This is a challenge I made that no one took, so I'm attempting this pilot chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Fate/Stay Night.
Prologue: The Sword is Drawn
"What are you! Are you the Personification of the Knights of the Round?!" Caster asked the anomalous Servant of the Sword. "I know not your story, yet I know your blades. Identify yourself!"
Yes this is what I am. I am a hero with no name. I am merely an object that gathered heroes together. The Once and Future King, Black Knight, Gallant Shield, Knight of the Sun, and many more congregated around me. I am the item that brings them together. I am no sword, yet I call forth those very swords owned by those I've named.
I'm an anomaly. I'm an abomination in the system. I am no Heroic Spirit. I have no legend. I'm a mere paragraph compared to the epics of those famous knights. However, this does not mean I will yield to this wretched witch.
To do so meant to stain the legends I personify.
I stood my ground in front of my Master. I had to protect him from our enemies like the one in front of me. "See for thyself who or what I am, Caster!" I challenged. "Taste my blade! See for thyself the metal I bear in my hands! But know this. There is no victory for thou today." I held my ordinary longsword by the handle, and directed its point at the witch floating in the violet night sky. "Thou shall lie in a pool of thine own blood here and now, Medea!"
-Days ago-
Shirou Emiya ran as fast as his legs could handle. Two strange men, one in red and the other in blue, fought at the courtyard in front of the school. He felt the presence of one of those men chasing him. They weren't normal; Shirou knew that quite well. Their bodies exuded Prana. They weren't Magi because their whole body was Prana. They were Servants. Two of the seven Heroic Spirits were in front of him earlier. 'This is impossible!' Shirou shouted in his head. 'It's only been ten years! Why is the Holy Grail War happening so early?!'
Shirou's instincts told him to duck and counter. He followed his instincts, and lowered his body. Wind swept past him like a bull that missed by a margin. He glanced back. No one was there. Murderous intent came off in waves in front of him. The sheer amount of it suffocated the third-rate Magus. He realized that he was much too slow.
Too foolish to think he could outrun a Servant.
Yet, he knew if he surrendered, he would die.
Shirou looked up at a red spear that lunged towards his heart. His body reacted like a machine. His mind picked a blueprint, and copied it. He sparked his circuits. The mental process to conjure the blueprint into a real object was hastened under the unique and dire condition to survive. An aria was muttered in the hall. "Trace…on!" Prana coated his right arm like lightning. The energy took form. Narrow, curved, and elegantly extended; a sword. A katana to be more accurate. The blade swung to the left. Sparks flew as deadly spear met convincing copy.
The spearpoint missed. It struck ground instead.
Shirou was speechless. His attacker was as well. Shirou kept the blade in front of him. He was ready for another attack. The spear was pulled from the floor. The young man tensed. Legs were ready to spring. Arms were ready to swing. Eyes were ready to predict. Mind was ready to split.
Like a whip, the spear swatted the air. Its bladed tip scarred the nearby wall as it closed in on Shirou. Shirou's sword blocked the blow. The power sent him backwards. However, instead of enduring the full force, he diminished it by arching the spearpoint over his head by the aid of his creation. The dreaded point arced back to its blue clad wielder before it lashed out at a blinding speed. Shirou drew the sword with his left hand while his right acted like a guide. His vertical defense instantly broke into pieces.
The spear shallowly carved into the skin. Shards of his sword slashed his left shoulder or were embedded into his left clavicle. The spearman wasn't done. An inhuman kick sent Shirou flying down the hall.
Bones were fractured, misplaced, or broken. Muscles were torn, bruised, or bleeding. The boy lost all feeling in his left arm. That was of no consequence. He still had his other arm and legs. He curled up. Right arm and left foot acted as support. Slowly, the boy rose up.
The spearman was quite surprised. That hit alone should have killed the boy on the spot.
"I'm surprised." The spearman remarked. "What you pulled off was a peculiar, little trick. That was no mere Projection. It seems more like a mutation or an evolution of the craft. In any case, it's unique."
