I own nothing, none of the characters or series used in this. Heck, I don't even own the laptop I'm writing this on.
At the end of the chapter, I'll put in the usual description of the Servant and their Abilities, and if any of you want to use any Servant portrayed here as is, with the same Noble Phantasms, abilities etc., please feel free. I only ask that you credit me and PM me with a link so I can read your story too.
Who's next ? YOU DECIDE !
I will only use characters you have suggested in your reviews for all my oneshots ! So please, go ahead, review and suggest !~
The Holy Grail was corrupted by the spirit of Angra Mainyu. The corruption bent the boundaries of Heroic Spirit and the definitions of classes, with people often most unsuited to a particular class being summoned as a Servant of that class. It was so, that in a particular universe, a master swordsman was accidentally summoned by Caster to act as Assassin.
This is not the tale of that universe.
Caster watched the summoning circle flare to life, smiling wickedly to herself. She had succeeded in summoning Assassin, and she would be certain to win the war now, with two Servants working together. Souchirou-sama would be so pleased!
The customary burst of smoke, and Caster wrinkled her nose in disgust. Was that the smell of stale alcohol? Had she summoned some sort of drunken-fist master? Rapidly running through the possible names in her mind, she waited for the smoke to clear.
"'Ello, love." said her Servant. He was clutching a bottle of what she could make out was rum in his hand, swaying even as he stood, outlandish with his dreadlocks, pirate hat, and dirty, ragged clothing. Two badly-maintained pistols were stuck haphazardly into his belt, as well as a cutlass. A strange circular artefact was hung from it as well.
"Fancy a sip?" continued the man, extending the rum bottle to her. Caster frowned. This overt display of familiarity in their relationship she did not want. She was the Master, and he would obey her every command like a good Servant should, not even daring to speak in her presence unless she commanded it.
With a sweep of her hand, she knocked the rum bottle out of his grasp and sent it crashing to the floor. "Oy!" cried her Servant, "why'd you have to go and do that, then?"
"Listen well, Assassin." she hissed, her voice cold, her eyes shining with sadistic pleasure, "you will do what I say, when I say, how I say it." With a gesture of her hand and some magic, she sent him into convulsions, the pain of a thousand knives shooting through his body. "Am I clear?"
"Inescapably." gasped her Servant, falling to the floor as the pain ceased.
Caster smiled.
"Um, Saber," spoke up Shirou nervously.
"What is it, Shirou?" replied his Servant curtly, her eyes fixed on the gate to Caster's temple. Really, why did Shirou insist on talking when they were so close to their goal? Didn't he know it could reveal their position?
"There's…a man with a wooden eye, hiding behind that tree." pointed Shirou.
What? Saber swung around, eyes turning to the direction. An ambush? She stopped, at a loss, when she saw what Shirou was pointing out. There was a man hiding behind the tree, it was clear: ragged clothing, bad hygiene, and an overall aura of seediness, but the main thing was he was so clearly visible that Saber wondered if he had even been trying to hide. Perhaps it was a trap? It was either that or the man was utterly incompetent, and that couldn't be the case, right?
The man gasped on seeing her look at him, and immediately turned around, sitting down, hands in his ears.
"Saber?" cut in Shirou once more. "He's talking to himself."
Saber strained to catch the man's voice, hoping it would allay her confusion. What she heard merely exacerbated it.
"If you can't see them, they can't see you. If you can't hear them, they can't hear you."
Saber stood there, stunned, and Shirou took the opportunity to shout back, "We can hear you, you know. And see you too."
The man jumped up, startled, eyes wide with fear and pointing at Saber. "It's her! She's a witch!"
Saber's eye twitched, and her grip on Excalibur tightened. She, a witch?
"Who…are you?" she ground out, fingers twitching.
"Oh, I'm Assassin." replied the man, continuing even though his two listeners now stood stunned at the knowledge, wondering how on earth this man could be Assassin, "Well, to be more clear, I'm actually part of Assassin's abilities."
Saber relaxed fractionally. So that was how this was? An Assassin capable of summoning more people? If all of them were as incompetent as this one, she would have no trouble with him.
"Mr. Ragetti!" called a new voice, and the man snapped to attention, gulping. "Yes, Captain?"
"Take a break." came the reply, and a bullet found itself in Ragetti's torso, the man collapsing and slowly fading gulped at this display of callousness, and Saber turned to regard the new arrival. Another man with ragged clothing and badly maintained weapons, although clearly the one in charge, considering the other had called him 'Captain'.
"You killed him!" shouted Shirou angrily, pointing at the man.
"Him?" replied the new arrival contemptuously, "that witless one-eyed idiot will be glad to go back to my ship. He'll want to meet his uncle, although why anyone would want to meet that belligerent homunculus is beyond me. Anyway," continued the man, "I can call him back again if I need to."
