And Broskander makes the scene as Euphie's Servant.
And Broskander makes the scene as Euphie's Servant.
Spoiler:
Wow, that is one large update. Very nice, the details are incredible, and I really liked how you did the whole training scene. Though, in that first kata/dance/movement thing that Lancer was leading, and the others followed, since three of the five people weren't blushing, and only two were, I don't see how "the only ones who weren't blushing" applies. I liked that other display of Servant power, what Saber did with a single strike, without putting in too much effort. Excellent interactions between characters, you're doing a good job with Archer. Baby Kirei, how adorable. That HAD to be Iskander that Euphemia summoned, which is awesome. Just to clarify, was that Lancer disquised as Lelouch doing the leaping when the meeting with Kallen's group took place, or Lelouch using Reinforcement? I think it's Lancer, but I wanted to make sure. Keep up the magnificent work!
Wow. Nice infodump at the end.
Wait, it's CG Lelouch? What the hell did I miss?Originally Posted by Dimensionist
Though yeah, if Takara intends to join the resistance, her interactions with Kallen have the potential for outmost disaster.
Also, I can't believe I missed mentioned Broskander. I wonder how he'll influence Euphie. :P
Well, I personally approve of this chapter, Pale Wolf. I certainly hope you remember to update your Fanfiction.Net account for this story at least.
Now, while I skimmed over the info dump that was meant for Archer, I must ask this. Who's the First that you mentioned?
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Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise these days.
An archive of my works on the forum that's pretty accurate.
Note that I don't wish to be seen as an idiot any longer. I can't always promise better works than before, but I can sure as hell try, alright?
It's Canon!Lelouch as has been mentioned several times.
Spoiler:
...Please, Pale Wolf, clarify for us who you mean by the First!
Otherwise, I'll have to refer to him as Zelretch, just because that's who you could mean!
Xamusel's Fanfiction Profile
For those that don't necessarily care if my fics aren't all Type-Moon related.
Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise these days.
An archive of my works on the forum that's pretty accurate.
Note that I don't wish to be seen as an idiot any longer. I can't always promise better works than before, but I can sure as hell try, alright?
Don't be silly, Zel would be the Second, in that case.
Oh, really?
Hmm... good point, there.
Xamusel's Fanfiction Profile
For those that don't necessarily care if my fics aren't all Type-Moon related.
Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise these days.
An archive of my works on the forum that's pretty accurate.
Note that I don't wish to be seen as an idiot any longer. I can't always promise better works than before, but I can sure as hell try, alright?
Al is in his happy place now.
*facepalm* I already told you and palewolf has already mentioned several times that the First is referring to canon Lulu. He's the one who's narrating the wiseups.
Spoiler:
...Sorry. It's just that I must have missed that particular detail, Nitewind.
Then again, how come Archer knows about him?
Xamusel's Fanfiction Profile
For those that don't necessarily care if my fics aren't all Type-Moon related.
Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise these days.
An archive of my works on the forum that's pretty accurate.
Note that I don't wish to be seen as an idiot any longer. I can't always promise better works than before, but I can sure as hell try, alright?
Essentially when canon Lelouch gave his geass command to the collective unconsciousness he created the counter force, which works retroactively, and became the first counter guardian.
As for how Archer knows about him; this chapter seems to imply that Lelouch has some pull over how a counter guardian deployment is preformed.
edit: specifically First!Lelouch apparently provides tactical direction to deployed counter guardians.
Last edited by UberJJK; May 19th, 2012 at 11:55 PM.
I see. Thanks for clarifying.
...How would you know this? Did you speak with Pale Wolf prior?
Xamusel's Fanfiction Profile
For those that don't necessarily care if my fics aren't all Type-Moon related.
Hmm... this is a bit of a surprise these days.
An archive of my works on the forum that's pretty accurate.
Note that I don't wish to be seen as an idiot any longer. I can't always promise better works than before, but I can sure as hell try, alright?
He's mentioned it, actually.
Awww. No need to be scared of the military-experienced Iranian paladins from the same region and religion as Angra Mainyu... (Hm, when you put it that way...)
Yeah, this one has mostly been setup.I can't wait for Takara to meet Zero, either. And don't get me started on Euphemia and her Servant. Lots of attention-grabbing plot points this time, and I can only expectantly wait for more.
You're quite welcome.Thanks a lot for the massive update.
Poor Takara doesn't even know, but yes, that's gonna be... interesting. (The 'butterfly' was actually Lelouch's presence. In a 'canon CG' timeline, Takara had some more trouble dealing with the bullies trolling her with The One Ring, so she engaged Gilgamesh later, after Kallen's group had passed through the zone)
Thank you.
I noted that myself, yes. Lelouch was sort of counting himself among the blushing crew, since he knew he was hiding it.Though, in that first kata/dance/movement thing that Lancer was leading, and the others followed, since three of the five people weren't blushing, and only two were, I don't see how "the only ones who weren't blushing" applies.
Yeah, she wanted to hammer home that Kallen couldn't just laugh off how dangerous a Servant was. That said, as she noted, Servants were human to start with, so it's also entirely possible Kallen could reach such a level herself someday - but she wasn't there right now.I liked that other display of Servant power, what Saber did with a single strike, without putting in too much effort.
Thanks. A lot of these guys are quite fun to write.Excellent interactions between characters, you're doing a good job with Archer.
It's not strictly accurate (he's actually born around 1968, ie 5 years in the future), but I thought it'd be fun.Baby Kirei, how adorable.
He is sort of recognizeable, isn't he?That HAD to be Iskander that Euphemia summoned, which is awesome.
That was Lelouch using both reinforcement, and hidden threads that Kokoro had reinforced for him. When he's better at reinforcement he wouldn't need the threads, but at this stage they and some climbing equipment provided the assistance he needed to make those jumps. Lancer was out of the area (to avoid early detection by Aon) and keeping the civvies out of the way (/trolling Suzaku).Just to clarify, was that Lancer disquised as Lelouch doing the leaping when the meeting with Kallen's group took place, or Lelouch using Reinforcement? I think it's Lancer, but I wanted to make sure.
I intend to!Keep up the magnificent work!
Ah, this was actually discussed on Spacebattles, but yes, it is.
After all, towards the end of Code Geass, Lelouch is the one who commanded the previously-silent collective will of mankind to defend humanity.
As Elric noted, that's what started up the Counter Force, and Lelouch thus became the First Counter Guardian. (Also the First Among Counter Guardians, ie the closest thing to a commander) But as FSN has demonstrated many a time, Alaya, and its subdivisions with the Throne and the Counter Force, considers time more of a cute suggestion than a rule. But even it's bound by causality to some degree.
Archer doesn't know his personal history, but, well, as a Counter Guardian, he would sort of know the First Counter Guardian. They don't exactly chat around the water cooler, but Lelouch is basically the closest thing the Counter Force has to a face (though even he doesn't quite control it).
Yes, I am in fact alive.
Disclaimer: No copyright is mine, thus no copyrighted character is. If you recognize them from something that's not written by 'Pale Wolf', I have no legal claim to them.
Code Geass: The War Of Kings
By Pale Wolf
Chapter Six
The Peace Ends
~~~I========>
"So, Archer, looks like we're partners now!" Archer staggered as the huge Rider looped an arm around his shoulders and rested his significant weight there.
Archer grumbled under his breath, but refrained from shrugging the arm off. "I wouldn't go that far." And he heard the click as Anya got a picture on her cellphone.
"No, no, I gotcha." The red-haired man grinned, releasing Archer - a tall man himself (finally), but this guy was huge - and clapping his paw (the term 'hand' wasn't really appropriate) against his back. Archer at least didn't stagger this time. "Our Masters have a relationship, thus far we don't. We're going to need to establish one."
... Crap. He was Greek.
"Uh... Rider...? 'Relationship' is a bit far too..." the pink-haired girl... well, the one in a dress, anyway... commented, fiddling uncomfortably with her vast lengths of hair.
'Princess Euphemia li Britannia', apparently. The kid had sent out a signal for aid, and since Anya and Rolo were the closest Britannian unit, they'd charged out to the rescue. And, of course, found a Servant. Her Servant.
If this were any kind of normal Servant (then again, there was no such thing as a 'normal' Servant, becoming a Heroic Spirit meant you were a freak to begin with), it would have turned into a fight right there, but Rider had just offered Archer a job. He hadn't answered yet (refusal, of course, the Grail was probably a non-option to begin with, and Archer had never yet called anyone his king and wasn't about to start now), but it had at least given them a chance to talk things over.
"Ahahah, sure, sure, if you say so."
Looked like the little princess had had no idea what was going on, so they'd explained the basics, and Anya and Rolo had called back for orders.
"Regardless," Rolo interrupted, still standing at attention in the doorway to the living room of the safehouse - the 'Geass Directorate' and/or the Britannian SIS (whichever was involved in what here) had a whole number of them scattered around. This wasn't the one out of which the Directorate ran its 'mediator' services, of course. "Orders from High Command are that we are to cooperate for the length of the Holy Grail War," he restated.
The princess nodded, looking up from her phone. "Yes... this must be very important to Father... He does not often speak with us."
Anya didn't look up from hers - she was typing up something again - as she spoke. "Objection?"
"No, just... confused." The princess tugged at her hair. "I mean, magic was a fantasy three hours ago, and now I'm in some kind of magical super tournament. Under orders from Father..."
"Mm," Rider rumbled. "No objections, but I'd like to talk to you in private at some point, kiddo." There was totally an issue there. If Archer had to guess, it was relating to the princess's uncertainty - Rider was obviously used to being 'alpha as fuck', but with his Master having trouble understanding what was going on, that put him on the short end. Fortunately, Archer didn't have to guess, he was exceptional at eavesdropping.
"Eh? Um, okay..."
Anya's eyes rose from her cellphone to look at Archer, who shrugged. "Hey, I'm still with you, Maaaaanya," he amended his address under her death glare, smirking.
She eyed him for a bit before returning to her cellphone. "It'll do."
Rolo nodded. "We will need to meet Princess Cornelia when she arrives. For that purpose, we should act as SIS agents under Dame Alstreim. Princess Euphemia excluded."
Rider waved a hand. "I'm up for that, but later. I want to get a sense for the terrain. I'm going to need modern clothing and maps... especially maps."
Rolo shrugged. "Those can be acquired. ... Why clothing?"
Rider grinned. "Need to get a feel for the terrain, not just a list of salient features. I mean, I wouldn't mind walking around like this," he gestured down at his bronze armour, kilt, and crimson cloak 'Middle Eastern conqueror' getup, "but the way my Master was gibbering, I wouldn't really fit in."
"... You don't exactly seem the sort who desperately wants to fit in, Rider," Archer noted. He hadn't even considered going spiritual, clearly.
"Nah, but there's no point getting a feel for the place if I'm making the place different just being there, y'know? Besides, I think the Grail status thing's telling me something about awesome shirts, and I'm kind of curious."
For some reason, that line reminded Archer of something. It was nothing deeply precious to his self, more of a 'throwaway line he'd once heard', but still, it was strange enough to catch his attention.
Archer hummed. "Minor problem occurs to me. That's going to burn through prana a bit quicker, being physical rather than spiritual. It's not insurmountable, but do you have any coming in? Or are you running off your own stocks?" He wasn't a desperate fan of cooperating like this, but it'd be just kind of embarrassingly stupid if an enemy, let alone an ally, discorporated because he forgot to check on his prana supply.
"Um... what's prana?" the princess asked, hand raised as if she were in school. Which answered the question better than Rider ever could have.
Rider nodded calmly, answering anyway. "I am. I have a solution in mind, as well. Your Master can teach mine basic casting." He turned to the princess. "I won't draw much, but I am going to need a positive inflow, unless the battles turn out hilariously easy."
"Yeah, no, they're not," Archer nodded. "I've seen some of the loons floating around here." Gilgamesh certainly wasn't the sort of opponent you fought with your tank half-empty. He was beatable, but it wasn't the sort of thing you could do without being well-rested and prepared. Or cheating. Archer was a fan of that.
Rider nodded again. "Then I'll need something coming in. So, Master of Archer?"
Anya just waved a hand in Archer's direction, fielding the question to him.
Archer chuckled. "She has the bare minimum of magecraft herself. And you don't want me teaching, I used to use my nerves for it instead of my actual magic circuits."
Rider winced. "... Right then. I'll need to supply a teacher."
"... Supply? Not teach yourself?" Mm. It made some sense. Rider was the class of 'cooperation with another'. It was stereotypically a mount, but stereotypically Archer was a ranged-only class and he had never met one that wasn't at least proficient in basic close combat (extremely basic in Gilgamesh's case). So the stereotypes were pretty stupid to rely on to begin with, they'd been imagined by people who mostly weren't skilled combatants, and couldn't possibly encompass supreme combatants. "Your Noble Phantasm?" There was no chance that was the limit of its capacity - the fact that Rider was willing to show this much meant there was more held in reserve.
"Yeah, I can materialize my comrades. In this case, I'm thinking of a very good magus... not quite sure where I remember him from, but whatever." Rider swung out his arm, draping it over someone's shoulders - and as his arm settled into place, the someone appeared.
