Fate/Dark
Chapter 1: Dark
Kirei Kotomine was a very strange man. He was extremely talented to the point that he would succeed at everything he tried with little effort, yet, for all he accomplished he never felt any kind of joy. No matter what good he did, he never felt any kind of happiness. A truly miserable existence but that was not the worst part.
Believe it or not Kirei was once a devoted husband and father, sadly this feat also failed to make him feel any joy. His wife was able to figure this out and in response committed suicide hoping that the event would cause her husband to feel some kind of emotion. He did, it was sadness but not because she had died, no it was because he wasn't the one who killed her. He was so terrified that he sent his daughter away.
Not long after his wife's death, Kirei got a new mission, to take part in a ritual know as the Holy Grail War. This "ritual" was a life or death contest between Magi. For the sake of an omnipotent wish, granting devise called The Holy Grail. As one could imagine The Church couldn't just allow anyone to get their hands on it, which was why they had formed an alliance with the magus called Tokiomi Tohsaka. His wish was a simply one to use The Grail to reach The Root. The goal that most magi sought, it was also harmless and would have little to no effect on the rest of the world.
That is where Kirei would come in. While Tokiomi would take control of the Archer class servant Gilgamesh, Kirei would take control of the Assassin servant Hassan-i-Sabah, the two of them would pretend to be enemies. But they would in fact be allies with Kirei and Assassin gathering intelligence that Tokiomi would use to eliminate the enemy.
But that left one lingering question, why had The Grail chosen Kirei in the first place? He had no ambitions, no desires or any ideals; he had no use for The Grail. Tokiomi had speculated he had been picked to be a master, to help the Tohsakas. Kirei doubted that this was the case but then again it wasn't like he could come up with anything better.
Still, there was one up side to all this, he might be able to meet Kiritsugu Emiya the infamous mage killer. The man had been hired by a German family of magi called the Einzberns to act on their behalf.
As part of his preparation for the Holy Grail War, Kirei had done research on participating masters, from what could be gathered, Emiya was a mercenary who specialised in killing magi. In fact he was so good at it he became something of a bogie man. He was infamous for his ruthless methods, for example this man once shot down a passenger jet just because his target happened to be on it at the time.
Naturally, Tokiomi had written Emiya off as a hired gun who was just in it for the money. But from what Kirei observed, that explanation made very little sense. For all his pragmatism, Kiritsugu Emiya would often take jobs that were very dangerous but what he got paid for his work often was far too small in comparison to the risk. The man seemed to have no concept of risk versus reward. So what was the mage killer looking for? What were his motives for chasing death? Kirei hoped that this conflict would allow him to meet Emiya and answers those questions. Hopefully this would help understand Kirei understand himself better. But all that would have to be saved for the future. In the mean time the priest had a ritual to finish.
"Ye first, O silver, O iron.
O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the Contract.
Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg.
Let the descending winds be as a wall.
Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve.
Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut.
Five perfections for each repetition.
And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead!
Set.
Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade.
If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond.
I make my oath here.
I am that person who is become the virtue of all Heaven.
I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades.
Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words,
come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance-!"
There was a blinding flash of light followed by a thick layer smoke. Both faded to reveal…..Someone who clearly wasn't Hassan-i-Sabah!
According to accounts from previous Grail Wars those who went under the title of the Old Man of the Mountain when summoned took the form of a humanoid with pitch black skin and wore a skull mask that hid a featureless face.
The man Kirei had summoned wore the garb of a typical English gentleman from the 18th century. Kirei was about to ask the servant who he was , but before he could say anything the servant much to the priest's surprise started laughing like someone told him the punch line of joke. The servant composed himself, "sorry about that, I am the servant Assassin, I assume by the command spells on your hand that you are my master." Assassin's voice and mannerism were both polite and refined just as one would expect from someone of his dress.
"You are correct, before we seal the contract there is one question I would like to ask you, you are not the servant that went with the catalyst I used so what is your true identity?" Assassin pondered Kirei's words before reaching his hand forward "Haytham Kenway," and the contract between the priest and the templar was sealed with hand shake.
Waver Velvet was far from anything that could be called a fine physical specimen; he was short, scrawny and was also pretty wimpy. But he was also extremely intelligent, hard working and determined. Not that any of that seemed to matter to his peers who all blindly followed the idea that stature and the age of one's bloodline were the only things that mattered. Waver hated it so much that he spent weeks after weeks researching and studying in order to disprove the notion and show that anyone could became a great mage if they worked at it. But his arrogant ass of a teacher Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi hadn't even bothered to read his essay; in fact he mocked and humiliated Waver in front of the entire class.
This angered Waver so much that when he bumped into a courier delivering an important package to Archibald, he stole it out of spite. Then went to the library to do some research on the package, it turned out that it was an artefact that once belonged to Alexander the Great and it would be used in an event called the Holy Grail War. In these ritual seven magi summoned the spirits of ancient heroes, as servants battling each other for the Holy Grail an artefact that would grant one wish for the winning master and servant. This filled Waver with glee, at last! A place where status and titles meant nothing, finally a chance to prove himself!
