The orb shook with the might of thunder.
It had been going on like this for the past hour. Officials gathered, and worried, and fussed, unable to comprehend or do anything.
An ancient old man looked on from above, unnoticed.
"Unbelievable." He muttered, a surprisingly strong hand tightening around his cane. "Of course, the thing's always been unpredictable. One never can tell when another War will start. A hundred years, twenty, things like that don't matter to the Grail."
He stared in silence for a while.
The old man grunted in annoyance. "Usually, in a conversation one would expect the other party to respond. Or did you think I wouldn't notice you behind the curtains."
A young man, frail and thin, with glasses balanced on his nose emerged from the curtains. "Um…" He said, trying not to trip on his robe.
"Initiate." The old man said, not even bothering to turn around. "Do you have stage fright?"
"Um…" The initiate gulped. "Uh… yes sir?"
"Well, maybe I can help you with that." The old man said. "Being scared of me is so much easier than being scared of your performance."
The initiate gulped. "No sir! No, I'm not feeling stage fright anymore! Sir!"
The old man finally turned around. He pulled the initiate's robes up, exposing the crisscrossing red markings on his arm.
"The Grail chose you to be the Regulator for this Grail War." The old man said. "Why, I do not know. But you must not make a mistake. If you do, then the high rank you are all but guaranteed in the Illuminati will be worthless."
The Initiate gulped, and nodded.
The older man gestured to two of the larger robed figures, and they flanked the initiate as he proceeded down the steps. As the other robed and masked men noticed him, and the markings on his arm, they quickly gave way, bowing respectfully.
The bodyguards stopped five feet from the orb. The Initiate stepped forward, uncertainly. When nobody stopped him, he continued walking towards the orb.
The orb was turbulent, stretching and pulsating like an egg trying to hatch. It pitched and rolled on the pedestal, as if it was on the prowl for something. But when the Initiate got closer it… calmed down. It settled, and rolled slightly towards him.
The Initiate looked at it, with a sense of dread.
And then he reached out, and pressed his hand against it.
It felt soft, mercurial, and yet as solid as a steel bearing.
And then with a flash, he was inside.
Thirty six.
Such a large number. He looked around, as if hoping to see less, but there were still thirty six.
These thirty six people will see him in their dreams tonight. He had to make a good first impression.
He gulped.
"Uh… hello everybody." He said nervously.
The grey shades in front of them – he could not see them, though he felt that he knew them – all stared at him.
"Um, yes well… the reason I'm in all of your dreams tonight is… well, to basically tell you you're all in a war!" He chuckled nervously.
None of the others seemed to share his amusement.
"Uh… right." He coughed. "So, who here's heard of the Holy Grail?"
A couple of the shades raised their hands.
"Okay, well here's how it is." The Initiate thought, for a brief second, that this might be easier to explain if he had puppets, and almost slapped himself for having a thought like that. "Well, every so often, the Grail turns up, and it gets to grant a wish to whoever wants a wish."
One of the shades asked a question. "What sort of wish…"
"Ahum…" The Initiate shook himself. "Any kind of wish. I mean, you could even wish for more wishes. But, uh… the person who won the First Grail War already wished for that… which is why we've have more than just that first war…"
The shades had mixed reactions to this.
"Other than that… basically anything." The Initiate shrugged. "Find long lost treasure… bring back a dead friend… anything's possible."
"How does one win this grail?" Asked one of the darker shades.
"Oh… yes… the war…" The Initiate went through the speech he'd prepared in his mind.
"Well, you'll start by summoning a Servant. There a lot of different types of servants… in this war there are nine classes. Saber, Lancer, Archer, Protector, Engineer, Rider, Caster, Beserker, and Assassin. These are the types of heroes you can summon from the Throne of Heroes."
A few of the shades raised their hands, and the initiate waves his hands to shush them down. "Wait wait… I had this whole speech thing prepared…"
When the shades settled down, he began speaking again. "You'll all… to prove this is real, like really actually happening, you'll all wake up with command spells."
He took out his arm and showed them markings. "Like this." He explained. "In case you don't get along well with your servants. You don't really have much control over summoning them you see… they're great heroes of stories and legends. At most you can choose which class you want your servant to be, but everybody else will probably be summoning at the same time, so, you might not even get that class."
"Uh… yeah, the heroic servants you summon… well, they say everyone's a hero of their own story, which is to say that some villains might be snuck in there. You get three command spells, and three only. So, really, only use them when you have to. Not that your Servant can harm you, unless it wants to die by cutting off its power supply."