The boy could not answer. His mind was far too focused on the pain.
The spearman walked to the boy with rushed steps. His enemies would be here soon. He needed to part with a few last words to the boy. "To think a construct of Prana lasted three hits against a Noble Phantasm. You have a gift, kiddo." The man in blue drew his spear back. "Too bad, you won't see its full potential. May your weary bones find peaceful rest." The point headed for the boy's heart.
Flesh parted for the blade. The spear struck the heart with naught a single sound.
The spearman watched as the boy fell to his knees. 'What drive from a human. To think that he had potential.' He knelt down on one knee, and closed the boy's hazy, yet defiant eyes. "You were at the wrong place at the wrong time… Maybe you were meant to be the seventh." He stood up, but not without giving the boy one last look.
In the boy's hands were the blades Archer held. But seconds later, that dematerialized. It was a sign that the boy was no longer in this world.
'Defiant till the end.' The spearman thought. And with that, he disappeared into nothing.
Two people, a man and a boy, sat on a porch. The two stared at the shining moon in the deep azure night sky.
"When I was little, I wanted to be a hero." The man spoke solemnly.
"What?" The boy couldn't believe what the man, his father, said. "You wanted to become one?Did you give up?" The man nodded for confirmation. The boy frowned at the answer.
"It's unfortunate, but…" The man took a pause. "Being a hero is a limited-time thing." He said. "When you grow up, it gets hard to call yourself one. I should have realized it sooner. Things like good and evil are blurred. It's not as easy to say you're doing something for justice because other things come into play." The explanation was vague, but the boy understood it a little. "Shirou…a hero cannot hope to save everyone. They can only do their best. Understand?"
The boy nodded. "Yeah. You did your best." He said. "You tried so hard to save everyone. You gave up because you couldn't get there." The man looked at his son. The boy in front of him deciphered his words so easily. "I understand a hero will fail at some point. I'll do my best too." The boy turned to his father. "I'll do it for you. Leave it to me. I'll be a hero that will do my best to save everyone."
"Right…"
The boy sent Prana to his hands. "And I'll start by using my powers to help people." In his hands, a small knife materialized.
"And how will you do that? All you can do is figure out the composition of something, and make swords." The man pointed out.
"I'll fight to keep everyone as safe as possible!" The boy answered.
"Then it's best I teach you how to better your technique, right?"
Shirou woke up violently. He bolted into a sitting position while his hands performed his brand of Magecraft. "Wha? Where?" He was confused. "I…I was stabbed in the heart. How am I alive?" He asked himself. He looked around, and found a ruby-like pendant. He felt the residual Prana inside it. "Someone saved me…" He realized. He took a pause to look at his fully healed wound. Not a single blemish on his skin. The young man looked around him for the spearman. He was alert, but confused. There was no reason that the War would start so early. Kiritsugu explained that it only happened in sixty years. 'Was there some backlash from the previous war?' He shook his head; there was no time to analyze the situation. He needed to get home. He needed to get a Servant! "I don't know how many have been summoned, but I'm going to join to stop this war!"
Shirou ran. Ran as fast as he could. He ignored the strain on his lungs, on his legs, on his muscles. His wellbeing was irrelevant to the potential thousands that could die in the War. He didn't want the fire to happen. Not again. Kiritsugu explained his very mistake the day he died; the day he gave up being a hero; the day of the fire. He would surpass Kiritsugu! He would save more lives than his father did.
He reached his home with no problems. He didn't go to inside immediately. He went to his workshop, the shed. He continued to ignore the screams of pain his body endlessly sent to his brain. His determination would not waver. It was tempered to be as strong as steel! Yet because of this, he got tunnel vision.
Had he been of sound mind and body, he would have noticed a red glint on the corner of his eye.
The shaft of the spear struck Shirou's left side. Like a bat, the spearman swung with enough force to launch the young man near the door of the shed.