Tallish, thin, sharp-featured, longish black hair, eternally cranky expression on his face, cigar settled in a long-fingered hand, dressed in a modern business suit, with a dark red coat and long gold scarf slung over it. The man slowly blinked, puffing his cigar once. "The fuck you doing here, Emiya?" Fortunately, he'd said it in English - a language that only actually existed in Archer's timeline, incomprehensible to native speakers of the Britannian language (a Welsh-ish horror the likes of which twisted his soul to try and pronounce when he tried to do it without the Grail's support, and even with the Grail's support, abominations like King Arthur's Noble Phantasm shield Wynebgwrthucher were... beyond him).
Archer facepalmed. Now he could place that shirt comment. "This was the one you had, Velvet?" Responding in the same language, of course. This was Alexander the goddamn Great? "And how did he call you?" Heroic Spirits weren't supposed to retain memory of the times they were summoned... no, Rider didn't remember it, he'd said as much, but... then how would he call someone he'd met on a summoning?
The man - Waver Velvet, Lord El-Melloi II of Clock Tower back when Clock Tower was actually a thing - smiled, looking back over his shoulder at Rider. The smile alone was a bit disturbing, because Archer did not see such a pure expression on that guy's face very often at all. "I can't say to how. But yeah. It's him."
No, Waver knew exactly how he'd been summoned. Waver was a hell of a lot smarter than Archer, and Archer was starting to put it together himself. But of course he wouldn't say it - he was Rider's ally, he wouldn't reveal the man's secrets, even to an old comrade.
Rider grinned down at Waver, cranking the man closer in a one-armed embrace. "You've grown, boyo! See? Thirty centimeters!" Britannian language - the Grail didn't give him English, Archer supposed.
"It wasn't the height that did it, Rider," Waver deadpanned, switching to Britannian. Apparently the Grail passed it on to him too, good.
"... Really? Huh." The wide face blinked in surprise.
Heroic Spirits retained some data across summonings. Data integral to their natures - data without which the Heroic Spirit would no longer be the Heroic Spirit. Rider was not the sort who would never forget a comrade - he was the sort who could never forget a comrade, who was literally incapable of it. To whom 'memories of a comrade' exceeded the laws of reality.
It was the sort of utterly distorted psyche that gave rise to a Reality Marble. And while Waver had never talked about the precise powers of his Servant's inner world... Archer suspected that if Rider expanded it to override the real world, the Hetairoi would march again.
Waver slipped out of Rider's grip, gesturing to Archer. "I'm going to need to talk to that punk over there for a bit, Rider."
Rider's eyes settled on Archer, narrowing slightly, a cool evaluation in them much more suitable to the general who'd conquered the greatest empire in the world (even if the one he'd built on the ruins had basically been five minutes of shit - that was a different skillset). "Oh?"
"I will explain, Rider, but I need information only he's going to have before I can do so properly."
Rider nodded. "Go for it. And give me a hand figuring out where the heck I remember you from, when you're back. I remember you, but I can't remember the specifics."
Waver grinned his 'I met Tohsaka Rin one too many times' grin of pure evil. "I have an idea or two on what I'd do if I met you again, Rider. Can't say how much it'll help, but I can at least restore some of your memories."
Anya cocked her head, taking a picture of the three. "Friend?"
Archer chuckled. "More of an acquaintance. We were associates in life. Though I didn't know Rider."
Rolo looked between the two Servants, face expressionless. He'd better buy this, because things would turn downright problematic if Archer had to go into real details before things were ready.
Fortunately, Anya, at least, just nodded. "Tell me sometime."
"Will do." Hopefully he actually had the chance. Eh, if not, wouldn't be the first promise he broke. Or the twenty-third.
The princess, for her part, just watched in the polite confusion of someone who had no idea what was going on but didn't want to interrupt.
Archer gave a short wave, and slipped out of the living room, into the adjacent kitchen.
Waver stepped through behind him, shutting the door and exhaling a cloud of cigar smoke onto it. The smoke spread, covering the door entirely, and every wall, floor, ceiling, and piece of furniture of the room.
They could talk freely now.
The house was totally bugged, Archer could see three just from here, but Waver's spell stopped the air from moving - from vibrating. It was bargain-basic magecraft, but sound could not pass through the smoke. He'd used this one many a time in the jobs they cooperated on. Lip reading wasn't a concern either, the smoke would muffle the cameras so the necessary precision just wasn't there.
There were magecraft espionage methods his smokescreen wouldn't block, but Archer generally found those easy enough to detect - the smokescreen would be tighter otherwise, making scrying orders of magnitudes harder (frankly, when the scryable area was the two millimeters Waver could get it to if he was really pushing it, anybody who could spy on them bloody deserved it), but it smelled like shit and required them to be closer than any people not boning each other preferred to be, so Waver preferred to leave it a bit distant when Archer was around to catch the spells.
And really, they spoke a language that didn't even exist in this universe, so the chances of their dealings being understood were low, though translation was a possible concern - the bigger danger was the fact that they were having dealings. He would have to spin it as a habit for privacy without any conspiring going on - and honestly, they did have such a habit, it was just that they were actually conspiring this time too.
Waver gave another puff of his cigar, leaning back against the fridge. "What the hell is with you and the short jailbait, Emiya? This is a slightly disturbing pattern of yours."
"Hey, that is..." Archer raised a finger in protest, before sighing and lowering it. Rin... Ilya... Koliva... Saber... Luvia... Hortensia... Canaan... Renata... Victoria... Sajyou... now Anya... yeah, no, he couldn't really argue it. At least Bazette and Corine were tall enough not to fall in that category without a lot of wrangling. The list was disturbingly long, now that he thought about it.
Waver smirked. "Did this one's parents at least not engage in inappropriate relations with a tank?"
"Nah. Howitzer." Seriously, Anya's relationship with heavy artillery was almost as intimate as his with swords.
"Your talents never cease to amaze me, Emiya." Waver shook his head. "I wish they would..."
"Done teasing now?"
"For the moment."
Archer just sighed, wiping down one of the counters. It wasn't really that dirty, but eh. It was calming. "So what happened after my execution?"
"Not a whole lot I can say on that account," Waver noted. "It was only a week ago from my perspective, I appear to have been summoned from pretty close to minimize paradox. Though, the Russkie was marching on the guys that ordered it, last I saw. ... I didn't ask where she got that damn tank. I'm pretty sure it was her father."
Archer just looked at him, rolling his eyes. "Okay, seriously, let the 'human/tank crossbreed' jokes slip for five minutes, they don't need to be hammered into the ground."
"Sure, sure. She actually did have a tank, though."
"... No comment." Those poor bastards...
Waver puffed his cigar again, inhaling the sweet carcinogens. "You had some damn dedicated friends, Emiya."
"... Are you sure 'friend' is the appropriate word, considering how often we put each other in traction?"
"Yeah, that whole 'Heroes of Justice' thing probably works out a lot better when you can agree what justice is." Waver lowered his cigar. "Speaking of. The Grail."
Archer shook his head. "I haven't managed to confirm yet. This is the Fourth in an alternate universe, so it may still be screwed, it may not. I don't know. Best to assume it is until we can confirm, though." It would only be possible to confirm whether the corruption was there very late in the Grail War, when the damn thing actually appeared. Four or five Servants dead at the least. If those dead Servants included Archer and the actual winner didn't notice, then this world was fucked. It might be fucked anyway, the Grail had burned Fuyuki even when rejected and destroyed at the last instant, and this one had more power in it. "That going to be a problem with your boss?"
"Yes and no. I'm telling him, obviously. But he got burned in life pursuing a prize that didn't exist. He was tentative about the Grail to begin with. And I may have us a win condition or two that gets his wish accomplished, with or without the Grail. I don't have any of my Mystic Codes, but I might be able to rebuild and get something going. If you want another life too, it shouldn't be any trouble, if I manage it once I can do it twice." Waver shrugged. "Not going to offer a guarantee until I've dipped in and seen what I can do. But if you could get me the Grail vessel to work with, the chances go a lot higher."
"... Waver, I'm not letting you vivisect my mother-in-law."
"Come on, seriously? No trust... My experiments don't have to be lethal or even particularly painful. You know I'm second-rate, I at least wait for them to die before cutting them open, and I don't kill 'em either." A first-rate magus wouldn't wait. More useful data could be obtained from a subject that was still alive. To the extent the term applied. Of course, that was how magi put the terms - the greatest magi Archer knew were all considered 'second-rate' by that metric, from Zelretch, down through Tohsaka, Rudahigwa, Velvet...
Archer nodded. "And wear it as a badge of honour... right. I'll keep it in mind. I can't say how practical it is, but if the opportunity arises..." Yeah... Waver was mostly trustworthy. And even if he did have a sudden change of character and carve up the homunculus... securing Rider's aid took priority. It had to. If the Grail blew, they were looking at mass death on an unprecedented scale. Everyone in Fuyuki, at bare minimum, on up to 'everyone on Earth', though the First would probably deploy a Counter Guardian before it got that far - thus killing everyone in Fuyuki, Counter Guardians were not precise instruments. Any one person, no matter their relationship to Archer, was a blessedly small sacrifice in the face of that.
He hated himself for thinking like that, literally to the point he wanted to murder himself for it, but because he thought like that, he'd hate himself even more if he didn't save the thousands of other people who would be saved by that sacrifice. The math was easy, it was just living with it that was hard.
"I suppose it's not practical to go dismantle the Greater Grail again right now, even if I had our win condition in place," Waver surmised.
"Not even. Old Zouken and the Einzberns aside - and that's a pretty damn big aside, you remember how batshit that got last time even without a Grail War on - we've still got at least five other Servants who're gunning for a wish and would rip us up for it, not to mention our own Command Seals if we can't get Anya and the princess on our side."
Waver hummed. "Yeah, figured. Okay, I guess we figure shit out and fight the War as normal, for now. At least, unless Rider's whole negotiation thing works out a bit better this time and we get some Servants figuring out what's up."
"If it comes down to it, I can Rule Break them. I'd rather keep it in reserve, though." He still had no idea who that Caster waving the thing around had been, but he'd have to thank her for the gift. Maybe kill Gilgamesh in vengeance for her horrible murder or something. Ah, who was he kidding, that was a favour to himself long before it was a gift for anyone else.
"What's it look like on the actual Grail War we're supposed to be fighting? Quick summary."
"Zany." Archer shrugged. "It's a Grail War, the only thing that'd surprise me at this point is if one happened without crimes against humanity. We've got local military pulling massacre, assassination of a prince possibly by Lancer, some kind of supernatural power mixed in with the Grail that makes it even stronger, and Assassin is Gilgamesh."
"... That's what I get for asking for the condensed version, huh? Right, I'll explain things to Rider and we'll put our heads together, you can tell the full story and we plan things out in more detail."
"How were you planning on restoring his memories of the Fourth, anyway? Do you even know where they're stored? If they're stored?" Modifying a Servant was an insane proposition, but if anyone could do it, it would be Rin or Waver. And Waver would do it with some rookie spell even Archer could manage, used in some way that made perfect sense only after he did it and explained his process.
Waver grinned. "Not quite restoration, actually. But I was by his side pretty near the whole time. I'll just transplant my memories of the Fourth to him. He ought to be able to figure out the blanks."
"Don't forget you're going to have to do what you were here for to begin with and teach some magecraft," Archer noted. "If that princess doesn't supply Rider enough prana to stick around and keep you floating, your other projects aren't going much of anywhere. She's got the power and more to spare, but you're going to need to get it flowing."
Waver shook his head. "I seriously hope as a Hetairoi I get the same 'don't need to sleep' benefit Servants do..."
~~~I========>
Saber leaned on the railing, face expressionless as she watched Japan's coastline grow larger. A part of her mind highlighted each military facility as it, with help from her 'Grail updates on the modern world', identified them - armoured structures, a handful of long generally-tubular artillery coilguns, and the sort.
The larger part was still working through the implications of what the Grail had told her regarding this world's history.
This had to be the world she had wished for - a world where a better king had taken her place in history. That was clear enough. A world where the Britons had never fallen - her people, the Britons, not that other future ruled over by the English, the thrice-damned Germanic Angles and Saxons she'd fought her entire life to keep out of Britain in the first place.
There was no more appropriate place from which she could fight to create this future. She was just trying to grasp her feelings on whether she should.
Her kingdom prospered. Beyond any dream she'd ever dared. That much was glorious. But... it did so on the backs and crushed hopes of 'everyone else'. They were not, she thought, as bad as the English had been in that other future - but they were her Britons, and that magnified every sin, because they should be better.
And on the positive side, it had still prospered far beyond her wildest hopes for centuries before falling into that. This darkness was, comparatively, a recent development. But... recent or not, did the past really matter, when it ended up like this?
Such were the questions. In the end, it came down to this: should she make the wish that created this future, replace herself with a better king, and hope Britannia could raise itself out of this corruption? Or should she wish to fix this Britannia, and let her own failures stand?
The Britain of the past, and the Britannia of the future... she could only save one. Thus... even if she won, she lost.
'Pretty...' Her Master, watching from the other end of the Servant sensory link (in truth, hundreds of kilometers away), was somewhat less philosophical.