"What's more… you and your servants are a team, two halves of a whole. If your servant is dead… well, you still get to keep your command spells. That means if somebody dies before their servant dies… then you get to take control of that masterless servant. So… just another incentive to keep your spells about you. Those who have Commands left over, but no Servant, are the most dangerous force in the game. They can convince servants to betray their masters, because their masters are no longer as rare a source of power as they used to be."
"At any time during the competition, you can bequeath your spells to another. You will still supply their power to function, but they will be able to control your servant's actions in the war. If at any time you're… aware you are in… danger… your servant will know an immediately return to your side. Um… also, you can make your servant intangible… only other servants will be able to sense them then. It'll also let you conserve energy, if your servant is immaterial. Oh! And you don't need to use up any command spells to do that."
"The Throne of Heroes, where your servants are summoned… they're all summoned from fictional works. All sorts of categories. They each come with about two to three Noble Phantasms. Noble Phantasms are particularly important points in the hero's legend. They're the heroes… essence. They're what symbolize the hero's life… what made them what they were."
"All categories of heroes have basic guidelines, but depending on which hero you summon into that category, they might be surprisingly more powerful for their class, due to their skills in life or their Noble Phantasms."
"The categories… let's start with Sabre. Sabre is the most, well, the strongest category. A good skillset all around. Heroes summoned as Sabre are usually the best melee fighters, and they usually fight with swords."
"Lancers… ah, Lancers are different. Balanced. Lancer use spears or polearms of some kind as weapons, and they can fight well both melee, and ranged. Very balanced, and agile."
"Archers fight best at a range. As their… uh… name implies. Their usually very weak in… in a melee. But depending on which servant he is, he might be able to fight phsycially too."
"Those are the Knight Classes. They all generally have weapons as their… noble phantasms. Other servants might just fight with whatever's at hand. There are other similarities too…"
"Anyway, Protector is… almost one of the Knight Classes, but just a little less powerful. Sometimes he'll have a shield. Protector class specializes on… survival. They are the toughest class. Anyone who wins the war with a Protector… it'll usually be by outlasting their opponents."
"Then Rider. Rider is the fastest of the Servants. Rider will usually have a steed… of some kind. Dragon, chariot, something. Riders have… their Noble Phantasms are their steeds, okay?"
"Then there's Casters. Casters can use magic, on top of Noble Phantasms. I mean… the type of magic they'll use varies… but yeah. Caster's aren't as tough, as the others but they can be the most powerful servants."
"Then there's the Engineer class. The, uh, smartest of all the classes. They usually have the most powerful Noble Phantasms… they've usually built them themselves. And they usually have a lot more, too."
"And then… Assassins. Assassins, they're stealthy. All servants can sense each other… but nobody can feel the presence of the Assassin. They're agile – as agile as Lancers. But not nearly as strong. Anybody who wins with Assassins usually does so by being… cunning. Using them as scouts… or attacking the Masters with him, instead of the Servants."
"Beserkers… Beserkers are the final class. These are heroes that… went mad before they died. A Beserker could, originally, have been any of the classes. It's advantage is… the Beserker has a 'Mad Enhancement'. You can activate it at any point… and at that time, the Beserker will lose his reasoning, but be twice as strong as before."
He considered mentioning the tenth class… the Avenger class… but decided against it. He didn't want to give them any ideas, and they'd find out about them in time if things went south.
"To summon a Servant… all you have to do is go somewhere alone, and hold something that has great sentimental value to you. Say 'Pull' five times… and ask for the class of servant you want. You probably want to do that quick. If you don't, the class you want might get taken, and you might get stuck with a Servant you didn't want."
The initiate coughed. "So… that's it. If there are any questions, just call for me. The Regulator. Uh… Are there… are there any questions?"
The old man watched as the Initiate was pulled away from the orb.
The poor youth didn't have any experience whatsoever with talking to people in dreams. Nor with talking to people in general. It seemed that the number of questions this war's participants had asked must have short-circuited his mental link to them.
Ah well. They could always ask again later.
The old man chuckled as ink began appearing on a scroll. Already the participants of this Grail War were summoning their servants. In the morning, he would have the Regulator look it over. The orb was calm on its pedestal once again. Thirty six participants. All armed with warriors that could only ever be imagined in fiction. And only one of them would have their heart's desire fulfilled.
This could be the most interesting war yet.
Saber: M.K. , N.O. , I.K. , Y.Y. !
Lancer: L.L. , C.S. , E.F. , A.F. !
