Responding to your comments/reviews no longer!
From now on, it's do or die! Potentially toxic comments be damned!
(McRemitz Residence, Fuyuki, 7:57 AM)
4 Hours and 3 Minutes until Fuyuki Air Strike
"... And that's what happened since last week." Bazett summarized.
"Oh dear..." Amakusa sighed out. "I knew it was bad when the Grail needed the four of us to fix this mess, but the thought of a rogue 17-year-old magi who's circuits are on par with the Casters from the Age of Gods, is responsible for instigating this mess, is frankly, and if I may so uncouth..."
Jeanne nods.
"... Fucking, bullshit." The Japanese Saint stated. "But considering what just happened for the last few days upon our arrival into the material world, I am no longer in a position to be a naysayer, nor do the others."
The whole room (sans, Scathach), let out an exasperated sigh.
"I really should've killed him while I still had the chance, huh?" Cu sighed out.
"The Mage's Association is going to give me hell if they find out that I caused this shit to happen..." Bazett groaned out.
"And miss out on all the fun?" Scathach retorted. "Hound, if you've actually pulled that shit under my nose, I would've forced myself here into the material world and kick your ass 12 different ways for denying me of such worthy quarry." She slightly snarled out.
"Bazett." Lancer called out. "If it means escaping my teacher's wrath, I want you to use all of your command seals to make me kill myself."
"I'll do you in first before the lass can, hound." The Caster boasted/threatened.
"So possibly four servants per class notwithstanding..." Amakusa sighed out. "The fact remains that the main culprit for this whole war going off the rails is the fault of the boy that summoned the four Sabers... excluding you, that is."
"Thanks for making me feel better." Bazett sarcastically pointed out. "So now what?"
"Well, we would usually kill the perpetrator and be done with it, but considering that this little menagerie has gone on for a whole week, methinks that defusing this whole situation, worst-case-scenario, we're going to have to directly participate this war and wi-"
Jeanne gags his mouth with her hand.
"Aside from combative options..." Jeanne stated. "I take it that there are..."
The female Ruler sees the Casters perform a camel clutch on the struggling blue Lancer.
"C'MON YOU BASTARD!" Scathach howled out in joy. "SCREAM FOR ME!"
"UNCLE! UNCLE! UNCLE FERGUS!" The Lancer croaked out while frantically tapping out on the floor.
"... Other problems." The Ruler winces upon hearing Cu's spine crunching and snapping under the Queen of Shadows's clutches.
"I do not envy you in the slightest." Amakusa addressed towards the master of the two of the most punch-happy servants of the 2004 lineup.
"In my defense..." Bazett replied. "... Their last opponents happened to be Moses and Samson."
"Of course..." Amakusa pinched the bridge of his nose. "And I don't think our inclusion can so much as scrape the set bar..."
"And that's what I get for trying to camp while having those two for servants." Bazett sighed out in resignation. "Shall I go make more tea for you all?"
"It would be rude to say no to a host." Amakusa answered.
Bazett then heads down towards the cupboards to get more tea.
"... Shite, I'm out." She hissed. "I'll be at the back. In the meantime, can you two make sure that the two of them don't accidentally kill each other?"
She was pointing towards the two Celtic demigod badasses, with one locking the other in a fireman's carry.
"... No promises." The male Ruler replied with a worried look on his face. "And Jeanne, intervene, and we might all die."
"Command seals be damned?" The female Ruler asked.
"She's too bloodthirsty to even care, so it'd be a waste." Amakusa answered.
"... I hate it when you're right, let alone, putting up with you after what you've tried to pull."
"I said I was sorry, didn't I?"
Jeanne scowls at him.
At the hallway, Bazett was walking down towards the storage at the back.
She then begins to smell something in the air.
"... Is something burning?"
She then opens the storage door, only to find the whole room swamped with a blackish-red goop that reeked of blood and motor oil.
"Fuck the tea."
She runs like a madman.
Behind her, the bloody tendrils break through the storage doors, reaching out towards the Irish designator with the possible intent to defile her.
Bazett magically reinforces her entire body and breaks through the door.
"Bazett!?"
"RUN!"
Upon seeing the abomination appearing out of the door behind her, the servants and the sole master break out of the front windows as the suffocating scent of blood and motor oil-scented quickly encroaches upon them.
The whole blob of blackish-red then engulfs the whole house right in front of the gathered five.
"... Cu, are our rune-engraved equipment still in there?" The Caster asks.
The Blue Lancer begins to sweat bullets.
"... I'll 'train' you later." Scathach spat out. "Right now, we've got bigger shit to work out."