'I suppose so. I do not have good memories of this land, myself.' She did not truly blame Kiritsugu. She did not comprehend his actions, could not comprehend the actions of a man who destroyed the Holy Grail he had sacrificed his own wife to obtain at the very moment it fell into his hands. It had been her own error. As with Britain. As with Lancelot and Guinevere. With her own foolish optimism, she had assumed she understood people - but she had simply been projecting what she wished to see.
Rider was still wrong. The country did not sacrifice for the king. The king sacrificed for the country. Her own failure to do so did not mean her way was wrong. Merely that she was unqualified. In the end, everyone had sacrificed for her. She had failed to live up to her own ideals. That did not make them wrong, it merely made her wrong.
Which was why she did not much like her memories of Japan, she supposed. The Fourth Grail War - or, she supposed, the last Fourth Grail War - had been hellish for all involved. Irisviel sacrificed for nothing, Diarmuid's dream crushed in the cruelest way possible, Maiya dead... and Saber shown just how far short she had truly fallen from the king she should have been.
'Wow... you've been to Japan before, Saber?' Her Master's childlike wonder brought the barest ghost of a smile to Saber's face.
'Not in life. However, I was once summoned for a prior Holy Grail War.'
'What was it like?'
Saber hummed. 'Not pleasant. In truth, I should cut off our sensory exchange for many of its events. It is not the sort of thing a child should see when they have the option.'
'No, Saber! You... you promised... you promised to show me the world...'
Saber pursed her lips, smoothing out the black suit her Master's associates had provided - like the last one, it really was rather comfortable. She wasn't crossdressing as part of a plan, though... more habit than anything else. 'Just the same... I am not sure you really know how bad it will be.' Her Master was certainly far enough, and safe, but the child's innocence was also a concern.
"Saber," her decoy Master clipped out, as he came up to stand next to her, brushing his long, silky black hair behind his shoulders.
Saber nodded. "Xingke." If they were as friendly as her last decoy Master, she would have suggested he tie it into a ponytail like she had, because the sea breeze was already whipping his hair about again. But their relationship was not so casual as that.
"You have the plan memorized." Not a question - an order.
"I do. We are to meet with local officials to secure diplomatic entry into the nation. You and I are to function as guards for the ambassador, drawing as little attention as is feasible. The general intent is to take advantage of the confusion to slip in as the new Governor-General arrives and takes office, and use the embassy as base. When Servants are located, we are to move out and assault them with full force."
The man frowned a bit, but nodded. "Broadly. ... One more thing."
Saber cocked her head. "Yes?"
"It doesn't matter whether you win or lose," Xingke stated, voice frigid. "You are not to pass on the cost of your Noble Phantasm to your Master. I don't care if you dissolve. Your summoning was a pure accident, your Master will not face any danger because of it. Are we understood?"
"We are, Xingke," Saber agreed, unconcerned by his vicious tone of voice. It was a bit odd to hear from a man who sounded so similar to Diarmuid, but it was still nothing like Kiritsugu. ... And who was the one who had summoned her? Her very being had rejected his call. She had not felt such an incompatible summon, even with Kiritsugu. "I will require a generally positive flow of prana to operate." She could run off her inner stores entirely, but it would be dangerous. If the caliber of her opponents was anything like it had been last time, 'generally positive' would be too low, let alone 'no inflow at all'. "But I will not draw more than the bare minimum." She certainly would not harm a child. She would have to make up for the inefficiency with ferocity.
"... Wish I had one of those Command Seal things to put on that. But then, if I had them, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with."
Saber's hackles rose. "You have the word of a knight, Xingke," she snapped. "You do not require a magus's leash for an unruly dog." The man wasn't even a magus, the most he and her Master knew about it was lore they'd scraped up after her Master's accidental entry into the Holy Grail War, and what she herself had explained. He was a swordsman like her - a swordsman she would have invited to the Round Table in another time, even - he should know that.
"That's nice." Xingke waved a hand, dismissing it. "But I've seen enough oaths of loyalty broken that I don't take words at face value anymore. And if you do, then the more fool you." He pushed off the ship's railing, sharply turning and stalking back towards the ship's superstructure.
'Xingke...' her Master whispered through the connection.
Saber's eyes widened. '... I apologize, Master. I should have cut the shared perception.'
'... It's okay, Saber. I... asked you to show me the world. I shouldn't... complain... just because of what I see.' The girl's voice was... sadder, but wiser.
'... Very well. I will not cut the link unless you ask it. But if this is anything like last time... do not hesitate to ask. There is no shame in it.' Even if another like Caster appeared... she would not cut the link without request. Because her Master may be a child now. But every child had to grow up one day. And it was to them to decide when.
Saber herself had not been much older when she took up the throne. She certainly had no place to stop someone else who wished to from taking on greater responsibility.
~~~I========>
Rider hummed, folding his arms across his chest as Archer and Waver floated into the room, materializing in front of him. He still wasn't entirely sorted through the memories the kiddo (Could he really call him that? Waver was far older than he'd lived to at this point, and almost certainly wiser... eh, it was fun this way) had tossed him, but he had the gist, he'd pored over the maps, and he'd have to get moving at some point.
"So," he began. "Grail's busted, huh?" It was good he hadn't had the chance to get all set on a few more years of life, but man, it still sucked. "And that's how the Grail works? We're not just competing for it, we're fed into the thing to make it work at all?"
Waver sighed. "Yes... sorry. I only found out afterward."
Rider nodded, rubbing his chin. "Well, that'll present some trouble. Can't negotiate with the other Servants if 'everyone but one' has to die to get it, even if the damn thing worked to begin with." Sure, he could lie, but fuck that. He'd lost a lot of friends trying to reach the ocean encircling the world. Hephaestion. Cleitus (the cool one). Philotas. Erigyius. Coenus, Ptolemy... Far too many friends. He wasn't marching on a prize that didn't exist when he knew ahead of time - and he certainly wasn't pulling anyone else into it. "Sure you can't fix it?"
Waver held up his hands. "I wouldn't dare try. It took centuries of spectacular magi cooperating to get the thing running in the first place, we have two completely separate impurities in it, and I've never actually seen the thing running properly. I'd have to reconstruct the thing from scratch to even consider repairing it, and there's nowhere near the time."
"Mm, yeah, we'll gun for your bypass plan, then."
Archer hummed, leaning back against a smoke-wreathed wall. "The theory is simple enough. Get a container for us, and supply prana. The hardest part was getting us here, but the Grail already did that. A body that's actually honestly material will be a lower prana cost and shouldn't require the Grail, just a Master, but the toughest remaining part will be overcoming the Grail and the Throne's efforts to pull our 'selves' back."
Waver tsked. "You remember any useful details from that Hodgson project your lot helped moderate way back when? Shit, that was eighteen years ago, time seriously fucking flies..."
"No way to know. I remember some things, but whether you can use any of it is another question. Most of my job in that involved stabbing people, not detailed magecraft work. And getting stabbed by fucking Gungnir when Colonel Massenet got compromised, but 'getting stabbed' is my specialty." Archer shrugged. "If you have a question, ask and I'll answer if I can. Why?"
Waver flicked a finger, lighting his cigar and bringing it up to his lips for a puff. "If this were a backup plan, I'd be fine with 'copy the mind and download it into the new vessel', but since this is turning into a primary, I'm going to want to go whole hog. Magi haven't been able to detect relevant differences and flaws between 'copy in a host body' and 'the original', but that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't there. If it were a fallback, the flaws would be acceptable, but if this is the primary plan, let's gun for perfection."
Rider shook his head. "Get the backup going first, boyo. We can still default to that if you don't get the tough part done before everything goes to shit. I'm pretty sure you will, because you were impressive enough as a little punk to start with, but you need the vessel part anyway, yeah?"
Waver paused, flushing slightly at the praise. "Ah... yeah. Yeah, I do."
Rider grinned, clapping the man on the shoulder - and this time, he didn't knock the kid down doing it. "Then just work on the easy part first, and dick around with the laws of reality later." He turned his gaze to Archer. "Besides, we've got our own job to do, yeah? I'm not really a spellcaster, but I can follow the talk, and I seem to have caught something about 'require a Master'. All these whacked plans are gonna need that, and do we really have an in with the pinkettes? I believe you, because one of my Companions said it. But do we have that much trust from the girls?"
Archer hummed. "I... might. I'd want to build it up a bit more before betting on it, but I'd call it... thirty percent. There are some other issues I'm trying to figure out, but if it came down to whether she'd believe me about the Grail and take our side against orders, it's somewhere in that range."
"And I'll have to talk with mine." The girl needed some help anyway, she was in way over her head. It was possible she could grow to match, but she certainly wasn't there yet. He'd need to get a sense for her. "How'd that whole 'meeting the Governor-General' thing go?" Rider would like to meet her, too - get a sense for the people who ruled the world right now to figure out his general path of conquest - but he couldn't get too ahead of himself. He had to save the world, before he could conquer it. And secure his own existence, that part would probably help a little bit. Besides, he'd been sitting around down here working through the memories Waver had loaded into his brain, so there wasn't really the time to go.
Archer waved a hand. "Well enough. She's ticked about leaving it to us, but she'll follow orders. She's going to flip if she finds out princess pink's part of this, though."
Rider grinned. He'd like the chance to see that. Teasing the serious types was way too fun. Probably part of why he'd first started poking Saber in that other War he'd competed in, though the more he found out about that broken little girl, the more personal it got. Certainly, from the memories Waver passed him, it was personal already. "And you? Interested in joining me? I would take you as a trusted companion, and share the world with you."
"Nah," Archer replied, brutally and without an instant's hesitation. "Conquest, kings, and servants have never been my thing."
Rider blinked, cocking his head and blinking a few more times. "... Really? What do you enjoy?" Maybe some really sweet parties?
"... No comment," the Servant replied sourly.
"Come on, you've gotta have some fun in life, Archer. It's short! It's gotta be sweet." He'd actually been surprised that even Waver leaking the name 'Emiya Shirou' hadn't allowed him to look up the identity within the Grail - but then again, maybe it wasn't that surprising. Waver was from the future - a Heroic Spirit he knew would be from the same timeframe, the Grail wouldn't know them. He hoped some of the Heroic Spirits of the future at least knew how to have a good time. He'd have to pick up some stories of the awesome battles of the future from those two, when they could get the chance. Obviously Waver had gotten involved in them - no Companion of his would do anything less - and this 'Shirou' guy had hit Heroic Spirit, so he must've got some sweet battle in, himself. Needed to work that Gungnir story out of him.
Of course he wasn't giving up on getting Archer into his army that quick - he didn't yet know the specifics of the man's abilities, but really, the fact that he'd been summoned as a Heroic Spirit was enough to know they were worth looking into. It was just a bit longer-term of a project than he'd hoped. ... Honestly, the 'I'm Iskander, will you join my army and conquer the world?' direct upfront pitch had only actually worked once, on Roxana, but that was no reason not to state his desires right from the beginning. It had worked that once! Technically, he wasn't Iskander, for that matter - his birth name was Alexandros, he just liked the Persian form of his name more. Hm, maybe he was getting off-topic.
Archer just smacked his face with the palm of his hand.
... Yeah, he was totally going to have to get that guy drunk. Possibly find the guy a good nightclub or brothel, he looked way too tense.
And hm, alcohol reminded him of Gilgamesh. Maybe he could bum a bit more of that wine off him. Waver's-memories-him seemed to have really liked the stuff, so now he wanted a taste. ... No way that guy would let them just go ahead with things, though. Rider was going to have to kick his ass this time... on the plus side, now he knew what Goldie was going to throw at him. Now he could plan around it. Maybe Archer would be a bit of help, but really, he didn't want to wreck the fun by just dogpiling the guy with an extra Servant.
Rider sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah... and we can't risk the world blowing if the Grail's corrupted in this one too. Can't take the risk, so it doesn't even matter whether it is or isn't messed up here. Guess it's a good thing one of my Companions is some kind of great magus." He grinned.
Waver chuckled. "You're going to inflate my ego way too much there, Rider. And seriously, what's with that change of topic?"
"Deep thoughts, kiddo. Deep thoughts." Rider grinned. "I was thinking on something I'd read once, and-"
"You used the Iliad crack last time, Rider," Waver deadpanned.
... So he had. Damn. "... Ah well." He held out a hand. "Even if you're not joining my army right now, we're on the same side until the Grail's dealt with. Let's kick some ass together, Archer."
Archer rolled his eyes, but extended his own hand to clasp Rider's. "I'll accept that contract."
Rider grinned, turning to the television in the room, and switching it on. "So! Let's learn about this world!" He looped an arm around each man's shoulders, and hauled them down into the couch (Waver was settling in, quite familiar - Archer was flailing in surprise), as the smoke pulled away from the television to allow them to hear it.
~~~I========>
- - - Updated - - -
~~~I========>
They'd moved right into the training after the opening salute. It was becoming generally familiar after the past five nights of this, to Kokoro at least - they'd be taught the basic mechanics of a technique, and the concepts it built on, and then two students would be pulled into an exercise against one of the Servants each, while the third student watched and caught their breath. According to Kallen, it was similar to the Chinese chi sao exercise - apparently she had picked up a fair knowledge of martial arts... somewhere. Probably not a surprise for a resistance fighter. As a Britannian noble she probably could have just hired personal instructors... which might have been exactly what she did, for that matter.