The young man fell on all fours. "Lancer…" Shirou croaked. The blow took out the air inside him, but it was a momentary inconvenience. He groggily stood up with unsteady steps. He fell back on the wall behind him to right himself.
"Hm? So you know what I am." Lancer spoke with surprise. "You know about the Grail War. I'm astonished." The blue clad man lowered his weapon. "Somehow, you still live. I thought blunt force would be enough, but it seems you are intent on ignoring the pain." Lancer palmed his face. It was neither fun nor entertaining to do the same thing again. "Stuck with killing the same person twice in one day… You're like a cockroach, you know that?"
Shirou didn't listen. His tunnel vision was still there. Behind him was the shed. And in there, the summoning circle and his catalyst were ready and waiting. He dashed off into the shed in hope of successfully summoning a Servant in time.
"Oh come on… Man up will you?"
Shirou looked on the floor for the summoning circle, but he couldn't find it. After years of unattended care, junk covered up the summoning circle. Red filtered and bounced off the walls. He moved to retaliate. From the nearby table, he picked up a generic longsword with a faded gold cross-guard. Shirou immediately reinforced it, and preemptively swung at the spear.
Lancer swatted it out of Shirou's hands. The sword flew into the junk pile, and landed on a round table in the middle of the pileup. The residual Prana on the weapon seeped down into the old furniture like an injection from a needle.
"Looks like the pain has dwindled your fighting capability, kiddo." Lancer remarked. "You're nothing more than a piece of straw trying to stand." A swift boot to the chest blew Shirou to the wall.
"…I-" Shirou could barely speak. His body was too battered to move. Yet his eyes never gave a single sign that he ever planned to surrender.
Lancer's thrust of his spear seemed to slow down as Shirou inspected the weapon that would end his life. Red like blood, the fine, polished metal of this unique spear. One thing Shirou noticed from the spear was that it radiated Prana all over it. The spear inched closer, and yet Shirou could still feel the slowness of this moment. Grounded like he was in quicksand, he could do nothing but watch as the mysterious spearman kill him for being a witness to the Holy Grail War. Try all he might, he would never be able to dodge this next blow without external interference from anyone or anything.
Unknowingly for both men, a Command Spell had already etched itself on the boy's left hand. Blood red and shaped like a sword, this mark signified his position as a Master. It marked him as a participant of the Holy Grail War.
'No! I have to live! I can't die here because of this Servant! My dream...My desire to be a hero!' Shirou's Command Spell sprung to life, the energy it released linked with the nearby, antique table over hidden, self-creating summoning circle. 'I can't die without becoming a hero!' His thoughts were channeled through this link, and the antique table and the sword, the catalysts to the upcoming summoning, called to the people linked to its existence. The silhouettes of several armored Knights and their swords invaded the boy's mind through the link. This image sparked Shirou's desire to be vocally said, and with a stunning bellow, he stopped Lancer's blow with his right hand, pierced by its point, and yelled, "I'm going to live! I'm not going to die from a person who kills...FOR A BLACKENED GRAIL!"
With those choice words, the summoning circle glowed a gentle, holy blue light. Lancer was surprised. He retracted his spear, and aimed its point at the newcomer. Replacing the antique table was a Knight, who stepped forward with invisible blade in hand, slashing at Lancer to push him away from the boy. He questioned the silhouette, "Seventh Servant?!" The man recovered quickly, upon touching the ground. The blue-clad Servant chose to not take retaliatory action, and opted for in-field reconnaissance on this new Servant.
"I have heeded thy call." The Servant said monotonously. He turned towards his summoner. "Servant Saber, at thy service. Now...I ask. Art thou my Master?"
