Fate/Zero: Executioner
Chapter 8: Rusted Crowns
Getting your hand and foot cut off, your eyes gouged out, and inflicting multiple cuts and broken bones on your body, was not fun. At all.
But then again, he had felt worse. It gets hard to feel pain normally after being burned alive. He still could hear the cracking and popping of his skin as it was burned away.
He pulled his mind away from that memory as he tried to flex his new hand and foot. The skin was still tender and he could very well break them if he stood wrong or gripped something too hard.
He reached for the crutch that had been laid next to his bed, and limped into the destroyed hallway. Lancers Master and Kiritsugu really did a number on the place. The lights couldn't even turn on due to them knocking out the power at some point.
He saw Irisviel slowly walking down the hallway. She had used a lot of mana to seal his wounds, he was hoping that it hadn't done something that could result in damage to her. After all, he needed her to summon the Grail.
He strained his eyes to make sure there wasn't wrong with her magic circuits or body, when he saw her grab her chest and nearly fall to the floor.
He cursed under his breath and asked her who had appeared, when he felt energy coming from the forest. He lifted up the gauze that had been placed over his eyes and was blinded by the moonlight. He squinted his eyes and saw, lightning?
"The only Servant that can do that is…Rider." He thought as his breath caught in his throat as he thought they were about to be attacked again, and hald ran, half dragged himself to the entryway.
He managed to create a few Shadow Bolts, arrow like shadows that could rip through a tank like it was made of water, and pointed them at the door, prepared for the worst as he hid his crutch and leaned on the guardrail, trying to hide his injuries while Saber and Irisviel stood at the top of the stairs.
Instead of a armored warrior prepared to kill, he saw Rider wearing a T-shirt and jeans, holding a massive wooden barrel over his shoulder.
"Saber, Avenger. I come to you tonight underneath the intentions of resolving the Holy Grail War peacefully. I wish to hold a banquet so that we can decide who truly deserves the Grail!" Rider shouted loudly.
"So, this guy want's to discuss who deserves the Holy Grail? A powerful omnipotent wish granting device? And he's asking people who are only here because they have the chance of getting their ultimate wish granted? What a fool." Avenger thought with a inaudible growl at the loud mouthed Servant.
After Saber agreed, due to her "honor as a knight", always with honor with these "heroes", Saber, Avenger, and Rider were all sitting cross legged in a circle in one of the manors courtyards, with Irisviel standing behind Saber, and Riders Master behind his Servant.
"So, what do you plan on discussing Rider? I doubt you came here just to have a chat." Avenger said, still slightly pissed at Saber for agreeing to this foolish thing. Rider's guard is down and his Master is exposed! Just kill one of them and be one step closer to the Grail.
"And what are you doing here Avenger?" he heard a certain golden clad prick say from directly across from him on the semi circle, as Archer materialized into view.
"Rider, I thought this was to be a 'Banquet of Kings', and you allowed a dog to join us?" Archer said while doing a sneer that made Avenger want to tear off his face even more.
"A dog? I'd be careful with your words Archer, or you may find that this dogs bite is a lot worse than its bark." Avenger said, his voice remaining neutral despite the anger that was reaching its boiling point inside of him.
"And what are you even doing here in the first place? You don't seem like the person who would be willing to discuss something as important as the Grail." Avenger asked quickly, hoping the proud fools attention span was as limited as it was that night not too long ago.
"I figured that it could be entertaining, and if it means I get the Grail quicker, all the better." Archer said as he sat down and sipped at the wine in the ladle Rider had handed to him, before putting on a face of disgust.
"This is absolutely disgusting! You call this wine?" Archer asked Rider disgusted.
"Really? It was the finest wine I could find in the market." Rider said to himself confused.
"If you're holding a Banquet, you might as well have decent wine to accompany it." Archer said before a golden jug of wine and 4 cups appeared out of one of his portals.
He passed the cups around and poured the wine into each one.
"It's aged, very much so. But it's too sweet, the bitterness that makes so many wines irresistible is lacking immensely." Avenger thought to himself as he sniffed the wine. "And it isn't poisoned. What a fool, if it was poisoned he could at least weaken us. He had the opportunity to eliminate his biggest opposition, and he blew it." Avenger thought to himself with a mental chuckle. "These idiots know nothing of true warfare."
"This is been postponed long enough, this was to decide who truly deserves the Holy Grail, and I'm getting impatient. Rider, you go first, and I'll go last." Avenger said, putting his still full cup on the ground in front of him.