For the moment, she was the one resting, having been gently pulled all around the floor by Aon... and trying to cool down her heated body without being caught having her... reactions. Lelouch at least seemed to have been desensitized to the extensive physical contact, and didn't really seem to notice the gender and softness of the girl throwing him around the room (currently, Lancer) any more. He'd been hiding his own embarrassed reactions originally, and Kokoro wasn't sure if anyone but her had been staring enough to catch them, but they seemed to have more or less ceased by now.
Kokoro herself would need to... find someone to attend to matters... in the near future. The very near future, if she let it lie much longer she was not going to be able to keep her... requirements... hidden. Part of her - a rather sizeable part of her - wanted to make good on the ritual 'marriage' with Lelouch. But it was better not to. He deserved better, and she did not want to ruin their current working relationship. She shook herself. It was a problem for another time, dwelling on her body was not going to quell its... needs.
The exercises were generally low-intensity, the idea being, according to Lancer, to have them repeat what they'd been taught properly so many times that it would be their first instinct in a situation calling for it, though the teachers sometimes stepped it up, to force them to pull it together at speed. Kokoro and Lelouch usually failed, but on occasion, it did come together. She was still fairly sure anything they managed was because their instructors were letting it happen, though.
Kokoro sipped her water, as Lancer's arms snaked up over Lelouch's guard, one hand cupping an elbow and the other at his wrist, and twisted, carrying his entire body with the twist - Lelouch winced as Lancer slowly forced him to the floor, and Kokoro knew for a fact that when done at speed and with a Servant's prodigious strength (Lancer had let Aon use her to demonstrate), a person could almost be picked up and flung head over heels by one of those maneuvers. ... Perhaps 'heels over head' would be more precise, the head was normally over the heels, so now her mind was wandering the tangent of 'where did that phrase even come from'.
"Ah... you keep doing that. I must be making some error, but I can't find it... what am I doing wrong?"
Lancer grinned, letting him go. "Take up your guard again."
Aon and Kallen glanced over in the direction of the lesson, but continued their own exercise - clearly not having trouble with this, themselves. Kallen was easily the best student, being 'not physically incompetent'.
Lelouch nodded, standing and extending his arms in front of him, slightly bent, settling on the balls of his feet - one of the basic 'positions to fight in' Lancer had taught the first day.
Lancer nodded. "Look at your arms. That's not the guard." She cupped his elbow with her hand again. "You need these pointing down. When they're pointing outward, there's no structure up there. Look at it this way. Bring your hands together, try to resist my pressure."
Lelouch nodded, and obeyed, long fingers lacing together.
Lancer pressed against the clasped hands - Lelouch's arms strained and quickly bent out to the sides, letting Lancer's palm tap his hands against his sternum. "So, question for the class - why didn't that work? I didn't use supernatural strength on that, to head that one off. That was pretty gentle."
Kokoro hummed, pondering. Lancer was talking about structure, and... wait a minute. She performed a quick structural analysis spell on Lelouch as he took up the guard again to examine for himself, ignoring the more... tantalizing... details to focus on... yes... An expression of 'revelation' crossed his face, but he remained silent and glanced at her - letting her figure it out for herself.
Kokoro held out her own arm, performing a structural analysis... "... It's about the way the impetus flows, right?"
"It is indeed," Lancer nodded. "When pressure is applied against your hands, it pushes your hands back along their natural line of motion. It's the same basic concept, whether you're resisting a push, blocking a blow, or delivering one. When you receive it on extended hands, the pressure moves along your forearm, and out the elbow. The proper guard is with your elbows tucked in - that directs the energy into your main body, and from there, through your legs, and into the Earth. Done properly, you really just have to hold your stance, and let the other guy have fun trying to outmuscle a planet. This is the perfect state, and I'll say this outright - I wouldn't say I've managed it. But get as close as you can."
Lelouch nodded, cupping his chin. "... I see... and when they're outward, the body can't receive the force?"
"Yeah, it goes out into the air off to your sides. And it carries whatever body part it's impacting with it, out into the air off to your sides - as a general rule, most of them aren't meant to bend that way, but they will anyway. And thus the legs can't receive it and direct it into the ground, so you only have your arm's strength to resist with. If they're doing it wrong too, it comes down to muscle - a competition you might have trouble with to begin with. If they're doing it right, you're in even more trouble."
"And it presents... some form of target for you," Kokoro noted, sipping her water a bit more.
Lancer giggled. "Oh, bent arms are great, even more so when they broke structure..." She waved. "Kokoro, get up here, take a rest, Lelouch."
Lelouch gratefully darted over to the set chairs, slumping in it and reaching for one of the glasses of water.
Kokoro put her own water down, and moved out onto the floor. "Should we go into the exercise, or...?"
"Hold out your arm, bent for now. I want to show you some of the bullshit you can pull when you get that."
Kokoro nodded, holding her arm out, and shivering as Lancer's soft fingers laid on it.
"Now, you've seen this one..." Lancer gently pulled her wrist down, guiding the elbow upward into a vaguely chicken-wing-like configuration. "Think about how you'd get out - don't actually try, right now, but think about it."
From here, Kokoro could, easily enough, feel what Lancer meant. To escape, she needed to rotate her arm. But Lancer's hand cupping the elbow from behind prevented it from rotating backwards. The arm couldn't rotate forward, it had already reached the limit of its range of motion. She couldn't muscle out of it even if Lancer weren't orders of magnitude stronger, her arm felt like it had all the strength of a limp noodle here at its limit. "Mm... I can see a few ideas, but none is very good..."
Behind her, Lancer nodded. "You can actually break out of it with footwork, so this particular position is best used to press down. You can do it as soft or as hard as you like - do it hard enough, and you're going to rip something out of a joint."
"Yes, I noticed you crushing me to the floor with it," Lelouch noted from the side.
Lancer grinned. "All in a day's work. So." Lancer rotated Kokoro's arm in the opposite direction - wrist up, elbow down. "Now, this is a generally good position to be in. You have structure here. But if I push it a bit more..." She nudged.
Kokoro winced as Lancer reached the edge of her range of motion. "So you can force someone to comply because it hurts to resist, or..." If Lancer pushed any further, her entire torso would twist to follow.
"Just rip through and break something," Lancer nodded. "Exactly." Lancer let her go, stepping around in front of her and starting up the usual exercise - gently reaching for Kokoro's wrist. "Now, those are the two archetypes, but they exist everywhere."
It didn't look very dangerous, but Kokoro knew from prior lessons that, given a wrist hold, Lancer could and would drag all of them to the floor, so she turned her wrist before Lancer got a good grip, sliding out of it, and pulling her arm back.
Lancer thus demonstrated what she'd just said as her arm snaked around Kokoro's retreating arm, locking in just above the bent elbow, and twisted up as she stepped around, cranking her back around into the chicken-wing position.
Kokoro flushed at the close contact. "... Didn't you bend your arm to do that, though...?" Honestly, it wasn't a deep observation or anything, but she was trying to get her mind off that soft skin...
"Nice catch. Yes, I did." Lancer rewound to the opening stages of the lock. "That's the trick - the counter to a high key like this is a low key. Go ahead."
Kokoro blinked, and brought her forearm upward - pulling Lancer into a slightly folded position to compensate for Kokoro pulling her beyond her range of motion (not something she was actively trying to do, but it was difficult to see that she even had it until she did this much...).
"And vice-versa. It's a question of who gets theirs developed first, with the appropriate structure. Once you're developed, you've done so through their structure, so pretty much by definition, they don't have it. Which is why a bent elbow with bad structure is so dangerous - you've already given away your structure, which puts you two steps behind."
Lelouch hummed. "I see... A rather tactical way of going about things, isn't it? Quite a number of factors to balance." He looked both intrigued and... chastised?
Lancer chuckled. "It's a lot to remember, I know. You're not going to get it all right immediately. Almost no one does - it's a damned miracle if one person in a generation manages that. Just pay attention to it and you'll improve. I don't expect perfection here, but, for the record, here's what you want to do for a key like this. Kokoro."
"Y-yes!" Kokoro jolted, guiltily turning from Lelouch to Lancer. She hadn't been paying as much attention as she should.
"Your posture is generally fairly good. Two more things to note to get it better, though. First, take a step back with your left foot. Whoa!" Lancer yelped as Kokoro complied, pulling her further off her axis. "See? This puts you behind me - not directly behind, but it's a positional advantage, and it makes your lock stronger." Lancer then shifted her weight, resting it all on Kokoro's arm and forcing it down, then snaking her arm up to the back of Kokoro's head through Kokoro's loosened grip. "This is one of the ways out of it, and moving on to a counter - I don't have to demonstrate that, right?"
She didn't. Lancer and Aon had demonstrated, using one another as practice dummies, how a person could be thrown off balance if the head - the top of the mass of the human body - were shifted off its base. They'd showed ways to break such a grip, of course, there was apparently a counter to everything, but Kokoro knew for a fact that she would not be able to manage it before Lancer brought her to the floor if she actually planned on it.
Kokoro shook her head, and Lancer thankfully released her.
"Other thing is, look at your forearm." She held up her own. "Think of it as a sword - do you attack someone with the flat, or with the blade?"
Kokoro blinked, holding her own up to her view. She supposed the thin, bony edge of the arm would count as the blade, while the front and back would be the flat? The comparative width suggested it, at least. "Um... with the blade, but arms are not swords, Lancer," she stated the mind-numbingly obvious, uncertain why Lancer had even drawn the comparison.
Lancer's grin suggested she was somehow wrong. Which wasn't really a surprise, Lancer was the Heroic Spirit out of legend, not Kokoro. "I'll go into the other ways that works later, but for now, Lelouch? You look like you had a revelation."
Lelouch hummed, sipping the water and leaning forward. "It's to do with muscle arrangement, isn't it? The majority of the muscles in the arm are suited to downward or upward motion. Sideways motions are... more anemic. It's built to move along with the elbow."
... Ah. Right. All those medical journals he'd studied. In hopes of helping his sister.
Lancer chuckled. "Not being an anatomist, I couldn't say whether you're right about why - but you're right about the basics. It's a question of strength and structure. Also allows you to grind the bone of the forearm into something delicate or other, but that's more of a side bonus. On which topic, while we're leaving this out for the early stage exercises - you can get your techniques to work a lot better if your target's distracted."
Lancer paused, letting the lesson sink in.
And then continued. "Pain is distracting. Punch them in the face, throat, whatever target looks nice and convenient. Claw. Bite. Use your instincts a bit."
"I'll... um... keep that in mind..." Kokoro wasn't really sure what else to say to that. She hoped they didn't get to that advanced stage too soon. This level was distracting enough...
... Um. Not that she was a masochist... maybe? Thanks to heritage, her body could... get going... in pretty much any circumstance, so it was hard to tell what she actually liked, if anything.
~~~I========>
Euphemia wandered through one of the Governor-General's palace's grandly appointed sitting rooms, looking up at the crimson walls festooned with Clovis's wonderful paintings. It was all... careful. Gentle.
Most of her attention was on the crowning piece of the collection - clearly the one her brother had put the most effort into. The subjects of the painting - and done off pure memory, because they were all dead long before this had been painted - were the residents of the Aries Imperial Villa. Marianne, Lelouch, and Nunnally vi Britannia. It was a small painting, but... it looked like more love had gone into it than the rest of the collection combined.
"... I don't understand." Euphemia laid a hand on one of the paintings. "He was so gentle... he loved his siblings so much... how could anyone accuse him of...?"
"Persona," Rider rumbled, from where he relaxed in one of the seats next to the table. Of course, no cameras - the royal family wouldn't be eavesdropped on.
Euphemia blinked, turning to face... her 'Servant', she supposed. "Persona?"
Rider looked unusually serious for a moment. "The role. You're not the same person around me as you are around that sister of yours. Or your subjects. Or your friends. You show the most appropriate behaviour to the situation."
Euphemia sighed, taking a seat across from the huge man. "What are you getting at? That Clovis was a liar?"
Rider shook his head. "No. He simply did not bring the outside in where it did not belong. Did you tell him about those novels of yours?"
Euphemia whipped around to focus her stare on him, cheeks reddening. "H-h-h-how did you know about-?!" She hid them!
Rider guffawed, slapping the table (it shook). "I didn't. But you're human. You - like any human - are interested in sex. You're going to have something. But that doesn't mean it's the sort of thing you share with the public, yeah?"
Euphemia averted her gaze, staring down at the table, cheeks still red. "I... I see your point." She didn't really like thinking Clovis, the gentle brother who'd loved his family so much, could do something as monstrous as he'd been accused of... but Rider was right, too. Whether or not it was within him, it wasn't the face he'd show to her. And he... certainly wasn't around to ask about it. Maybe she was just chasing circles.
Rider moved to lean the chair back on two legs, but stopped when it creaked piteously under his weight, a momentary pout crossing his broad face. "And don't worry about the War. I'll take care of it."