So the young mage apprentice hopped onto a plane heading to Fuyuki City in Japan. After getting himself, a place to stay the command spells appeared on his hand confirming that he was a master. Then he gathered the supplies, formed the summoning circle from the blood of stolen roosters and spoke the summoning incantation.
What Waver expected to appear from the circle was a powerful warrior dressed in the finest of Greek armours. Instead he got some overweight guy wearing a fedora hat, a brown jacket, and glasses and holding a flint lock pistol in one of his hands.
"Hello I am the servant Rider, are you my master?" Rider asked, his accent revealing that he was American. "Yes," Waver responded, his disappointment shinning through his voice as he looked over Rider's shoulder at the ritual he had made to see if anything had gone wrong.
Rider noticed this action, "hey what are you looking…." The servant stopped when he saw the box which held the tattered remains of Alexander the Great's red cape. It didn't take him long to put the pieces together. "Oh so I wasn't the guy you wanted to summon, well this is awkward."
What followed was an uneasy silence which finally ended when Waver decided to ask an important question "So who are you anyway?" "Oh, I'm Linkara of Atop the Forth Wall were bad comics burn," Rider said crossing his arms and smiling with pride. "Excuse me?" Waver asked giving Rider a confused look. "Well…you see um," Rider paused trying to find a way to explain in a manner that would sound impressive to the young man before him. "Well you see I review comic books."
"What do you mean?" Waver asked as a sense of dread started to creep into his being.
"It is just like I said, it's my job to read a bad comic then go on camera and tell people why it sucks," Rider's explanation, causing Waver to bury his face into hands in shame and despair.
"I summoned an entertainer and not just any entertainer but one who wasted his life on a ridiculous hobby, he's got to be the weakest servant that anyone could possibly summon," Waver mutter to himself, "probably doesn't even have a noble phantasm."
"Hey!" Rider yelled while uncrossing his arms and giving his master an annoyed look. "Just so you know I happen to be a servant of significant strength with plenty of powerful phantasms." Waver gave Linkara a cynical glare, "but all you did in life was "review comics" how the hell does someone like you even become a heroic spirit in the first place."
A smug grin appeared on Rider's face, "so you don't believe, well in that case I'm just going to have to show you," Rider put his hand into one of the pockets of his trench coat and pulled out a strange metal device, and then spoke into the machine. "NIMUE beam us up!"One second later the master and the servant disappeared in a flash of blue light.
Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi was a very typical mage. Prideful and extremely dedicated to upholding his family's honour, this was why he had been more than happy to become a master after being chosen by the Grail.
Before taking part Kayneth needed to decide which servant to use and spent many a night studying the various classes. Sabre the class of master swordsmen, Lancer the master of polearms, Archer the master of projectiles and range weapons, Rider the masters of riding legendary mounts and vehicles, Berserker the class for wretched souls cursed with insanity, Caster a master of magecraft welding spells that were far superior to those of a modern magi and Assassin a master of stealth and the dread of all would be masters.
After completing his research Archibald began looking for the right heroic sprit to summon. He searched through the vast sea of history and myth before finally settling on the mighty king of conquerors, Alexander the Great as Rider. However the package containing the summoning catalyst went missing forcing Kayneth to get another relic for a different hero.
This time the relic belonged to the Irish hero Diarmuid Ua Duibhne and on this occasion the artefact came on time. So the mage could summon his servant without any fuss. There was only one more thing to deal with:
You see, when it was time for Archibald to research the contract between servants and masters, he found a way that would allow a servant to contract with than more one person. This meant that one person would have the command spells and act as master while the other would provide the servant with the precious mana, needed to exist in the living world, while allowing the master to fight at full strength.
As whom the second contractor would be, well Kayneth had the perfect person in mind, his fiancée Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. When they first met on the day their marriage was arranged, he was instantly smitten by the fiery redhead. Yes he truly did love her; even though she clearly didn't return the feeling but Kayneth was certain that she would warm up to him eventually. Who knows? Maybe this war would give him a chance to impress her. Anyway it was time to summon Diarmuid.
"Ye first, O silver, O iron.
O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the Contract.
Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg.
Let the descending winds be as a wall.
Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve.
Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut.
Five perfections for each repetition.
And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead!
Set.
Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade.
If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond.
I make my oath here.
I am that person who is become the virtue of all Heaven.
I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades.
Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words,
come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance-!"
There was a flash of blue light and a servant emerged from the circle but unfortunately it wasn't the great Irish hero that Sola-Ui and Kayneth expected. He was a boy with golden hair and eyes; he wore a red bright coat with a black Flamel symbol emblazoned on its back. His right arm and left leg were made of metal; he was also short, very very short.