"My wish for the Holy Grail, is to be reincarnated into this time, and conquer the world!" Rider said grandly with a large fist to his chest.
"You don't wish to go back to your time? Why?" Saber asked.
"Simple, that is all done and over with. That would have no true purpose, and it wouldn't be nowhere as fun as this new world. I want to conquer all that comes my way and discover all that it has to offer" Rider explained.
"That's a undeserving wish. If he tried to conquer the world, he would be overthrown within a few years. He's acting as if the people that he would be conquering wouldn't care about someone taking over of their land and proclaiming himself in charge." Avenger thought bitterly to himself.
He listened to Archers stupid reasoning in that he "owns all of the world's treasures", but he held his tongue. In all honesty he was surprised that he hadn't tried to kill everyone there. Must be the fact that he actually want's to live until the War's over with.
"Now that was a good point Archer," Avenger lied through his teeth. "But, we still need to hear Sabers and my own wish."
Avenger gestured towards Saber to begin, and she said her wish.
"My wish is to save my country from its destruction." Saber said.
"I want to go back to when I pulled the Sword from the Stone, and leave it to someone more deserving of its power and of the title that comes with it." She finished. Only to be met by Archers laughter.
"Foolish." Avenger said bluntly.
"Foolish? What is so foolish about wanting to save my people?!" Saber yelled, standing up and clenching her fists in anger at the indifferent Servant.
"I'm saying that it's foolish because that's not why your country failed. It's because you had a stupid idea on how a king is like. A king should focus on making sure that there people and country will last the longest. Which is why I don't consider any of you kings." Avenger said before pointing at Rider.
"You were killed, and your nation was torn to shreds by the people you had stolen your land from," before switching to Archer. "And if you were to tell me your identity, I wouldn't be surprised if your country was a complete failure after your death. If their was any true failures of kings here, it would be every single one of you."
"How dare you speak to me in such a way you worm! You don't deserve to live, so die like the rat you are" Archer yelled before he sent his weapons flying.
A spear tore through Avengers arm, leaving it hanging by a thread. A axe spun through the air and took a chunk out of his side, while a sword cut his head down through the middle.
Avengers body twisted at horrific angles before falling on it's back.
Saber snapped out of her shock and jumped up, blade in hand. "You bastard!" she growled before entering a fighting stance.
"He was a dog who disobeyed his master, I had to punish him accordingly." Archer said cooley.
"Alright everyone, let's keep this civil. No one else has to die." Rider said jumping up, trying to keep the two Servants calm.
Irisviel was horrified. Avenger wasn't the strongest possible servant but he wasn't weak. And Archer had killed him in less than a second. She looked over at his body but was confused. Normally, magical beings such as Servants would dematerialize after death. But his body hadn't moved, nor did it bleed.
"Ci-Civil?" Avengers said, sounding like he was underwater. "Coming from you Iskandar, that's hilarious." He said as his 'corpse' pulled itself to a sitting position.
"What, surprised that I'm not dead? Poof, gone in a cloud of smoke? Because only a fool would go to this themselves." Avengers double said before gesturing towards its split open head. "I just created a Shadow Puppet, and I gave it the imprint of my psyche, and told it to give you a message while I made my escape."
It turned to Saber before speaking again. "The alliance is over, I'm sick of waiting for everyone to kill each other until you sweep in and butcher everything. I'm taking matters into my own hands." It said with a smirk on it's still split open head.
"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering why I want the Grail. To put it simply, I want vengeance, nothing more, nothing less. Just pure, bloody, revenge." The double finished before it appeared to start melting. "Goodbye, all of you false kings. I'll see you all in Hell." It finished before it turned to black mist and vanished.
"That is your cue Kotomine, take them by surprise." Avenger thought as he revved the bike he had stolen from the manor. He was making good progress, and he should be there in about an hour or so.
"Let the fun begin."
A/N: What a twist! Avenger is now on his own and it isn't sounding like he plans on playing nice. I wanted to include the scene where Ride uses his reality marble, but it wouldn't fit with Avenger going dark side on Kiritsugu and everyone else. Also, if you're wondering, I'm still debating on whether or not I'll even make a sequel, and if it will have the same Avenger. Probably not, variety is the spice of life as they say. Or, fanfictions in this case.
Anyways, Review, Follow, whatever suits you. I'll see you next chapter, Peace
-Anthemofthenight