"Ah... um..." Euphemia wasn't really sure what to say. Obviously, this 'Holy Grail War' thing had nothing to do with her. She'd not asked to be involved, and she'd already done more than anyone would say she owed this man who'd turned up out of nowhere, with the few minutes of 'burning' as Rider's friend Waver opened up her 'circuits'. She didn't have the skills, not in military matters and certainly not in witchcraft and wizardry. The strange Knight of Six should have it well in hand. But... still... "... Does everyone have to fight for this...? Can't it be shared?" Maybe it was just stupid optimism. It was true enough that 'a wish granted' was such an overly huge proposition that she had trouble grasping it.
... Then again... Euphemia's eyes were drawn to that painting of Lelouch, Nunnally, and their mother.
Rider grinned, reaching over and clapping a paw onto her shoulder. "Now that... is a question I've asked before. I'd much rather have all the other Servants in my army than in my wake. But that's up to them. I can't decide it for 'em. And they all have something they want too."
... Maybe she could understand why people would kill each other for such a thing. She... didn't think she could do it. But... Euphemia swallowed hard. She could see how someone could want something so much that the lives of others could be called 'acceptable losses'.
"... Rider." Her eyes were focused on the man's shirt - a white T-shirt with 'The Admiral's Great Tactics' emblazoned on the front in Japanese. She was a little too nervous to meet his gaze. "I... what can I do to help you negotiate with the others?" She understood... that was why she couldn't let these people all kill each other for this prize. If this Holy Grail War broke out, one person was going to have their dream granted - while six more were going to suffer, and possibly die. That... wasn't right. Was it? Didn't that just make the world worse off? Undoing one tragedy, by creating six more? What was the point?
Rider blinked, surprised. And then grinned. "Oooooh? Looks like I underestimated my Master a little bit."
Euphemia blinked, looking up to his eyes. "... Really?" ... Maybe she'd just missed something. But... it was much easier to make sense of it in a smaller arena like the Holy Grail War. Politics and militarism never made sense to her... but she might be able to figure it out here. If she could... maybe she could find a way for this to end with everyone happy. Maybe there was something useful she could do with herself.
"Ride with me, Master." He leaned forward, eyes serious. "We both have a thing or two to say on that battlefield, it seems."
Euphemia flushed under his stare. "A-ah... um... yes... okay..." It was a moment after she'd agreed before she started thinking about how the numerous problems there were going to be in doing it.
~~~I========>
Kallen twirled her finger through a stray lock of hair, mostly to pass the time as she waited for the truck her group was riding to arrive at their new base.
It'd finally happened - Ohgi had polled the team, and they'd agreed to go all-in, and join Zero's - Lelouch's - 'group' (which consisted of four people, and one of them on loan from Kallen... then again, not much point getting arrogant when Kallen's group consisted of eight).
The poll had pretty much come down to everyone looking at Kallen - which underscored the problems Ohgi had with his leadership role. Everyone still thought of Naoto as the leader, Ohgi included. Kallen wasn't in serious consideration for leadership, given her age (or, considering Lelouch... well, she knew she wasn't leadership material, anyway), but everyone else seemed to act as though Kallen were privy to the thoughts of her brother's spirit, so she had a sort of unofficial veto power that she tried her best not to use.
She wasn't entirely trusting Lelouch at this point, but he had played straight with them so far, and the way everyone had looked to her for her dead brother's opinion had just underscored how badly the group needed a real leader. Ohgi wasn't bad in terms of the skills - but he didn't view himself as a leader, so nobody else would. So she'd vouched for Zero, and they were now under Zero's command. She wasn't entirely sold on him, but she didn't think she was going to find out if he had some dark ulterior motive if she kept him at a distance. If he wasn't the help they all needed, she needed to give him enough trust rope to hang himself - just, not enough to hang them too.
She didn't want to replace Naoto. But his place needed to be filled if they were going to accomplish his dream, and Lelouch was the best man for it. If he could be trusted. He still wasn't officially receiving the position, to the extent anything they did could be called official - technically speaking, they were just working together more closely. But in a practical sense, as the strategist and coordinator... whether he took the name or not, he was commanding them. Ohgi was leaning towards making it official and taking that weight off his own back, Kallen could tell, and she was pretty strongly considering it - no point making bones about a word when they were already agreeing to give him command over their operations simply because he did it so much better.
... Looked like they were there - they were heading into an underground parking garage now, the rolled steel door sliding shut behind them.
Kallen sat up bolt-upright in her seat as she saw the first tank. There was a short row of the things across the floor - a mix of old, pre-invasion Japanese and Britannian stock. A Britannian knightmare transport, and three knightmares arrayed around it - a Portman aquatic frame, a Sutherland, and that sweet white-gold prototype he'd stolen on the way out of Fuyuki. There were artillery pieces, APCs, military hardware galore...
"Holy shit," Sugiyama muttered. "He has enough kit to outfit twenty resistance groups our size."
"So, maybe a battalion if we stretch," Nagata pointed out. "Long way to go, but... still a pretty big step forward for us. Which is... kind of sad, actually."
Kallen reached over to pat his shoulder. "There there."
He had been the group's most common wheelman, but after Fuyuki, he'd been banned from driving transport, and was now Kallen's sole subordinate in their budding knightmare division. (She liked having a subordinate. It was sweet - and something she'd earned, not just got because some ancestor of hers had licked the right king's ass to become nobility)
Exactly how fair the ban was questionable, now that Kallen knew he'd had freaking magic (ah, wait, magecraft, magecraft was 'how the shit did you do that?', magic was 'what the shit did you do?') dicking with his mind, but there wasn't much she could say about that without either A: spreading more information than she should at this point unless she really wanted to break Lelouch's cover (and apparently call down the wrath of this 'Association', who everyone seemed to think were total bastards), or B: sounding like a loon. And knightmare operator could be viewed as a promotion.
"Pah, the gear's nothing without people to drive it," Tamaki snorted. "We're supplying that."
"Well, enough to drive two of those tanks, anyway." Inoue had to point out. "Or more like one and a half, since we're running two knightmares."
Everyone sighed heavily, as the truck (driven by Ohgi) came to a stop, and piled out onto the floor of the garage, where Lelouch stood in his black/purple/silver 'Zero' outfit, cloak wrapped about himself, Kokoro standing at his left hand, Lancer and Aon (they'd all agreed she was easier to bring in as 'a member of Lelouch's group' than for Kallen to explain why she was bringing her in) at his right.
The girls flanking him were dressed in a rather snappy black uniform Lelouch had designed and ordered in bulk - black jacket trimmed with pale blue, though their lower sections varied in type while still obeying the basic colour theme (Aon wore a miniskirt, Lancer shorts, and Kokoro had a full-length skirt that, despite the uniform element, almost made it look non-military again). The uniforms also included wedge caps and lavender visors to conceal their faces, though those had been done without for today. When asked about the uniform, Lelouch had explained readily enough - in any force, uniforms served a purpose. They identified the wearer as a member of the group - and they unified the wearers as a group. Not merely in terms of recognition, but in terms of identifying, and taking pride in that identity. And simply looking good had its own benefits for public relations and recruitment. The uniforms looked pretty good next to Lelouch's Zero outfit. He had an untapped talent as a fashion consultant.
Kallen still wasn't entirely sure what Kokoro's deal was, here.
The lavender-haired girl was apparently Lelouch's introduction to magecraft and the Holy Grail War (and the both of them were learning spellcraft from her, though Lelouch was the more advanced student, well into studying reinforcement, while Kallen was barely starting on reinforcing those wood blocks and not blowing them up in the process... it was harder than it looked, though the structural analysis Kallen had finally grasped made it a lot easier).
But the motivation was all weird, on both sides. Supposedly, they'd met when she and Nagata almost ran them over - and then within an hour or two, she'd shared with him deep family secrets, and he'd joined a death tournament on her behalf. It wasn't exactly out of stereotype for teenagers, and from their commentary she'd gathered that they were married which really contributed to the 'love at first sight' bullshit angle - but it seemed very out of character for the taciturn, methodical pair of them.
Kallen was pretty sure she was missing key elements of the story here - seventeen-year-old Britannians didn't wage war against Britanni... okay, maybe she did, but there was a story behind her, so there was probably at least one or two major elements she was missing for Lelouch. And out of the two, she felt she had the better grasp on Lelouch - Kokoro's personality was very... slippery, and Kallen still had no idea why the girl worked for him.
Zero offered a short bow of the head to the group. "Welcome to our current base, and the Order of the Black Knights. The entire building is ours, for the moment, though we may not make use of it all before we move to another location."
Kallen raised an eyebrow. "Well, we didn't bother with a name, but yours works."
Zero raised a finger, and his voice took on the low tone of a conspirator as he leaned in. "A small group does not require a name. But we are not a group which intends to remain small."
"You certainly have enough equipment for a fair bit of growth," Ohgi noted, running his eyes over the rows of military vehicles filling the garage.
"So introductions?" Tamaki asked, glancing at Zero's group. "You really recruit 'em young and cute, huh?"
Zero chuckled. (Aon smiled politely, Kokoro remained expressionless, and Lancer preened. Or mock-preened, more likely) "A fortunate coincidence. What matters to is the ability to produce results, and in this case, the greatest abilities were in just such a package. Race, age, personal history..." He slashed with his hand. "Irrelevant. All that matters is the will to fight against Britannia, and the ability to do so."
Tamaki held up his hands. "Got it, got it..."
Zero held out his left hand. "Matou Kokoro, my intelligence branch."
Kokoro bowed. "It will be a pleasure to work with you."
Zero held out his right hand. "Lan and Aon, my combat specialists."
"Good afternoon."/"Pleasure to meetcha." The Servants curtsied.
"Combat specialists?" Ohgi frowned. "They're... young. I know it's just a two-year difference," he nodded at Kallen, "but..."
"Child soldiers," Zero spat. "I liberated them from a Britannian experimental facility," he began the cover story. Considering some of the things Kokoro had reported in the Fuyuki University after she'd investigated the 'poison gas' or whatever it was that had kicked the whole massacre off, it wasn't even that farfetched. That Code-R group was into some nasty shit, whatever they had actually been working on in there - Kallen's group had first caught wind of them because Japanese people had been periodically 'disappearing' from the ghettoes, and Kokoro had found them inside the capsules remaining in the facility. They were still alive. Technically. If only through extensive mechanical support, in the case of the luckier ones, the ones that still looked human. "We're still not entirely sure what they did to them in there, but... They can't take up civilian life or they'll be caught again, and they're both eager to take vengeance on Britannia. And honestly, better at it than many of us."
"Fucking Britannia," Nagata snarled.
Aon nodded. "There is something rotting at the top. And its taint seeps down throughout the structure. My intention is to destroy it. Is that acceptable to all of you?"
Ohgi sighed. "... We all have our reasons. Okay, objection withdrawn." He turned his attention back to Zero. "More importantly, have you heard of what happened to Samurai Blood?"
"Governor-General Cornelia located their base and crushed it yesterday," Zero responded. "The group no longer exists in any real sense, though some veterans from it have scattered out to join others."
Ohgi nodded. "News hasn't reported it yet... what should we do? They were the biggest group in Chuubu, but even they..."
"We should do absolutely nothing," Zero responded.
"But..."
Zero held up a finger. "If we have been found, a shuffle of our assets will not shake the trail. If we have not been found, a shuffle of our assets will increase our visibility and we may be found. Taking hasty action will simply get us caught. We must trust in our cover and wait for opportunities to perform operations, as usual. There is no point in covering our trail after the fact - we must do it correctly in the first place. If we have done so, we are safe. If we have not, we cannot be saved. I believe we have all done so thus far - am I correct in this?"
Kallen chuckled. "So if we have to worry, there's no point worrying because it won't help anyway, huh? I'm good for that." She was pretty sure he had a brain tumour or something making him this crazy, but it was hard to disagree with his logic when he laid it out.
~~~I========>
There were advantages to being telepathic. More disadvantages than advantages, but if he was going to be dealing with the troubles, he may as well reap the rewards.
Honestly, it had been a chance encounter with that princess, and it had been nothing more than pure luck that he hadn't got out of his range when the SIS agents arrived.
But thanks to that stroke of luck, some liberal mind reading, and a bit of elementary deduction, Mao was now A: aware of CC's location. B: a great deal more educated in metaphysics than he had been previously. And C: able to work on the newest problem - pulling his darling CC out of the sum of all human evil.
It was a pity Mao hadn't picked up the data just a day or two earlier. In that time, the last three of the eight Servants had been summoned, according to that Geass-wielder's moderation tools. If he could have joined the festivities personally, he'd have been a bit closer to getting CC out of the Grail than he was right now.
Wasn't insurmountable, of course. He could maneuver himself into a position of control of a Servant if he needed to - knowing everyone's deepest secrets was great for that - but he also needed to dive through a more orthodox, professional magus's brain and see if he could find a way to sever CC from the Grail. Failing a more elegant solution, he could still enter in and get CC free with a wish. Just, a pity, because he would really rather use the wish on something nice, like CC admitting she returned his feelings, or his own immortality so he would never have to leave her alone.
