!" Ritsuka complained. "That's not the answer...!"
Saber growled under his breath, then said in his best gruff voice, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."
Ritsuka cheered. "Alright! It's even cooler in person than in a movie...!"
Why did they all follow this brat again? Saber wondered once more.
Conan the Barbarian and Artoria biking together is rather wholesome, though.
Servants who Never Should be Summoned.
---
Caster.
The bat-garbed Avenger warned her. "Don't get too close to him. I know him well. He is not, by any stretch, a good person."
Nursery Rhyme smiled. "Oh! If he likes Alice so much, he must be a good person deep inside!"
---
Avenger waited patiently until her return.
"Are you aware now?" he asked her when she came back in, with a blank look and a total lack of expression.
"Yes," she blandly told the Batman, while sitting now. "Yes, I see now. You were right..."
Servants who Never Should be Summoned.
---
Avenger.
Lancer smirked at the man who had just appeared between him and his prey. "What a surprise, kid, you are a Master after all!"
Shirou blinked. "Master? Master of what?"
"Your Servant doesn't look like much, though," the man in the blue bodysuit said, looking up and down at the unremarkable looking, scowling man in modern clothes. "Where are your weapons?"
"I carry a gun, if that's what you're asking about," Shirou's summon sneered, pulling back on his jacket enough as to reveal the holster by his side. "I'm a cop, see. But that's not what I'm here for. I'm just a vessel. A tool of His will. Just like always."
"What are you babbling about?" Lancer scoffed, raising his spear. "Are you going to fight or what?"
The other man growled, and his eyes flashed, his pupils taking the shape of skulls. Suddenly, Lancer grew tense, and his cocky smile vanished.
"I'm doing nothing. He is passing judgement..."
And then, much to Shirou's awe, the man's flesh seemed to pull back into nothingness, as if peeled to show another man underneath. A man of starkly white skin and dead eyes, wrapped in a green cloak and hood. A sulphuric emerald flame came into being all around him, and Lancer gave a quick step back.
"I am what was called by this boy's unconscious scream for an equalizer, an Avenger," the ominous figure rose, seeming to tower over Lancer, who held his ground. He tried to chuck his weapon, recognizing the stranger for what it was, but it was too late now, as his hands had just been literally fused into it. He gasped in horror. "He bore witness to a gret injustice, demanding for punishment on those responsible, and all those bearing their legacy! I accuse you! You, too, are to blame, Child of Light!"
He pointed a finger at Cu Chulainn and growled as he let the searing power fly. "Let all those who would kill in this War know... the Wrath of the Spectre!"
In Fate/Extra CCC and Fate Grand Order, Gawain talks about "root vegetables."
I figure he was making mashed parsnips.
Well that age like wine or vinegar I have to said...
Servants who Never Should be Summoned.
---
Berserker.
"I am Berserker!" the gigantic shark man shouted, grabbing Archer. "I'm a shark...!"
And he shoved the other Servant whole down his throat.
Rin stared in horror. Then there was a long pause, and she looked at Illya.
"Soooo... what's the punchline?" Rin asked.
Illya wagged a finger. "He is Berserker," she explained. "And he's a shark."
Berserker took a hand to his stomach. "Sharp things don't taste good!" he said before puking Kanshou and Bakuya out.
USA! USA! USA!
Mordred, Ibaraki Douji, Ushiwakamaru and Artoria Caster sat by the sea, enjoying the sun.
Blackbeard, Fionn, Cu Chulainn and Orion passed by, all with vague looks in their eyes and faraway smiles, singing softly to themselves.
"Oh say, can you see, by the dawn's early light..."
Ibaraki blinked. "Now what happened to them?"
Musashi passed by next, happily eating an ice cream come and wearing her American flag bikini.
"Oh," Mordred said dryly. "Of course."
That Exotic Taste!
"Good morning," Molay said while walking into the cafeteria. "I would like a--"
"Third Ascension! THIRD ASCENSION! THIRD ASCENSION!" chanted everyone in the cafeteria.
Molay blinked, sighed, and walked out. One second later, she walked back in, now in her Third Ascension form.
She sat down and picked a menu card up. "What would you even do if you'd summoned Saber Me instead?" she grouched.
Last edited by OverMaster; July 31st, 2022 at 08:54 PM.
How heretical of them.
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