She then materializes a scarlet longbow and a quiver full of rune-carved arrows that also look like smaller Gae Bolgs.
"... I think that's what they call creative sterility." Bazett thought.
"I heard that." Caster pointed out. "You're going with Cu for that."
Both Lancer and Bazett turn blue in fear.
The Caster then begins to fire out a volley of the crimson arrows towards the blob, with said arrows just sinking into the mucky body of that nauseating abomination.
"... Well there goes the past ten minutes of my infinite life." Scathach muttered as she put away her bow in exchange for the same broadsword that she used against Cu during the first few minutes of her summoning last week.
Bazett then takes a closer look at the blade, and sees that it also greatly resembles Gae Bolg's spearhead-
"Don't you friggin' dare, Bazett." The Caster snarled out. "I swear, not even death will save your ass from my wrath."
Cu nods in confirmation.
"... That's the legendary Cu Chulainn for you." Bazett commented. "Not even remotely cowed by such presence of power..."
"Eh, it doesn't feel so bad after her 900th beating." He answered bluntly. "After that, your pain receptors stop working entirely until you leave the Shadow Isles, which you're only allowed to do after completing her training."
While the designator and the Lancer were conversing with each other, Scathach was severing the abomination's oily tendrils with her crimson guillotine of a broadsword.
At the same time, the two Rulers were conversing with each other while fending off other tendrils heading towards them.
"So, any idea what this thing is?" Amakusa asked while throwing a few Black Keys towards the blob in tandem with his katana's swing.
"True Name Discernment is not picking up on anything." Jeanne replied.
"Saint Graph?"
Jeanne shakes her head.
"How about mana?" The male Ruler asked.
"It's definitely there." She answered while swatting away another tentacle. "With copious amounts of human souls suffering with copious amounts of deafening screaming."
The blob then stops attacking upon the Ruler speaking out his thoughts, as if it knows what it was talking about.
And from its gelatinous surface spouted out a pipe organ of tank guns (and other munition depositories).
"... That can't be good." Bazett commented.
"I like this already." Scathach licked her lips as she then materializes a magenta-colored blade that can only be described as an "Irish Katana" into her hands.
On the plus side, it wasn't another Gae Bolg-knockoff ("I will murder you in your sleep." -Scathach directed towards the author/LoneTaker).
All the guns pointed towards the Queen of Shadows.
Cu picks Bazett up and slings her whole body over his shoulder in order to get her out of both of the respective splash zones.
The guns fire, shells and shrapnel rain down from above.
"TRY ME, YOU BLOODY ASSHOLE!"
The Queen's blades then strike back at the shrapnel specifically, so the bits of metal would instead hit the shells instead, causing the tank rounds to pre-detonate before they can reach anyone on the ground.
Because blood-crazed as Scathach is as of now, she was perfectly lucid.
In fact, all those shells and bits of metal?
She knew that they were all aimed specifically towards Bazett, since the shell's explosions hitting the ground would send the shrapnel flying in the air straight towards her contractor, cutting off her link connecting her and the hound in the material world.
Showy and impractical as this unknown foe was, the Caster knew that it was intelligent enough to pick fights that it can feasibly win.
It's only and fatal mistake?
It was dumb enough to get her involved.
For nobody fucks with her bedmates other then herself (and even then, she asks for their consent beforehand, for she's not an animal, and no, Cu doesn't count).
Scathach then spots a missing tank shell, which she then punts it back into the barrel that it was fired from, causing the shell to slip through the barrel's rifling, and detonate the shell inside whatever contraption that it came from.
"... Did I just see Caster put the majority of the football players in the UEFA to shame just now?" Bazett pointed out the fact that Scathach just kicked a tank shell back into the barrel it was fired from.
"To be fair, she does that to everybody." Cu replied.
"... Of course. It's her we're talking about." The designator groaned out.
"Can you two watch over her?" Cu asked the Rulers. "I get the feeling that if don't show myself in there, she's going to end me, repeatedly."
"Who's stopping you?" Amakusa answered. "Leave her with Jeanne. I'm coming in with you as well." The male Ruler stated while rolling up his sleeves.
"Amakusa, how long will it take for your Noble Phantasm to recharge?" Jeanne asked while shielding Bazett.
"About a few more hours." He replied knowing that hour 48 is almost reached.
From the giant blob, a figure emerges from its greasy surface.
"GUTEN TAG!"
... From the mustache alone, it was clear who that figure was.
Even among the magi community, that man was infamous for his brutality and paranoia that would put even the most conservative and cold-blooded magi at that time to shame.
"... Fuck, it's Hitler." Bazett cursed out.