He could have tried maneuvering into control over Archer or Rider, but... it wasn't optimal. Two Servants allied and cross-checking each other made it difficult to squeeze himself in, their associations with the Britannian military made things a bit bigger than he'd like to get, and both Servants were independent-minded assholes with far less 'hooks' in the world than he'd prefer. He'd work with it if he had to, but... well, there were almost certainly better options, and there was no point taking on extra challenge for the sake of it. He'd like Caster if possible, or a Master good enough to have some idea of how to work with the Grail.
Well, whatever. For now he was canvassing Tokyo, where the Servants actually seemed to be congregating, to find his tools. Which mostly amounted to wandering the roads with his mind open to signs.
Roads were nice. People travelling often blanked out mentally, just falling into a bit of a 'one foot in front of the other' trance. Not everyone, even now he was becoming deeply aware of Sandra Waller's failed relationship (Mark was a two-timing asshole, but in his defence, she was a bit of a bitch), and the plot elements of Andre Lupin's next novel (idea, the man had never written past a fifth chapter and Mao doubted he would this time either), but it was still quieter than usual.
He liked roads.
Apparently he wasn't the only one, because there came a small girl, black hair and crimson eyes, dancing and singing as she came from the other direction.
Within her mind, there was an image - it was vivid. Too vivid - she was imagining it, she hadn't actually seen it. Events actually seen tended to be less vivid on the imagery - people simply took the facts in and then mentally translated them into what they meant. Imaginary constructs went the other way around, and the vivid imagery indicated this was just such an end product. It was dark, but thousands of men were clear to view.
"When the dog bites!" she came to a halt, scarlet shoe tapping against the street long enough to arrest her momentum and set her twirling.
Soldiers of an earlier era, clad in chainmail over red-dyed wool tunics, wearing simple brass cap-style helmets and hobnailed sandals, with immense painted rectangular shields in one hand, and elegant wasp-waisted short swords clutched in the white-knuckled grip of the other - her mind forcefully named them as Spanish swords after the culture from which they had been stolen, despite their more famous use among the Roman legions. Espasa, rather than gladius. He certainly wasn't going to forget that now, her mind had been quite insistent on it.
"When the bee stings," she crooned happily, maintaining her twirl as she moved aside to duck around Jacob Ehrmann.
This was a Roman legion, from the time before they had even developed the stereotypical armour and copied the stereotypical helmet of their later period from the Gauls. Or rather, scattered elements of a Roman legion, their javelins already thrown in the previous battle, from which they were now desperately trying to escape, under the command of Varguntius (who, since she had never met the man, was essentially represented as a legionary with the letter V for a face).
"When I'm feeling sad," she darted past Ehrmann, landing on her tiptoes and incorporating a curtsey to the banker's bemused gaze into her dance routine.
They had gotten lost in the dark, stumbling away from the rest of the fleeing soldiers. They had climbed a hill, in hopes of seeing where their allies were when dawn came. Or at least some terrain they recognized. Some hint as to which way the home they had left for this ill-advised excuse for an invasion was. And the sun crept upon them, revealing the scattered brush and scrub of the Fertile Crescent.
"I simply remember my favourite things," she beamed, before cocking her head in distressingly cute confusion at Mao's expression, craning her neck to peer up at him through dark bangs.
And the sun gleamed upon the armour of the knights on horseback, circling the hill like wolves come upon a wounded lamb, long spears trailing behind their pace, casually pointing to the Romans at the center of the circle. The men and women, and men who looked like women in the case of the leader, were grinning up at Varguntius's Romans as their horses prowled around the hill. The expressions of the legionaries, on the other hand, could be best summed up with the words 'despair', 'horror', and 'resignation'. Each expression was a unique mix, and imagined in vivid, loving detail, complete with sobs and terrified screams.
"And then I don't feel... so bad..." she pranced past him with a bit of a shrug, almost humming out the words.
Mao opted to dive deeper into the girl's mind to focus on other topics about when the commanding knight - beautiful and radiant, but vague, another man she'd never met, but clearly admired - raised his hand and snapped his fingers, initiating the slaughter of the invaders, which she was imagining in just as much exquisite detail. Apparently, twenty escaped out of the thousands - the Romans had never surrendered, not expecting kind treatment from 'barbarians' (a word she couldn't even think without sarcasm), especially not after their unprovoked invasion had been so soundly defeated, and had fought to their end.
"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens," she restarted the song, continuing her dance as she passed on behind him.
Mao turned to watch Servant Lancer go about her own 'patrolling for Servants' mission. "... Nope." He ignored the odd looks his fervent utterance had earned him.
Lancer and Aon seemed to fit into the same category as Archer and Rider - tightly aligned, access to far more resources than he had, and aggressive as hell. There were probably still better targets out of the last three-four Servants.
Matou Kokoro merited a look, though, if only for her theoretical knowledge and apparent delicate mental state should make her pretty easy to work with, if he had to. Not much of it was practical, apparently, but theory was more than he had, and Lancer seemed to think Matou's grasp of the theory was quite extensive. It should be a useful piece in freeing CC.
Though maybe he should take that look from a distance.
~~~I========>
- - - Updated - - -
~~~I========>
Lelouch hummed to himself, hands sewing while he watched the images (mugshots) scroll by on his monitor. He was doing two tasks at once, at the moment - there were so many to do that even one minute saved was glorious.
For his hands, he was adjusting his 'Zero' outfit to the specifications Kokoro had come up with on the way out of Fuyuki. He'd ordered the basic outfit some time before everything had developed, but Kokoro had basically come up with her own appearance for him along the same general theme before the costume had arrived, and since he now had an appearance, he should make himself look it. Kokoro's spellcraft had altered the specifications of the suit so far, but he should adjust the base physicality so she didn't have to keep doing that. Lancer was taking care of reforming the helmet.
And for his eyes... He'd apparently seen a Master firing that sniper rifle back in Fuyuki, and not a rebel as he had initially thought, if the man was covered in anti-recognition spells as Kokoro had said. Or at least some variety of magus. He'd gone to a sketch artist and had a facsimile of the man's face done up, scanned the image, and set his computer to search for matches on the various databases he'd hacked. (He was no master, but low-security databases were within his skills) The computer had coughed up numerous 'the computer thinks it matches the sketch', and he was having it run them before him so he could narrow down which one he had, in fact, seen.
... There. Lelouch tapped the enter key as the scruffy-looking, blond-haired, narrow-featured man appeared on his screen, stopping the slide show and showing a dossier.
Sorin Decebal, a mercenary from Dacia, in the EU. Gun-for-hire, apparently fairly noteworthy in the modern world - he may not even be a magus at all, Lelouch couldn't tell from the dossier, but he at least had support from one. Very skilled hitman, no particularly terroristic record, but frequently hired by varying criminal concerns and intelligence agencies to 'take care of matters' that they could not handle in-house for whatever reason.
The man had last been witnessed entering the Britannian mainland in the company of an albino woman three weeks ago, and Internal Security was still looking for the pair, somewhat concerned at his entry - the false names they had used to do it had kept IS from catching them before they were out of sight. The woman was still not quite identified - she was identical to Aloisia von Einzbern, but Aloisia von Einzbern had been that age in the Pacific War decades ago, so it could not be her, unless she didn't age (which Lelouch was not discounting, it was either that or a close relative).
Einzbern... one of the founding families of the Holy Grail War. Which confirmed it. One of them was the Master - perhaps Decebal was using the same loophole as Lelouch to stand in the Einzbern entry slot, or perhaps he was simply hired security for the actual Master. Either way, one competitor identified.
How convenient.
Lelouch would have to phone in an anonymous tip to Area 11 Internal Security about Decebal's presence in Fuyuki. IS likely wouldn't catch him, especially not if he had a magical bag of tricks too, but the harrying would impair his operations in the Holy Grail War, and it would tie up resources they would otherwise be using to seek out Lelouch himself. If he played it right, they might even suspect he was Zero - a noted assassin for hire being in Fuyuki mere moments before the assassination of Clovis was just too convenient to be coincidence.
Actually... perhaps he should have Kokoro do the anonymous tip. He had people he could rely on, so he may as well do so, and his voice acting skills were already maintaining his 'Lelouch' and his 'Zero' personas separately. It would be catastrophic if an 'anonymous tipper' persona were recognized as either of his others, let alone if it filled in the missing links to tie them together.
Still, should work rather-
"Brother?" Nunnally's voice came, along with a knocking at the door.
Lelouch turned back to face the door, reflexively tabbing to his homework (already completed) and tossed his sewing under his desk. "Come in, Nunnally." She was blind, so Lelouch didn't have to worry about her seeing something and becoming... concerned... but it was important to maintain good habits.
The door slid open, and Nunnally rolled in on her auto-wheelchair. Her brow was furrowed, just slightly.
Lelouch stood, striding over to his sister. "Nunnally? What's wrong?"
"Ah... nothing, really... just, this afternoon, on the radio..."
... Clovis's funeral. And the Emperor's 'this is proof that we, Britannia, continue to discard weaknesses and dominate into the future' speech. Lelouch had spent a few minutes moping over the memories that man had brought up... he should have considered that Nunnally may have heard too...
Nunnally smiled softly up at him. "... Father is kind of a doody-head, isn't he?"
Lelouch sighed, kneeling in front of her and gently stroking her cheek. "That man is not our father. Parents nurture and protect their children. It's the definition." Charles zi Britannia was a sperm donor. Nothing more - because that was the most paternal thing he had ever done.
Nunnally had an impish smirk on her face as she caught Lelouch's hand. "The definition can't be that loose, Brother. You aren't my father."
Well, there were always redneck jokes, but that wasn't really 'with Nunnally' conversation. "I suppose there are some other aspects to it that I glossed over."
Nunnally held up a finger, releasing his hand, and poked his forehead. "Bad." Her expression was stern. "You should always strive to be clear with your thoughts and with your words," she quoted their mother. Her mock-serious facade collapsed a moment later, and she giggled.
Lelouch pressed his right fist over his heart. "You have my deepest apologies, Your Highness." He managed to keep his own face and expression straight, but it just set Nunnally giggling further.
Nunnally conquered her mirth, and raised a finger to chastise Lelouch. "Also, Brother, you should watch your meals. You're getting a little chubby." She was apparently able to read his shifting mood for an incredulous expression, patting her upper arm to indicate.
Ah. He had gained a kilogram up there. A kilogram of brushed steel, since he had taken to holstering a concealed sidearm in a pocket he'd sewn into his shirts. "Don't touch it." His voice came out a touch harsher than he liked, but...
Nunnally giggled a bit more. "Scaaaary." She waved a hand. "I understand, we all want some privacy and not getting touched everywhere."
Lelouch smiled, patting her hand. "Thank you, Nunnally."
"Oh!" Nunnally perked up, slapping a fist into her open palm. "Speaking of getting touched everywhere," this was not going to be good, "was Matou-san settling in all right?"
Lelouch flushed, and decided not to ask exactly how the two topics were connected in Nunnally's mind. "She seemed to be, mostly. Has she said something to you?"
Nunnally pressed a finger to the side of her lip in thought. "Not as such, but she's always a little moody. And Nina doesn't say there's a problem, but she always gets tense when they're in the same room together."
"Hm. Sounds like she needs an opportunity to socialize a little more."
"Doesn't it?"
"Milly was considering a student council outing to Lake Kawaguchiko. I'll encourage her on it, then exempt myself and Rivalz." He should talk with Rivalz a bit anyway. See how his friend was taking the recent discoveries about him. He'd make sure to keep the Black Knights schedule clear so Kallen and Kokoro had free time.
Nunnally cocked her head. "Don't you want to go?"
"Ah, did you want to, Nunnally? My thinking was that people tend to interact... well, freer, when they're all the same gender. Rivalz and I would just bog down the atmosphere. You know how Milly gets." He reflexively shivered just at referencing the thought.
"Mm... it might be nice, but I'm not that attached. I think I would be a bit of a wet blanket myself." Hm. There was a bit of tension in her voice. As if it were just an invented excuse, and she actively did not want to go.
"Nunnally?"
"This is my privacy, not getting touched everywhere request, Brother."
Lelouch bowed his head. "All right." He did want to know what was going on in her head, but it was her wish that he not know. And that took priority.
~~~I========>
Farah Ansari made no expression of her exultation, as her prana burned through her veins, head tilted back and arms outstretched to touch Farrokh Bulsara's hand on the left, and Shirin Fedayin's on the right.
In unison, the nine men and women of the Zhayedan arrayed around the circle sang out their oath: "Ich bin die gut der ganzen welt!"
This was, of course, not all of the Anusiya's elite force that Farah commanded. Just the unit deployed for this mission. The full ten thousand... well, that would be a bit difficult to squeeze into a confidential mission (or, for that matter, this room), and would leave the homeland much more thinly-defended than anyone would like.
"Ich bin das boese der ganzen welt." It was a bit difficult to utter a line pledging oneself to evil with much conviction, but they all kept up the performance within the required parameters of the spell. And this was Formalcraft, they didn't need to mean it, just say it.
Still, nine - plus their coming tenth to round out the unit - should do. Atar-1 was their best platoon - never once failed. Though it did take casualties in the process - thus why they were down to nine, Javeh would be missed. (Plus one very large dog - Setanta was outside, keeping watch just in case anything interrupted the ritual, and would give a warning bark)
"Du bist der himmel mit dreien wortseelen!" the nine savaran sang in unison, crests blazing bright, and fire filling the circle.