The boy started to mutter to himself while staring at his right fist with an irritated almost angry look on his face but it was nothing compared to how Kayneth was feeling. "Who are you? Where is Diarmuid?!"
The servant gave the Archibald mage a glare before answering. "Sorry but I don't know who this Diarmuid is" the servant said not sounding the least bit apologetic, "oh by the way I am Lancer, nice to meet you master." Lancer added with sarcasm.
"I meant your true identity you id…." Before Kayneth could finish his sentence, he was interrupted, "Kayneth Stop it! He may not be the heroic spirit we wished for but Lancer did answer our summons and we should respect him."
Kayneth took a deep frustrated sigh, "very well then," he said whilst putting on one of the most forced smiles anyone could make ever make, "Lancer, I would greatly appreciate it if you told me your true identity."
Lancer turned around and finally cracked a smile, "I'm Edward Elric, The Fullmetal Alchemist."
The Matou Mansion on the surface of it looked like a very fine, grand place. However, if one was able to take the time to investigate the basement they would discover that Matou house was a vile, wretched place where dark acts of horrifying proportion were committed and the one responsible for it all was called Zouken Matou.
At first glance Zouken Matou may just appear to be a frail old man but nothing could be further from the truth. The truth was that Zouken wasn't even human but instead a mass of disgusting insects that took the form of man. Obviously he hadn't always been like that but the magus had long since left his humanity behind in his quest for immortally, a quest that had led him to ruin countless lives including the one of the man standing next to him Kariya Matou.
Kariya was the original heir to the Matou family but he so was disgusted by the Matou mage craft that he left Matous and never looked back. That was until he visited a personal friend and wife to Tokiomi Tohsaka, Aoi Tohsaka. During the visit he learned that Tokiomi had given his youngest daughter Sakura in order to resolve the problem: Which of his daughters would get the Tohsaka's family crest?
Kariya, unable to stomach the horrors that Sakura would have to endure under the Matous, went straight to Zouken and made a deal with the old worm sack. If he won the Holy Grail he would give it to Zouken and in return Zouken would release Sakura from his "care."
In order to make up for his lack of training Kariya was given crest worms which would make him powerful enough to control a servant but at the price of slowly and painful destroying his body.
That didn't matter to Kariya as a long as it helped him free Sakura life of misery and sexual abuse. Regardless, it was time for Kariya to speak the incantation and summon the berserk class servant Lancelot the Knight of the Lake.
"Ye first, O silver, O iron.
O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the Contract.
Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg.
Let the descending winds be as a wall.
Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve.
Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut. Shut.
Five perfections for each repetition.
And now, let the filled sigils be annihilated in my stead!
Set.
Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade.
If thou submitteth to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond.
I make my oath here.
I am that person who is become the virtue of all Heaven.
I am that person who is covered with the evil of all Hades.
Yet, thou serve with thine eyes clouded in chaos
Thou bound in the cage of madness
I am the he who commands those chains
Thou seven heavens, clad in a trinity of words,
come past thy restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance-!"
A flash of blue light came from the circle and blinded both Kariya and Zouken when their vision return they both saw something neither of them exected. A cute little girl with silver white hair, blue eyes and pale skin, she wore very little clothing which included a black modified waist coast, purple shoes, black stockings and the most troubling part, a pair of black panties.
She turned to Kariya, "we are the servant Berserker, are you our master?" Kariya still more than a little flabbergasted by the fact he summoned a little girl, took a couple of moments to respond. "I am," that was when Zouken choose to say his piece. "Well I shouldn't be surprised that you screwed up the summoning Kariya, but luckily for you I will over look this little failure on your part and the agreement we made will carry on as planned."
Zouken turned to leave the room when suddenly a mass of thick black sludge erupted from the summing circle, slowly shifting into a strange humanoid being.
His skin was pitch black, the area from his abdomen to his chest was covered in green lines; the centre of his face had two, horn like red marks on each side, his right eye had black sclera and his left eye a golden iris. Finally his two, elf like ears were pierced by dangling earrings. He floated above the other occupants of the room, staring down at them with an evil smirk.
"Who are you?" Zouken asked sounding oddly relaxed in great contrast to Berserker, who was keeping her ice cold blue eyes fixed on the intruder ready to strike at moment's notice. The humanoid unaware or unconcerned by Berserker turned to Zouken. "I am the servant Avenger and you Zouken Matou are my master!"
Zouken suddenly felt a strange burning sensation on his left "hand." He looked to see that three red marks had appeared on his palm, command spells the sign of a contract between a master and a servant. The menacing monster cracked a twisted smile; this Grail War had just got a lot more interesting!
A/N: I would like to thank Lord Mist for allow me put Edward Elric into the Lancer class and to everyone who helped with poor spelling and grammer. Anyway please feel free to review at your leisure and thank you for reading.