3/ Door to Paradise
Interlude
Lenny would never name her snakes. When she lived in America, she saw a movie about a wizard who could talk to snakes. After the movie, her co-workers asked her whether or not she was going to name her snakes. That annoyed her to no end. Mind your own mystery, especially if you have enough time to worry about mine. That being said, her co-workers weren't the type to casually see movies with co-workers. They were magi for god's sake, they were too busy recreating the perfect ritual to reach the next level of their chosen mystery. The team-building's mandatory, their boss told them. After a good, clean job, they were expected to do something together to "celebrate our success" and "build morale." In this age of the open-floor plan offices and WeWorks, even the mafia took tips from Silicon Valley. Lenny, on the other hand, never knew that workplace social interactions could actually be cordial. This realization made working for a mafia much more complicated than her time at the Abbey.
"Willy Wonka," as the Americans liked to call him, just had to kick the bucket in the Far East. With an ongoing power struggle to determine the next director, the Abbey had a small fortune in artifacts and talent poached. Poached might be exaggerating; Lenny went pretty willingly. The Scladio family offered everything a magus could want, including a very reasonable dental plan. Alas, after a few years of hard but productive work and free elective dental procedures later, "Barbarosso" was assassinated and a member of the family went rogue in the Holy Grail War Lenny helped contain. The fallout destroyed the Scladio family. Lenny, like any displaced worker, had to find a new job. Unwilling to sell any of her research to raise funds, she was one iOS software update away from applying for a side-hustle when she remembered the old magus adage, "All roads lead to the Clock Tower." With a heavy heart, teeth that had seen their final free cleaning for the next few years, and a bag filled with toads she re-applied as a researcher at [ruby=Kishua]Department of Mineralogy[/ruby]. After a lackluster interview, she was re-accepted and given the funds as well as laboratory space to continue her research. Like any proper magus, that's what she did - continue cutting open her toads.
There was just one little itch in her mind. It had been there ever since that American shortlisted her as a Master candidate. Ever since she saw those satellite pictures of a battle that changed the landscape of a desert. Ever since she got in her car and didn't stop driving away from Snowfield. Every time she cut into a new toad the itch would nudge her mind. Every time she extracted another toad brain, the itch would tap her on the shoulder. Every time she saw that girl and that boy walking through the corridors of the Clock Tower, it roared at her, scratch me, scratch me!
'Kay, quick scratch.
I think I could do a better job. I think I could win a Holy Grail War.
How would she win?
Krast "Lenny" Wegner: Master of Assassin.
She liked that. She liked the sound of that very much. Looking at the records of previous Holy Grail Wars, it would seem that Saber was thought of as the most excellent class. But Lenny knew from experience as well as intuition that the best class was actually Assassin.
She even penned a memo to herself that read:
The Case For Assassin by Krast Lenny Wegner -
It goes without saying that it is impossible to survive an ambush conducted via Presence Concealment unless a Servant is kept nearby at all times. However, ensuring that one's Servant stays in visual contact for security presents another problem when one faces off against another Servant. The risk of becoming a part of the battle itself becomes higher than ever, and even Heroic Spirits would be placed at a crushing disadvantage if required to fight while covering for another. Even if one's Servant was not directly killed in the initial encounter if caught in a situation where their movements became bound, only defeat would remain in the end. Yet it is also foolish to keep one's Servant at a distance. One can never discount the possibility of Assassin intervening and killing one of the Servants while they were entangled in battle….
By Lenny's calculations, it was possible to win a Holy Grail War with an Assassin in just three days. In fact, she was feeding some snakes when she hypothesized that if Holy Grail War derivatives had taken the magecraft world by storm, it would herald in a "Golden Age of Assassin," as she coined it.
Lenny was a rational magus from a traditional magus family, but her time in the mafia had exposed her to a different world. A world where her might could be right and others were wrong in their weakness. A world where the best theories weren't the ones you came up in your lab, but were tested on the field without fear of reprisal. Most importantly, working for the Scladio family had given her key information about the possibility of proving her Assassin hypothesis. With all that in mind -
Mary of July: "Assassin? Are you trying to hire an assassin? I'm sorry to tell you Miss Wegner that whatever the rumors may be, my family does not retain the services of assassins. If you were hoping to avail yourself with those types of services, wouldn't it be better to hire a freelancer?"
Poppins of July: "You're worried about assassins? Aren't they a given in the Clock Tower? Wait. Oi! You couldn't mean the Assassin class? Why would you be interested in…. Answer me honestly, there's another one happening, isn't there? Even after that girl closed the gate and that debacle in America. Hey! Stop running away! Ahhh, geez, stop or I'll shoot!"