As a cooperative, nine-caster summoning, this should be the ideal circumstance to bring their tenth into the world. It would not enhance them beyond their abilities in life - but it would manifest their abilities in life, in full, without fail. And the nine members of Atar-1 could share the cost of their tenth's abilities between them.
The remaining eight fell silent, as Farah, alone, finished in a clear, lilting voice. "Komm, aus dem kreis der unterdrueckung, der schutzgeist der balkenwaage...!"
She knew, before they began, that there were no errors. The time was ideal. The pronunciation was correct. The circle was precise, drawn out on the rented warehouse floor in molten, still-liquid steel of the highest grade. Their unison was absolute - not one took a step out of place. This had been researched, theorized, and rehearsed over a hundred times. Farah was a perfectionist and had been called anal-retentive about her attention to detail more than once on minor matters, and the use of a theoretical modification to the ritual to call on an already-unstable artifact with more people than normally allowed was far from a minor matter.
That was why the pain caught her by surprise, and she - somewhat embarrassingly - let out a gasp as her legs fell out from under her, clutching at her left arm as... it felt like the skin was splitting open, but it was wrong. She'd been flogged more than once before for varying reasons - and she knew that skin split quicker than this. It couldn't create a sensation that lasted this long, because the jagged track down her arm should already be open.
There were shouts of surprise from around the circle, and everyone jolted towards her - though Farrokh, her apprentice, was the one that caught her. It was fortunate she was relatively short and slim, because the kid was only sixteen, and not exactly a weightlifter - and she wasn't helping much yet.
Her first thought - the still-continuing pain as if her arm's flesh were being torn apart was distracting, but she'd focused through far worse, it was the surprise more than anything else that had floored her - was to gaze into the center of the circle as the clouds of flame parted, at the slender, serene figure standing atop the streams of molten metal, unharmed. That part had succeeded, at least.
... Beyond any reasonable expectation. He - Farah presumed he was male, the cuirass was tight enough over his chest to make that highly likely, though he was more beautiful than any of the actual women in this room - was slender. Delicate of frame. His hair was long, a beautiful rich brown that looked so soft it begged for the touch of a hand, falling gently down his back. Expressive brown eyes, fine features. Gleaming bright, clad in armour from neck to ankle - brilliantly polished plates over shin, forearm, and torso, silvery-steel scale armour visible underneath, soft leather boots and gloves. Apparently not wearing his helmet at the moment - it was, of course, somewhat awkward for meeting one's Master. And a long fur cloak wrapped about the whole assembly - yellow, spotted with black markings. Leopard.
The connection was working properly, and prana flowed to him with ease. Split between the nine of them, she only barely even noticed the drain of keeping him extant in the world.
Perhaps someone from another ethnic background would not recognize the man, but no one in this room - who had dedicated their lives to legends in which he was the grandest of heroes, who had honed their skills to the recitations of this man's deeds - could possibly fail to.
Farah shook herself, rising to her feet and remembering to nod in thanks to Farrokh, but otherwise staring, wide-eyed, at the Heroic Spirit she had summoned. With no catalyst but her own way of life. It was humbling and flattering together until she wasn't entirely sure how to react.
The man smiled softly, looking about the circle. "Well then... you are my Master?"
Farah shook herself again, giving the Heroic Spirit a proper Britannian curtsey. "That is the term. But I would rather consider you a comrade in the Zhayedan. I am a true magus, not one of those Clock Tower spellcasters who claim the name. My name is Farah Ansari, and I would be honoured if you used it." Ah... and she would have to tell one of her historical idols that there was no wish to be had. The downside.
She saw her arm while curtseying, and paused, taking a more detailed look. ... She wasn't actually sure if the Command Seals had formed or not. The blood-crimson colour was correct, but it was a strange tracery all the way down her left arm, jagged lines splitting off from a central branch into thinner and thinner rivulets of red. It wasn't actually damaged, and the pain was fading, finally, but it looked less like the command seals, and more like someone had dropped blood on her arm and let it dribble down.
She'd need a bit more makeup than expected, to conceal this. They might need to restock on it more frequently than planned. At least that explained - partially - why it had hurt so much. Might not function, either, it would need to be checked.
A small frown crossed the Heroic Spirit's face. "As polite as my last Master... I hope you prove more true than he." He knelt shallowly. "I am Rustaham, of the House of Suren." The true man behind the legends of Rostam - the greatest of all the Aryan paladins. The impact on the room was as if Britannian knights had summoned Lancelot or Cuchulainn - Farah was the most composed, and she was only barely refraining from squeeing at just seeing him, everyone else was at least staring (Shirin was giggling).
Farah paused, and just now caught what he had said. "Your last Master, sir? Were you summoned in the past? I was under the impression Servants did not retain memories of such events."
His lips pursed together, and he shook his head. "There were... numerous anomalies. I would be more hard-pressed to determine which of the many irregularities of my last War is responsible for the retention of my memory than to come up with a candidate for that role." He looked about the room. "More importantly."
Farah nodded. "There was a briefing I needed to deliver. I..."
He spoke over her - what he had to say was far too important. "Angra Mainyu rests in the Grail. In a sense."
Her own words had been "There is no wish to be had. The Grail holds Angra Mainyu", so it took them both a moment to realize what the other had said, at which point they both blinked owlishly, staring at one another for a minute or two.
"... Your last War was the Third?" she eventually managed to ask.
"... Well, that is convenient," he noted. "Yes. I was brought to keep him under control. It... did not work out that simply. But it seems the alchemist succeeded in delaying him." He smiled softly... it was brilliant. Beautiful. "That woman was the true hero. I was blinded for most of the War." He turned his gaze back to her. "Our task, then, is to handle him, without concern for the War?"
Farah nodded. "Yes. We are to delay the War's conclusion as long as is feasible - magi accompany our combat unit, and are preparing the land. We will be engaging in combat, but we need to keep it inconclusive where possible, except where managing spellcasters and Servants with a poor conception of the civilian/combatant divide."
The paladin's smile brightened. "The rules of the Grail War are nothing next to the rules of right conduct... and I am truly blessed to be called by one who understands such a small thing."
Farah smiled, herself. "Would you like to use your name or your class, sir? We'll cover more detailed briefing later, but in general I expect us to be operating fairly up-front."
He hummed. "I will use 'Surena'. My given name is a bit of a mouthful, and I have no particular desire to be referred to by the name of his class."
"... Servant Avenger," Shirin cursed, glancing at Farah.
She nodded, tentatively laying a hand on her left arm. "... He interfered. That must be his way of saying... 'Challenge accepted. Come at me.' Well then." She grinned. He remembered the founder's promises she'd accepted atop Mount Damavand. There was something there beyond mindless hatred. Maybe just mindful hatred, but it was something. "I'm all fired up, now."
Farah and Surena would need to be checked on, of course - just in case the scapegoat had planted backdoors or traps of some sort in the Avenger class or her ghetto command seals. But overall, things were looking good.
~~~I========>
- - - Updated - - -
I'm going to make a note here. The forum software appears to refuse to permit me to post the Wise Up at the end of the chapter. Despite having done it in four separate posts so as to comply with character limits. So y'all will have to do without.
Holy crap.
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster;
And treat those two impostors just the same,
-Ruyard Kipling, "If"
-)|(-My works [Updated June 21st, 2013]
"From a dusky world with an ever-setting sun, a limitless rain of Ryougi Shiki streaked down from gargantuan gears set in the sky." Fate: Over 9000, my best Crack yet.
Maybe I can post the Wise Up now? Three cheers from me if it works!
Wise Up - Avenger
True name: Eran-Spahbed (a title broadly meaning 'commander of all knights of Iran', most adequately summed up in modern terminology as 'Knight Marshal') Rustaham Suren-Pahlavi. The more strange of his accomplishments and life were recorded in mythology under the name 'Rostam'.
And a fair collection it is indeed. I suppose if you want to read the mythic cycles, you can pick up a book, so I'll use the highlights reel.
The House of Suren was one of the highest noble houses of ancient Iran, and even more so during the period of the Parthian dynasty. The Suren had performed the coronation of the first Parthian king, and the house's scions retained this right - Rustaham himself had crowned the king of the time, Orodes II, twice over (Orodes had been ousted, Rustaham fought with great distinction to restore him to the throne, climbing the walls of Seleucia personally).
The majority of his feats are recorded as myth rather than history. It's a lengthy set of sagas, so as I said, highlights reel. It includes: Slaying an insane elephant with a mace as a child (Why an elephant? I don't know). Killing a dragon on the road (apparently you don't want to wake him up from a good nap). Killing the great demon Div-e-Sepid and taking his skull for a hat (it actually looks pretty stylish, I think). Accidentally slaying his son when he did not know it was his son, Cuchulainn-style (how this happens so bloody often, I will never understand, at least my father knew it was me whenever he put any effort into trying to kill me, and I was concealing my identity better than those kids were... shut up, I was). Defeating a great champion, immune to harm very much like the Greek Achilles, the Germanic Sigurd, and the Indian Duryodhana, by shooting his only weak point (The eyes. Both of them. With one arrow). We could be here for a while, so I'll leave off with that.
Basically, typical Heroic Spirit nonsense. You know the drill.
Oddly, it may be one of his more ridiculous achievements that is actually credited as real by historians. Does anyone remember Crassus, of the Roman Triumvirate? Alongside Pompey, and the even-more-famous Julius Caesar.
Crassus takes a bad rap for being a businessman and politician, but the truth is, he was actually quite a skilled general - Marcus Licinius Crassus personally commanded the Roman forces in the Third Servile War, crushing the Spartacus revolt. However, that had been twenty years ago. And as always in politics, people have short memories. 'What have you done lately?'
So he sought to brush up his military record by expanding Roman dominion through all the lands formerly held by Alexander the Great - Parthia, Bactria, India... This wasn't really popular at home, even Rome had limits on its imperialism, and relations with Parthia had formerly been fairly good, leaving the whole affair feeling rather dishonourable - it's likely this is what led to Crassus taking such a beating in popular history, along with other members of the failed campaign (hello Gaius Cassius Longinus of Caesar-killing fame) trying to push all the blame onto someone else so it didn't damage their own careers. But, well, they went ahead with it, attempting to take advantage of the recent political instability (the ousting and reinstallment of Orodes II) and install his rival for the throne as a puppet ruler.
In 54 BC, Crassus launched his first campaign out of Syria, establishing a beachhead in Mesopotamia and a general invasion route for the next year, and then spent the winter procuring supplies, levying troops, rebuffing Parthian offers of peace, and negotiating with client states such as Armenia. (He was offered very significant support if he invaded through Armenia, but he did not wish to abandon his established invasion corridor, and so had to settle for a somewhat lesser degree of Armenian assistance)
It must be noted that the absolute success of the 54 BC establishment campaign is due to the nature of the Parthian military establishment. The system was feudal in nature, and the standing army was fairly small. It took time to gather the real forces for major operations.
The winter of 54 BC was more than sufficient time - Rustaham himself spent the winter cutting apart Crassus's invasion garrisons.
When the invasion was launched in 53 BC, the forces arrayed were quite astounding - 35 000 of the mighty Roman heavy infantry legions, 4 000 cavalry, 4 000 light infantry, for a total of approximately 43 000 men pushing in through the Macedonian invasion corridor. The Roman legions, which had not once failed in battle since defeating Hannibal over a century ago.
In their path were Rustaham's personal troops - 9 000 mounted archers, 1 000 heavily armoured knights (the term usually used in your world is 'cataphract', but honestly, neither is more appropriate, 'cataphract' is a Greek term, the native term was 'savaran'). Obviously, he was not intended to stop them, merely harry them and prevent them from achieving significant gains, while the main army of the King dealt with Armenia and then came back.
And so Rustaham Suren-Pahlavi looked over an army outnumbering his own more than 4:1, and appears to have shrugged and said "I got this." The Parthians approached with the glittering of their weapons and armour covered, and then whipped off their cloaks as one, releasing the sight of gleaming steel cavalry - a medieval image no Roman had ever seen before.
The Battle of Carrhae was a masterwork of cavalry warfare - the Roman light troops who were capable of moving after the all-mounted Parthians were categorically lower in quality, despite their similar numbers (as a reminder, this small wing of the Roman force was close in size to the entire Parthian force). The heavy troops could not catch up to engage, and had to pick between formations suitable for recieving a charge and formations suitable for withstanding a withering hail of arrows. And both choices were wrong, because whichever they weren't able to recieve well, Surena's Parthians launched, with him at the front of the line at all times.
Roman attempts to counterattack simply could not keep up with Parthian horses, and anything that got close was rebuffed by the knights. But surely, they couldn't keep this up? They would run out of arrows sooner or later, and be forced to either leave, or go into close quarters combat with Rome's heavy, vastly numerically superiour legions. So Crassus waited for his opportunity.
And waited.
And waited.
And waited a bit more, for variety.
The saying 'Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics' is pithy and not entirely accurate - but certainly, professionals pay attention to logistics, and Surena was nothing if not a professional. 'Logistics' in this case came down to a ludicrous amount of camels loaded down with an even more ludicrous amount of spare arrows. This party wasn't ending any time soon.