"Jeanne, any readings from its Saint Graph?"
The female Ruler tries to use her True Name Discernment to figure out what's his deal was.
"... There's no Saint Graph." Jeanne gawked out. "But rather, there is an amalgamation of human souls that's anchoring its fading existence into the material world that is acting as a replacement for its Saint Graph."
"Either way, it's creepy." Cu commented. "Bazett, permission to activate Warp Spasm?"
The giant blob then spawns numerous humanoids all baring standard equipments of a typical WWII-era Wehrmacht and their red eyes glowing through the gas mask's lenses.
"... Go nuts."
The Blue Lancer then unleashes his manifestation of his primordial rage right before he shreds the opposition to pieces.
"... That was easy-"
The Wehrmacht immediately regenerate back whole, good as new.
"... I'll keep my mouth shut." Bazett groaned out.
The Wehrmacht all point their MP40s and Raketenpanzerbüchse 54s towards her.
"GET DOWN!" Amakusa then tackles down the Irish designator under the hail of gunfire and anti-tank missiles.
Cu then gets in front of the two and starts whirling his Gae Bolg to deflect the oncoming projectiles away from Bazett.
"JEANNE!" Amakusa shouted out while tossing his Black Keys towards the slime-Wehrmacht, causing them to be cut down right before they regenerate back, all to buy a few more seconds of time for the five to recover their bearings.
"I KNOW!" She cried back as she swept back a charging bayonet platoon of the slime humanoids coming from the left flank. "IT'S AFTER HER SPECIFICALLY!"
As if the world heard the Holy Maiden's words, a stick grenade rolls towards Bazett's ankle.
Before it can detonate, Bazett slide-kicks the bomb away from her, causing its charge to ignite elsewhere.
"That was a close one..." She heaved out.
Before she can breathe, another Wehrmacht pounces upon her like a starved predator, trench knife in hand, attempting to slice her neck open.
Amidst the struggle, Bazett manages to wrestle the shiv away from her neck and plants the blade into the patch of dirt next to her cheek.
Bazett grabs the humanoid's greasy wrists, preventing it from reaching towards its hatchet strapped onto its thigh so that it may finish its job.
"Gotcha now, asshole." She cockily grinned out as she reinforces her right leg to kick off the blob off of her.
The gas mask worn by the humanoid on top of her suddenly slips off of its "face", revealing a half-rotten face of a Japanese Schoolgirl, taking the designator aback by a bit from the macabre oddity (not the first she's seen of such things in her line of work, but that visage definitely made it to her top 10).
"...kILl... mE..." It warbled out in a distorted tone that seemed to be a horrendous mix between of a teenage girl's and a European man in his late-50s.
The skull-like mouth hinges open like a snake's, revealing a muzzle of a Mauser C96.
She then hears the gun click.
"Oh shit-"
Bazett kicks the Wehrmacht off of her, preventing her head from getting ventilated, but not taking into account that from the combined trajectory arc of both the kicked-off slime-humanoid and the gunfire, the 7.62mm bullet grazes across Bazett's forehead, and through her right nasal cavity, blinding her with her own blood spattered onto her pupils, and ripping off half of her nose.
The Irishwoman howls in agony as Amakusa plants his katana into the spawn's neck, killing it before it respawns elsewhere.
The male Ruler then sees another Wehrmacht sprout out a Panzerfaust from both its severed wrists.
The two charges fire towards the Ruler, but Scathach intercepts them by backflip-punting to two rockets back at the sender, sending both the Wehrmacht and its compatriots flying in pieces.
"So they have no intentions of fighting." Scathach spat out in disgust. "Cheap bastards are after my woman..."
She then backhands another spawn trying to backstab her.
"If these bastards aren't here to fight, then there's no point playing fair then." Scathach snapped. "Time for you fucks to enter into my world."
... Nothing happens.
"... What the fuck." The Caster droned out.
She then tries to activate her temple again.
The Caster's eye twitches.
"... Sonofabitch assimilated my temple." Scathach droned out menacingly.
The air around the Caster goes heavy and thick with ill and murderous intent.
All coming from Scathach, for Hitler's was a mere facade hiding his cowardice to her nigh-divine fury.
"Scathach." Bazett spoke to the enraged Caster while wrapping a strap of her own suit jacket around her ripped nose. "... I won't stop you."
Caster smiled.
"Wouldn't have it any other way." She snarled out. "NOW YOUR ASS IS MINE YOU COCKBLOCKER!"
The Queen of Shadows activates her own version of Warp Spasm.
But unlike Cu's, where he'd turned into the physical manifestation of his own internal bloodlust upon activation, Scathach's Warp Spasm transforms into the faceless concept of Victory itself.