The Servant bore a silver breastplate with leather belts strapping the back armor from underneath his armpits. His shoulders bore a pair of Pauldrons with smaller layers linked underneath for extra protection. His left hand was covered by a finely made gauntlet while his right seemed to have the same gauntlet, but underneath a royal blue long sleeve. His Fauld and Tassets were the same color as his breastplate and Pauldrons, and they hid the seams that allowed the him to have three royal blue coattails that ran down the length of his legs, and stopped just short of his ankles. Hidden by the coattail covering his front, his legs were equipped with a pair of silver Cuisse, Poleyns, Greaves, and Sabatons that completed his fortified outfit. Now looking up, Shirou stared at emerald irises brimming with charisma and loyalty for the boy. The man knelt on one knee, his left hand just by his heart. The Knight's blond hair swayed in the wind that picked up during his summoning.
Stunned by this new development, Shirou could only stare in awe. It was at this point in his life that his dream to be a hero could be a reality. Somehow, he knew that the man before him was a hero.
Technically, the Servant wasn't a Heroic Spirit, but rather the object linked to these aforementioned heroes. Why this particular catalyst was allowed to be a Servant was quite confusing, but what the Servant could tell was that his summoning was not by chance.
The man repeated his question once more with extra emphasis and urgency in his words. "Again, I ask of thee. Art thou my Master?"
"Master?" The Servant stared at Shirou's left hand, where the Command Spell glowed. "Yes, I am, Saber. I am Shirou Emiya. Thanks for the rescue."
"Thy thanks art not needed. Thou art my Master." The Knight answered for himself. Standing up to full height, the Knight turned around to face Lancer. The Knight never turned back, his focus was solely on the Servant who dared to kill his Master. "The pact is forged. My sword shall be thy fate. Should my sword break, it will signify thy death. Welcome to the bloodbath that is the Holy Grail War, Master, the Seventh Master." Saber pulled the sword that was once embedded on the table. The simple and generic design of the blade was nothing special compared to Lancer's blood-red spear.
It was almost insulting to the blue-clad man that the best Servant class would fight with an ordinary sword instead of a Noble Phantasm. Yet, from the moment Saber held onto the sword, the sword itself felt…stronger. It wasn't the same as Reinforcement, yet at the same time it was reinforced.
Shirou observed the blade. Like a scanner at the cash register, an imaginary line scanned the blade from point to pommel. 'It's been reforged.' He thought. The sword was reforged to be stronger than what it was supposed to be. The decorative sword became an actual sword in Saber's hands.
"Lancer!" Saber called, "Retreat, or my sword shall slay thee where thou stands!" The knight lowered his stance, and spread his legs. He pulled his blade's handle right behind his ears. His left hand acted as a guide that aimed the sword's point to Lancer's heart.
Lancer took his battle stance. The spear pointed at the ground as directed by the positions of his arms. The left arm was the arm closest to the point while his right arm was on the other end of the spear. "No can do, Saber. My Master told me to do recon on the enemy. As of right now, you are my enemy. So if you wish to make me leave, then make me leave by meeting Death!"
Lancer's simple answer did not satisfy Saber. The Servant of the sword tightened his grip on his blade, and charged. "Then I shall rid thee of mortal coil, Lancer!" Saber shouted.
"Come, Saber!" Lancer replied back. "Let's see what that lackluster sword can do!"
Saber stabbed his sword into the ground. Prana rushed out of his body. A magic circle, a summoning circle, appeared beneath his feet. A rush of power flowed outwards in an attempt to blow the caster away. Yet the Knight stood his ground. Inside the roaring winds of Prana, Saber spoke an aria.
A Knight lives for the people.
Valor, his body.
Honor, his armor.
Wrath, his sword.
We serve to protect the innocent.
We serve to annihilate the enemy.
It is by this creed that we Knights exist
It is by this creed that we Knights congregate
It is by this creed that we return for the fight
Come! By the Order of the Round…
Return, Knights of Camelot!
"I see… Your name… You are no Hero." Caster muttered at the sight. "You are the catalyst."
And this is the end of the pilot chapter. Hope this sparks some interest. Saber's appearance is that of Proto Saber.
This is Azure signing off.