This carried on all day (Roman heavy armour was, obviously, good, so the lethality of arrows was not what one might desire, but it was getting there, eventually), through such features as an attempted breakout charge by the Roman cavalry under Crassus's son Publius which failed before Surena and his knights. Crassus deserves some credit here, for saving his emotional breakdown when his son's death was confirmed until after the battle, trying to raise the morale of the troops to fight. Didn't really yield much, though.
According to the historian Cassius Dio, Surena's Parthians eventually stopped when they got bored. I personally am more inclined to believe Plutarch's somewhat more complimentary 'they left when it became night and there was no more good shooting'.
The official parlance for the condition of Crassus's invasion force is, I believe, 'fucked'. At this point, they were just trying to get out alive. Their force was decimated, and Surena's guard was barely even scratched.
That on its own didn't quite work out for all but a few. Surena's focus was the capture of Crassus - if he were to escape, there would be another invasion with surety. And they pursued viciously, hunting down stragglers when the opportunity arose, and finally establishing a parley. What exactly happened here is unknown by history - but whoever started what, whatever ill motives or confusion there may have been, violence broke out at the parley and Crassus's life was lost. Unfortunate, I suppose, but I'm none too inclined to mourn the man myself, so good riddance.
Unfortunately, Rustaham Suren-Pahlavi, the military genius who had defeated him, was not long in following. With such an achievement, he was too good. His position and achievements were such that he could easily have become Parthia's King of Kings if he wished it.
Whether or not he wished it, King Orodes feared it, and had him executed.
Of course, while you may not have found this out yet in this particular War, your logs of participation in the Third War are open to you, so you already know much of everything he has available. He was not at full power in that War, though - he is a rather difficult Heroic Spirit to manifest in full, because his nature rejects his legend bonus, forcing the full burden of manifesting his statistics onto his summoner (much like you yourself do thanks to your temporal status).
The class Avenger makes it even more difficult. The Avenger class is designed to allow 'full' manifestation of all Noble Phantasms, without restriction by class (for instance, King Arthur as Avenger would wield Excalibur, Caliburn, her lance Rhongomiant, and her dagger Carnwennan, and Avalon of course, along with the numerous other toys attested to her in legend - though this would only be 'Heroic Spirit' Arthur, not 'lying on deathbed with only Excalibur to hand' Arthur; Cuchulainn, for his part, would have Gae Bolg, his sword Cruaidin, and his charioteer and horses). But in compensation it is also less efficient at manifesting physical statistics, requiring a higher prana input to reach a given level of statistics than any other class save Berserker (Berserker's own advantage is in Mad Enhancement, which makes it the only class capable of exceeding the abilities the hero held in life - if the prana is available).
The Avenger class was built accepting that weakness - because, of course, the dirty cheaters creating it were fielding a horrendously-powerful magecraft-optimized homunculus as Master, so prana efficiency was not much concern at all. Though no amount of prana and legend bonus combined, save the nature of the Berserker class, can push a Servant above the abilities they held in life (and even Berserkers would most often have had Mad Enhancement in life). Since the original Avenger's 'abilities in life' were broadly that of an average Iranian villager, the whole affair was really rather sad, considering all the trouble they went to - and caused - for it. (This was how that fact was, in fact, discovered - previously the theory had been that legend provided an infinite boost, though whether this episode was learned from varies) Cheaters never prosper, I suppose?
(Lies. We prosper wonderfully.)
Ah! And this is not directly related, but the term 'savaran' has been mentioned. In the current parlance of the region, the meaning is 'magic-wielding combatant', broadly analogous to 'enforcer' or 'executor'. The original meaning: 'knight'.
The predecessors of knighthood, in fact - the Iranian savaran were the first ones to do it, ride a mighty horse in heavy armour, following a chivalric code of conduct, etc. European knighthood may or may not be derived from the savaran, it is quite debateable. But, well, the concept, terminology, and general practice arose in Europe while the Iranians were doing it, and had been doing it for most of a thousand years, well within lands known to the Europeans. Nothing new under the sun, I suppose. (The technology itself was not Persian, but Sarmatian - the savaran brought in the ethos and the training)
And the savaran followed the legends left to them of the great paladin Rostam - leaving him, in a very real sense, the Original Knight.
Master: Zhayedan Platoon Atar-1 - and most specifically, its commander, Farah Ansari.
Alignment: Lawful Good. To the point where it's honestly pure trouble for him. Then again, is it ever not?
Strength: B.
Agility: A. If he has a non-ridiculous Master, they most likely can't manage to get him above B-rank.
Endurance: A. A non-ridiculous Master would probably tank this down to C to keep his Strength up to 'capable of performing well in close combat'.
Mana: A. Again, a Master with 'normal up to Rin' prana capacity would only be able to manifest him with a B ranking. He's a very prana-hungry Servant, both due to his Avenger class, and his nature refusing his legend bonus.
Luck: E. (He qualifies for the Lancer class. Enough said, I suppose.)
Class Skills:
----None. The Avenger class is too much a wildcard to really carry class skills.
Personal Skills:
----Exemplary Arms Mastership A+: Servants, as a rule, tend to have flawless, perfect swordsmanship (/spearmanship/bowmanship/etc depending on weapon of choice). Arms Mastership denotes one that goes beyond flawlessness, and transcends the perfection that Servants can expect as due - there are numerous variant forms, from Lancelot's Eternal Arms Mastership to Karna's Uncrowned Arms Mastership. Within his era, he was unrivaled in the arts of war - bow, sword, mace, lance, horse, and I'm stopping because else I'd continue for too long, not because the list has ended. In skill alone, he has few equals. And that is quite visible when he uses it - mental influence is exerted, bolstering the morale of his allies and weakening that of his foes. This skill also encompasses the Riding ability - in fact, that is most likely his best class qualification, though that largely because he does not have specific arrow/lance/sword Noble Phantasms.
----Charisma B: To quote Plutarch, 'In courage and ability he was the foremost Parthian of his time; and in stature and personal beauty he had no equal.' His position was second only to the King, and his popularity was greater than. Had he wished it, at any moment he could have become King of Kings of Parthia. His qualifications were among the greatest, and his support was overflowing. Even if he had no idea what he was doing, he could inspire the men and women under him until they had a fair chance of pulling it off anyway. And he does have a good idea what he's doing.
----Eye of the Mind (True) B: Like yours, his nature is to stay cool, analyze the situation, and plan his way out. Even when faced with a nigh-invulnerable champion, he was able to determine the man's one vulnerability, and create a plan to exploit it. He is a planner par excellence.
----Military Tactics B: This represents his tactical expertise in large-scale warfare. His entire military record is characterized by general genius and success - the man barely made it into his thirties and crushed the well-attested Roman legions with significant numerical inferiority. No mere musclehead, but a leader of men. No offence intended, of course, Archer.
----Monstrous Strength E: He may actually be a descendant of Angra Mainyu - his mythical persona is reputed to be such (through the dark sorceror, possibly also dragon since the legends are confused on this point, Azi Dahaka), and there is certainly an element of inhuman descent in the man. It may be how he qualified for the Avenger class. Though damned if I have any idea on the specifics, Angra Mainyu has not been particularly talkative regarding his lineage, and the events were aeons ago at the very least, so there's no tracking the trail. At the very least, he holds the gift of demonic strength - his strength can be increased by one full rank for a short time. In his case, the ancestry is faded from a long time ago, and his general rejection of any form of darkness weakens his ability with this - he is only able to activate his strength boost for extremely short, 'one mighty strike' periods. Probably how he killed that elephant as a toddler.
----Vitrification B+: To translate, 'becoming glass'. In other words, forgetting what one imagines, seeing only what is there. A serene state of mind, a dedication to truth and reality above all preconceptions. One must see the world as it is before they can shape it as they wish. This ability is assisted by the remnant magics of Div-e-Sepid (the blood of which was used to cure the blindness of his King), though he does not really need to wear the helm anymore to use it (it's still stylish). In essence, it renders him extraordinarily resistant to mental interference. If he is actively attempting to see through a falsehood, he is peerless in doing so.
----Magic Resistance C: Protection against magic, cancelling spells of C-rank or lower. This is pretty much standard-issue - is there any Heroic Spirit without this to some degree? Of course, Iranian dark sorcerers were generally fond of the 'conjure something up and hit him with it' tactic we discussed last time, so how much actual use this saw is debateable, and it never got much practice.
Noble Phantasm:
----Rakhsh (Two Hearts Are One) Anti-Army C: The Nisean breed of horse was one of the most sought-after of the ancient world. Tall, powerful, utterly beautiful. The mount of ancient Persian nobility. When Emperor Wu Ti was told of the Heavenly Horses to the West, he sent an army to bring some for China. They got thirteen. When he saw the horses, he decided the expedition was worth it. The contact also led to the Silk Road, so, you know. This is a breed of horse that no longer treads the world, and what a loss it was.
Surena's Rakhsh is one of the finest of the breed, highly intelligent, utterly loyal, with the strength of an elephant. (That dragon-slaying he did was with Rakhsh's help, and I don't mean he was mounted at the time, the horse was biting. And what is with all the elephants in these myths? ... I suppose they did neighbour India at the time)
As a true Rider, their bond is peerless. Neither can fall while the other needs them - Rakhsh lived an unusually long life, and they died together. Thus, as long as one of them is alive and they are fighting together, the other gains the benefits of the Battle Continuation skill - they cannot go down unless their partner is gone or they are hammered down.
----Haft-Khan-e-Rostam (The Forgotten Star) Anti-World B+++: The name references Rostam's Seven Labours (which might be more accurately described as Rostam's Really Bad Road Trip), one set of his deeds. But in truth, it is the final encapsulation of his nature as a Heroic Spirit, an innate ability expressing his achievements - in stripping away the myth of Roman invulnerability to reveal the truth: "They can be beaten."
'Anti-World' as a designation does not, to clarify before problems arise, mean that it can blow up a planet. Rather, it attacks Gaia - the structure of reality. Rather than attacking the foe, it attacks the rules, harm to the foe is more of a side effect than anything else. The way in which the Forgotten Star does so is by stripping away lies to reveal the truth - a truth that looks all the grander for being hidden, or all the more tarnished for the lies put in place over it.
For a period of seven strikes, all lies are removed, and their effect inverted for a short period of time, as a wall of atar vazashita ('the fire most swift' - lightning) separates them from the current rules of the world. Imagine a man telling a story in a bar. Every time his fellow interjects 'it didn't happen that way', he sounds worse, even if the actual events were quite impressive already. Even if the truth was spectacular, people wonder why he had to lie about it. The blessing of rumour becomes a curse.
For the purpose of the Holy Grail War, it should be noted that legend bonuses are counted among such lies. Even if every word of the legend is true (which is rare to begin with), a legend carries an implicit lie - 'I am the only one worth talking about'. Which is what the name 'Forgotten Star' gets at - call it the vengeance of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The people who we forget about in praising our heroes of legend - their equally-legendworthy enemies, the people supporting them and the people ground under their heel. Haft-Khan-e-Rostam is a short reminder to the world that they existed, and that they built our world just as surely as those we remember and praise in song and movie did. That actual history is far more exciting than popular history, and that while propaganda may shape perceptions, truth shapes the world itself. Myth and legend are part of the prana structure magi refer to as 'the world' - Haft-Khan-e-Rostam strips them away to show the rock on which that structure depends.
This is the ability with which he was intended to manage Angra Mainyu - for Angra Mainyu is The Lie in Zoroastrian theology, a philosophy fixated on pursuit for Truth. And Angra Mainyu is a lie. A scapegoat for the sins of mankind, a fiction created to absolve us. Even if Angra Mainyu really were the ultimate god of power the Einzberns had been hoping for (what genius summons the God of Evil as a Servant, seriously?), the lie that comprises him is so big that the Forgotten Star could destroy his manifestation. (Unfortunately, the destruction of his manifestation is what caused your problems in the first place, the Einzbern prepared fairly well for their pet god going rogue, but did not prepare for the subtler, more insidious threat he actually presented)
Of course, the dedication to truth which this Noble Phantasm represents also means that Surena himself cannot benefit from legend bonuses, instinctively rejecting them and increasing the prana burden his Master must absorb to manifest his abilities, as detailed above. It takes a truly spectacular Master - or a lot of Masters in this case - to manage him without having to stay in bed all day long, unless they were willing to abandon the Forgotten Star and employ a command seal to force him to accept the legend bonus that is his as the Original Knight. Or make up the excess prana cost by draining people. Would take a command seal either way unless you managed to array a rather large quantity of people unpleasant enough to merit killing, which Lancer is making fair use of even though she doesn't actually require it.
And since your legends have not yet been sung, and never will be in this world, it does not actually do anything to you. Any other Servant can negate its ability to harm them so by letting go of their legend and accepting the same 'difficulty in reaching their stats'. Be careful in spreading that one around, of course. You wouldn't want the enemies whose ultimate Noble Phantasms can hurt you to know how to circumvent an opponent more dangerous to them than you.
~~~I========>
Author's Notes:
First thing's first - thanks go out to prereaders - the list being Sunshine Temple, DCG, Ellf, and Belgarion213.
As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF @ gmail com).
This is a wonderful turn of events.
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