Idiotic Genius: "Assassins sure can be scary. That nice girl was real nice when we got to know her wasn't she? I guess Assassins aren't really that scary, after all. You might be in watch form right now, but you also have an Assassin form don't you Jac - I mean, Berserker. Berserker? Hey, Berserker, why don't you talk anymore?"
Big Ben London Star: "Don't care. If you want to go die, try to do it without bothering me, please. If you want advice, my advice is 'give up.' This Holy Grail War has nothing to with the Clock Tower. The higher-ups will send someone to save face. Annoying them would be more productive than interrupting me when I'm grading. Leave the door open for that snake lady on your way out Miss Wegner. And hey. Hey! Don't talk to my students about this, especially Flat, got it?"
Regardless of what those third-rates said, even the strongest Servant (Assassin) was worthless without a working relationship. To obtain the best Servant with the best possible compatibility, Lenny stayed far away from using a catalyst during the summoning. While this meant her selection of Servants would only be one of nineteen Heroic Spirits, she was certain she would draw the best card.
Salazar slithered up a mahogany table leg and hissed at Lenny. She smiled and took another sip of her Green Apple Cosmopolitan Martini, a drink she discovered in America that quickly transitioned from a guilty pleasure to her favorite drink. The bounded field around the school had just been completed. It would soundproof the area, repel anyone without mystic abilities, and obscure the magical energy sensing abilities of anyone inside. She had woven that last effect into the bounded field as discreetly as possible.
In truth, Lenny was shocked to find the fighting starting quite literally in her backyard. Had a spy found her location? That was impossible. She had been so careful and Assassin had ensured her that they were untraceable. No one other than Lord Byron, the Clock Tower representative, would even know she was interested in this Grail War. After sending her failed snakes as familiars and Assassin for reconnaissance, it turned out to be an opening fight unconnected to herself. A fortuitous coincidence to test Assassin's potency. Shame there was only one Master present. She would have liked to use one Master as an example and ally with the other, only to betray him later.
Either way, Assassin was positioned to claim the life of that homunculus in one attack. All Lenny needed was for Archer to forget about his Master for a moment. Considering the breakneck pace of the battle, she won't have to wait long. Good riddance. Now her nightmares of a bull shaped cloud chasing after her would cease. With this stroke of dirked genius, she would be able to put all that in the past and move into a brighter future for herself as a magus as well as a person. Riding on the momentum of her good mood, she took another sip of her drink.
"Alexa, play 'Toxic.'" The song choice feels fitting as she slipped into a trance to share Assassin's senses.
[ruby=Visha Kanya]Poison Damsel[/ruby]
That was the identity of the Assassin Lenny summoned. One of the nineteen Hassan-i-Sabbah, the poisonous flower who had changed her body until it was a poisoned blade that could divide countries with a single kiss. Lenny related. Gaining the girl's trust had been so easy. All she wanted was to be touched, to have someone who could caress her poisonous skin and still warm the bed the next day.
"Are the stones still functional, Assassin?" Lenny asked through their telepathic channel.
"Yes, Master. Would you mind," Assassin paused for a second, "petting my head when I get home?"
"Don't worry Assassin, I'll do much more than that if you succeed tonight."
Lenny felt Assassin's heart soaring through their line. There probably weren't any awards for best compatibility between Master and Servant. If there were, Lenny knew she'd win.
Attached to Assassin's belt was a series of stones. Extracted from the head of a toad king, these "toadstones" were known as aphrodisiacs or potent antidotes in ages past. Science had another name for them, bufonite. According to archaeologists, they were merely the teeth of Leopdotes, a type of extinct fish. But no scientist had ever magically created a snake with ears so that a toad king could develop, ride the snake, and absorb a multitude of its warty subjects before being euthanized so a magical stone could be extracted from its brain, have they now?
Toads have poisonous glands. To avoid poisoning themselves, they obviously must possess the antidote. That antidote was the toadstone in their head that continuously extracted the poison, growing in size as the toad grew older or as it secreted higher amounts of poison. This was Lenny's brand of magecraft.
The Wegner family were poison collectors. They didn't just collect your garden variety of animal venom and poisonous plants. They also dealt in magical and mythical varieties: Gu, Parysatis' poison, Cantarella, a bit of hydra poison, Aqua Tofana, and their most prized possession was a drop of eitr. The toadstones were the perfect containers for all these poisons as well as Assassin's. Not only had Lenny easily established a rapport with her Servant, but she was also stockpiling potent Noble Phantasm-grade Mystic Codes.
The force of an attack broke through the bounded field Lenny erected. The aftershocks felt like a low scale earthquake that barely rocked the chair, but her body instinctively reeled in her mind.
"Master!" She could feel Assassin's worry through their line.