Archer: B.T. , W.G. , S.P. , L.C. !
Protector: J.E. , C.B. , E.M. , J.B. !
Rider: M.N. , D.A. , M.F. , M.M. !
Caster: R.L. , J.C. , L.M. , A.C. !
Engineer: L.P. , C.M. , H.G. , A.C. !
Berserker: S.Q. , S.H. , D.C. , K.P. !
Assassin: N.D. , T.R. , G.W. , E.K. !
A/N:
So, I got the idea for this story from a friend of mine, Adrogoz. I've been wanting to do a story about many characters in fiction, and how they would relate to one another if they met together in the same setting. I've also been wanting to do a Fate/Zero story. But I couldn't decide which characters to choose. Until Adrogoz' story Instruments of Time gave me the idea; the audience gets to choose!
The characters you can choose, can come from any story that can realistically be set in the modern day. By which I mean, it must be indistinguishable from modern day; which is to say, Code Geass is not allowed because while chronologically they can be placed in the same timeframe as, say, NCIS, Agent Gibbs isn't bowing down to the britanian government, so the universes cannot be reconciled.
I will make one exception; Harry Potter. Despite taking place during the nineties, Harry Potter has the potential to take place in the 2010s, and many fanfiction writers don't distinguish the time differences anyway.
If you choose a character from some other story with a fantastic element in it, that element will be taken out. If you choose Light Yagami, he won't have his Deathnote. If you choose Shaggy, Scooby-Doo won't talk. If you choose Artemis Fowl, he won't have a hotline to the fairy underworld.
If you choose a young hero, like say Filmore, T.J. Detweiler, any of the kid characters from the Disney t.v. shows, then you can request they go to Hogwarts to get wizard powers too. But no older folks; John McClane is not going to attend Hogwarts. Just note that wizard powers will not, necessarily, help them win the war any better than a muggle character.
You can choose up to three main characters, but you aren't allowed to have all three from the same story (just two, if you feel like it).
So, those are your choices for main characters. Then you get the people the main characters summoned. As I explained above, you can have your choice between Saber, Lancer, Archer, Protector, Rider, Beserker, Caster, Engineer, and Assassin. As there are four slots for each class, as long as nobody's filled up the slots for the class, you can choose it.
As for which character will fill the class, I have compiled a list of potentials. This list comprises of categories in; Disney, Superheroes, One Piece, Avatar; The Last Airbender, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Cartoon shows, and Classics.
Once you select the class, I will roll a dice and see which character your character summoned. I will then reply to the review you posted your choice in, telling you what happened, and you will reply to my reply with the strategy you want your character to use. It doesn't have to be an elaborate strategy, just a basic one; will you wait to fight until most of the competitors have been taken out? Will you use hit-and-run tactics? Will you try to form an alliance? Will you take out the Masters instead of the Servants, or will you just wade into battle? Will you target all the warriors of a certain Class, to take out a perceived threat?
The categories are as follows; Disney, is pretty self-explanatory; Classic cartoons and Pixar. Superheroes involves every superhero, from Marvel to DC, to the Incredibles. (except for Kick-Ass, which takes place in a version of the real world, and thus their characters can be used as main characters). One Piece, Avatar, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings, are also fairly self-explanatory. Fantasy and Sci-Fi cover every piece of media I know of that fulfills that criteria. Cartoon Shows covers western cartoons like Ben 10, anime shows, and Dreamworks. And Classics uses characters from classical literature, like Shakespeare, or Grimm's fables.
Or, if you're feeling especially risky, you can choose Random category, and you Servant will be selected by a dice roll covering every list of potential servants in the class you chose.
Be warned, that as in Fate/Stay Night, the series I'm basing this game off of, the servants you summon will not be the same as they are in the material they originated from.
So, now that you know how to choose characters, just let me know who you'd like in the reviews. You can choose up to three, just make sure you make it clear where your main character comes from. Here are some examples of entries;
(Wizard?) Main character (main character's story) – class of servant, category of genre
(Wizard) London Tipton (The Suite Life of Zach & Cody) – Assassin, Disney
Inspector Lestrade (Sherlock) – Caster, Sci-fi
David Xanatos (Gargoyles) – Lancer, Random
I think that should cover the rules. I hope I made them clear enough. If you have any questions, ask in the reviews.
I will try to regularly update the list at the end of the chapter there, so people know how many slots are available for a Class. But check previous reviews too, just in case I don't update them in time. The three already up are from Adrogoz.
I hope this will make for an enjoyable story for everyone.