Saber pushed past Shirou and stood facing the new arrival. This was clearly the real Assassin, and if he could re-summon his underlings when they died – well, this would be a longer fight than she thought.
"I'd say 'Ello love', to you, darling," said Assassin, swaying in place and talking to Saber, "but the last woman I told that to nearly killed me. Besides, I find I never had much luck with blonde women. Inexplicably, they dislike my charming self."
Saber could sympathize with them.
"So, love," called Assassin, "since everyone here's a man of their word, save you, what with being a woman and all, why don't we make this a fair fight?"
Saber smiled. Perhaps this Assassin wasn't so bad after all? Anyone willing to fight her fairly was either stupid or brave, and often both. She nodded.
"Excellent!" said Assassin, clapping his hands, "Now, why don't you send your Master to the side, and we can have a good and noble fight, eh?"
"Shirou, go." said Saber, her eyes not moving from the man. Reluctantly, Shirou Emiya moved to the side of the clearing, watching as the Assassin drew his cutlass.
"Swords only?" he asked, and Saber replied by charging at him ready to cut him up with a vertical slash.
Then the sounds of ringing metal all over the clearing, as Assassin ducked and parried for his life, the seemingly petite Saber almost slashing him apart on more than a few occasions. The sounds of clashing metal, though, masked one other very important sound – a dull thud - and then the sounds of a body being dragged across the grass.
Saber smiled to herself as her adversary leaped back once more, only narrowly avoiding her slash. His sword was already chipping away, and she was clearly the superior swordsperson. Assassin had made a mistake deciding to fight fair against her.
Then a new voice from the trees behind Assassin cried, "Cap'n, we got him!"
"Excellent." replied Assassin, sheathing his sword. "Bring him out here, Mr. Gibbs."
Saber's heart crashed as she saw the new arrival emerge from behind Assassin. It was another ragged, untidy man, one she identified as another part of Assassin's abilities, but what drew her attention was the fact that he had Shirou!
She turned wildly to where she had earlier told Shirou to go, finding the spot empty of anyone, although a conspicuously dropped wooden club told her everything she needed to know. The unconscious Shirou was being cradled by the man, his sword out and ready to strike.
"I believe that makes me the winner, love." said Assassin.
Saber didn't reply, readying herself for the fastest charge of her life, prana pooling at her legs, ready to activate her Invisible Air to send her shooting forward in a last-ditch attempt to free Shirou.
"None of that, darling." spoke up Assassin, his eyes drawn to the visible prana around her legs. "The Black Pearl."
And then a massive ship suddenly formed in front of Saber, obscuring her view of Shirou and her path to him, and Assassin was standing on the masthead, at least fifty others with drawn weapons and guns facing her.
"Let him go!" screamed Saber to the skies, "Kill me instead!"
"No one's killing anyone, love." called back Assassin, "what we have here, is a situation of parsley."
Parsley? wondered Saber.
One of the men standing next to Assassin whispered something furiously into his ear.
"Parley! I mean, parley!" corrected Assassin. "We're going to have a little talk."
Saber forced herself to listen calmly to the terms. Surprisingly, it was rather moderate, all things considered – she and Shirou would retreat for now, but were allowed to return tomorrow to fight again – and Assassin and his crew would be left unharmed.
With no other solution in sight, Saber accepted the terms sullenly, taking back Shirou and leaving. While she was leaving, she called back, "You cheated."
"Assassin." he replied, expecting the answer to be self-evident.
"Had we fought fair, I would have crushed you!"
"Not really an incentive to fight fair, is it?" Waving merrily at them, Assassin winked at Saber, and he, his ship, and his crew disappeared into the night.
The last thing Saber heard was Assassin irritatedly shouting "Must this monkey be a part of my legend?" followed by howls and screeches from what sounded like a very violent chimpanzee.
Caster was most displeased as Assassin walked into her chambers. The alcoholic lout had Saber's Master prone and ready to be killed, and he let them retreat!
I will have to make sure he understands my displeasure. she thought, watching Assassin intently. She waited for him to explain himself. Not that she planned to listen, of course: the silence was meant to intimidate.
"Funny thing, this." started Assassin, lifting the circular thing she had noticed earlier. "Got it from this witch. Now," he flipped the lid open, "it is, as you can see, indubitably a compass. But what you can also see is the needle," he pointed to the needle, "not pointing North. Why?"
Caster made a dismissive noise indicating that she thought the reason why he had a broken compass wasn't worth considering.
"Because," said Assassin, wagging his finger, "the compass shows me the direction of whatever I want the most."
Caster's eyes widened. Useful-!