"I'm fine," The pain from having part of her bounded field broken was something she experienced everyday in the mafia. "Stay focused Assassin, it's almost time to strike."
At that very moment, a tendril of electricity ran up her magic circuits. She telepathically called out to Assassin for confirmation, "Another Master and Servant? No, they're alone. Another Servant?"
"No, Master, just a girl. I can't feel any magical energy from her. She's a civilian."
The words ring through Lenny's mind. It was someone unrelated to this war, someone unfortunate enough to have so little common sense they would disobey the bounded field's suggestion. Perhaps she should have put up an illusion as well? There was no time to wonder how this could have been prevented. What a shame. If Lenny left her alone, the other two Servants would just dispose of the loose end. However, if Lenny made a gamble, she could easily turn this loose end into a secure knot of camaraderie and sportsmanship.
"Assassin, prepare to kill the girl."
"Master?"
"After you kill the girl, show the other two Servants you mean them no harm. You were just cleaning up. They'll be suspicious of you but convince them you were just watching. It'll be worth it if we can ally with one, especially that Archer." Lenny looked down at three strokes on the back of her left hand in the shape of a toad with a snake as its tongue. "I'll use a Command Spell if things get bad."
There were two ways to use a Command Spell. The first was to force your Servant into following an unwelcome command, like suicide. The second was to supplement your Servant's abilities, such as ensuring they escape from a battle. By having maximized her relationship with the Servant, Lenny was certain she would never need to force Assassin to do anything. Secondly, Masters kept one stroke to protect themselves from their Servants. Lenny was confident that unlike other Masters in this war she would not need that final stroke for protection. In essence, she had an extra Command Spell.
"Understood, in position to strike."
Lenny smiled and proceeded to sip her room temperature drink.
"Atta-"
She didn't finish the word because her voice was drowned out by what seemed to be the wall of her workshop exploding. Lenny reflexively turned her head towards the sound to find a hole in the wall the size of an orange.
Impossible, that's impossible. There were layers upon layers of illusions and magecraft shields around this house. There is no way that someone could find, let alone attack this workshop without Lenny noticing. Determined, Lenny pushed herself out of her chair. She immediately fell to the ground. At least, the top half of her did. It may have been impossible but somehow, someone had broken through every layer of defense in this workshop and then Lenny's own personal defenses with a single attack.
The light quickly faded from Lenny's eyes. With this level of damage to her body even her magic crest couldn't keep her alive. The familiars that were still alive desperately slithered into her cavity, attempting to use their bodies to replace her obliterated or missing organs. They wouldn't make it in time. So this was what it meant to fight in the Holy Grail War.
How… intoxicating.
"A successful operation, [ruby=Master]Doctor[/ruby]?" A questioning tone.
"It needs to be more sterile to call it an operation," comes a tart but exasperated reply.
The doctor pulls out a small booklet from her camo-vest and flips to the last page. At first glance it looks like a class registry to help a teacher memorize student faces. If you look at each one of those faces, instead of youthful students, there was an assortment of crossed out, bored faces.
"The last Scladio family officer at large, 'The Poison Princess,'" Lenny's face is unceremoniously crossed out. "We would have never been able to touch her if she stayed under the protection of the Clock Tower. I guess these wars are good for something." Although there is no way this could be called a "war," the doctor adds underneath her breath.
The Servant absentmindedly swings her legs from the edge of the rooftop as the doctor put down her firearm next to a briefcase. Magically, the gun begins disassembling itself, shedding off layers of attachments that made it possible for precise long-range sniping like coats and sweaters. Soon, all that remains is a thermal scope and a handgun that fit itself in the holster on the doctor's belt.
"And yourself? Are you enjoying the emptiness of a satisfied revenge?"
The doctor doesn't look at her Servant. "Wegner was not the reason why I joined this battle."
The Servant raises an eyebrow at the empty black sky before offering a deep nod.
"We're fighting because we want the same thing," A doctor's self-deprecating smile after delivering bad news to a patient fills her face. "Wasn't overcoming death your dearest wish, Berserker?"
"A battleground is not a place where death is overcome, [ruby=Master]Doctor[/ruby]," Berserker turns from where she sat and narrows her eyes at the doctor's arm. "We must treat that when we-"
A pillar of light pierces the black of the sky, stopping her sentence short. The doctor, in fact, anyone participating in this magical war instantly knows what that light heralds. A miracle, a [ruby=Ghost Liner]Boundary Recording Band[/ruby] was just anchored onto this plane.
"Another one? But Rider was the seventh!" The doctor bites her gloved thumb, a habit from childhood she got from her sister. She turns to her own Servant for an explanation but the ledge is already empty.
"Come back, Berserker!" Panicked, she sends a telepathic message.
The only reply the doctor receives is pure killing intent and, "It reeks."