"Until an hour ago, what I most wanted," continued Assassin, "was freedom. And you have this nifty little purple dagger thing, don't you?" Assassin pulled out a purple dagger that made Caster's eyes widen to the maximum and her to stand up abruptly, calling upon her magic to inflict pain on her Servant once more.
She was fractionally too late, as Assassin cut himself with Rule Breaker, the crystallized essence of betrayal, shattering all spells laid on him – including her contract with him! He was free!
Assassin drew his gun, tossing Rule Breaker back at her with a flick of his wrist.
"How- how did you steal my Noble Phantasm from me?" screamed Caster, all battle instincts forgotten by the overwhelming shock she encountered.
"When you imprisoned me with your contract," said Assassin, smiling widely, "you forgot one very important thing. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?"
Anyone passing by the temple then would have heard a shot, a woman's scream, and a man's voice singing "Now, bring me that horizon~"
Alright ! So there's the eighth one. Please, go ahead and suggest characters! If I don't get any suggestions, I can't make the next chappy…
One more Assassin, and this time it's Jack Sparrow! Also, the longest chapter yet, this. Jack is just so fun to write – so different from all the other Heroic Spirits. In that sense, he's sort of like Sherlock Holmes, whose very personality makes him interesting. Now, as to how Jack stole Rule Breaker – I have no idea. The best explanation is that he's Captain Jack Sparrow, and that's that.
The suggestion to use Jack Sparrow-as-Assasin came from Mordalfus Grea. Initially, I wondered how it was possible – Jack's more of a Rider, much like Sir Francis Drake, but then this thought struck me; and the potential was so good that I wrote it in a flash, even though I had planned to take a few days before starting work on the next chapter. Expect a little break, perhaps till the beginning of next week, for the next chapter: unless another super-awesome idea makes me write, of course.
Captain Jack Sparrow ( don't forget the 'Captain' ) is the protagonist of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean series. An honourless, treacherous sneak and prodigious liar, Jack often prefers running away and negotiating to engaging in battle. However, he does possess great skill in battle, able to pull out the unexpected moves that others thought impossible. He captained The Black Pearl, the fastest ship on all the seven seas.
Go ahead, watch the series, if only for Jack.
Class: Assassin
Master: Caster (initially), None
True Name: Jack Sparrow
Titles: Pirate Lord of the Caribbean
Sex: Male
Height/Weight: 175cm/unknown
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Strength: C+
Endurance: C+
Agility: B
Mana: B
Luck: A
Noble Phantasm: B+
Class Skills-
Riding- B+
The expertise to ride animals and vehicles.
Assassin is extremely talented at commandeering naval vehicles, and to an extent horses and other animals, but cannot ride any magical beasts or very modern vehicles.
Presence Concealment- D+
The ability to conceal one's presence and hide in plain sight. Usually the hallmark of the Assassin class.
Assassin is not particularly stealthy, and would normally not be summoned as Assassin class except in the case of corruption in the part of the Holy Grail.
Personal Skills-
Disengage- A
The ability to break away from combat.
Assassin is very adept at breaking away from combat and fleeing the scene. He is capable of fleeing all but the swiftest of Servants, assuming even those Servants can track his escape.
Nature of a Rebellious Spirit- A+
The temperament to never remain at one location and never embrace a lord. A wandering star that does not have the capacity to be king nor is capable of finding his own king.
Assassin has lived his whole life on the principle that freedomis the most important thing in his life. This principle has been so integral to his existence that it is impossible for him to be swayed by any Charisma or offers made to him to serve under someone.
Pioneer of the Stars- EX
All difficult voyages and challenges which are considered "impossible" turn into "events that can be realized."
Assassin is unsurpassed in the art of turning the impossible into the possible. Events and abilities considered beyond the natural law can be performed if they are made to facilitate a voyage or task. Even in life, Assassin was adept at performing such feats, coming back from the dead on one occasion.
Noble Phantasms-
The Compass "Reveal the Heart's Desire" : C
A magical compass gifted to Assassin by a witch he knew in life, it points to the direction of whatever the person holding it desires for the most.
The Black Pearl "Cursed Ship that Outsails Death" : A-
Assassin's signature mount in life, The Black Pearl is a large, Georgian-era pirate gunship. The fastest ship on the seven seas, it is capable of outperforming any other naval vehicle, even ones developed later in the future. Assassin also calls forth the crew of the ship to fight alongside him, and can even summon them separately to use for various tasks. If the crew are killed when outside of the ship, they return to it; if killed when on the ship, they do not return for that Grail War. The true rank of this Noble Phantasm is A+, however due to Assassin being summoned as an Assassin instead of a Rider, it is ranked down to A-.