Indomitable, formless, unfathomable, oxymoronic.
Invincible.
Or to put it simply in word of her contractor;
"Okay, she's taking the whole 'Queen of the Shadows' schtick literally." Bazett thought. "And is it just me, or are flowers both growing and dying at the same time!?"
The empowered Caster then plows through the army of slime-humanoids with her Celtic-faux-katana and her Gae Bolg Alternative in her hands, sending the entire Wehrmacht flying.
The Caster continues to plow through the army like a runaway train, including Cu.
The Hound of Ulster is then sent flying back to Bazett's feet.
Cu's Warp Spasm deactivates upon arrival.
"Can Scathach even do Warp Spasm in the Ulster Cycle?" Bazett asked Cu. "I thought that was your own thing."
"Actually..." Cu sweatdropped. "All of the Irish warriors back in the Age of the Gods had the capacity to do Warp Spasm." The Blue Lancer stated. "It's just that I was the first and only one to do so. Oh, and Scathach actually taught me how to tame and refine my internal bloodlust in the first place, whereas others either didn't bother or got reduced to red paste from the sheer speed."
"And does it have to do with the fact that her unspoken career is to make everyone look like chumps on a daily basis?" Amakusa asked in a dry tone.
A flying slime-revenant-Nazi (try saying that three times) lands on Gae Bolg's spear head, impaling himself (mask falls off to reveal a Japanese man screaming in agony in voice of a teenage girl notwithstanding, hard as it is), skewering him all the way down the red shaft.
A barrel of a Luger Pistol reveals itself from the corpse's gaping mouth, but Cu crushes the barrel flat with his bare hands, preventing the bullet from firing, and causing the whole firearm and the headcasing to explode.
Cu looks in surprise as his hand revealed to have burn marks.
"... Would you actually believe that I'm glad that I'm not over there?" Cu offhandedly mentions while shaking off the heat.
Before Jeanne can retort, another slime-spawn gets its head impaled through Jeanne's banner upon landing.
"... I can sympathize." She stated while offhandedly disarming the corpse of its grenades and six Panzerfausts stuffed inside of its stomach. "Though I'm starting to wonder how is it even managing to keep all of these in such small capacity..."
"Ask Spartacus of how is he able to form a dragon's mouth from his body after sustaining an overabundance of mortal wounds." Amakusa dryly pointed out while kicking a live grenade away from him and back to its pitcher. "... And no. Even with Assassin and Caster's evaluations put altogether, they're just as baffled as I am."
"What are they talking about?" Cu asked Bazett.
"Probably something just as asinine as this whole war." Bazett dryly answered, giving up the last bits of common sense she had left.
"Now that I think about it." Cu state while dodging a sprinting Nazi slime zombie before punting it away from them, right before it exploded into flames (possibly a failed attempt at suicide bombing). "The two of them seem oddly calm about this whole mess, as if they were in something like this before..."
"... Nah, that couldn't be-oh who am I kidding, of course it did." Bazett groaned.
A giant oil-Nazi (starting to run out of labels; please help) flies towards Bazett in the dumbest position imaginable by man.
Having about enough of the bullshit known as today, the Irish designator reinforces her right leg, and spin-kicks the bastard away.
Mid-flight, the Nazi fires two of its Panzerfausts towards her, but Gae Bolg pierces through both of them, causing them to pre-detonate right in front of the Nazi.
"... Thanks, Cu." Bazett said.
"No prob." He replied while lighting a cigarette. "I wonder how's teach doin' over there..."
She was expectedly doing really well.
In fact, the fight was so easy for her, that she herself is genuinely angry at the lack of heart behind their performance.
"Peh." She spat towards the laid body next to her. "Cowards. All of you."
"And who says that we had to please you, whore?" The blob!Hitler spoke out.
"It matters not how you're still alive in that bodily state." Scathach spat out in disgust. "IT WON'T MATTER IF I KILL YOU TWICE OVER!"
The Queen of Shadows dashes towards the blackish-red amalgamation of blood, oil, and raw ectoplasm made from the humans that the Avenger had killed during his debut.
"GAE BOLG ALTERNATIVE!"
Scathach throws her crimson lance directly towards the dictator sticking out of the surface like a sore thumb.
The spear's tip then turns double-pronged.
Then quadruple-pronged.
Then octet-pronged.
Then by the time Gae Bolg is a mere inch away from Hitler's face, the Gae Bolg looked less like a spear, and more in line with a leafless tree of a spear.
The bramble of crimson steel then mangles the dictator's face.
But the blob holding up the body wasn't dissipating.
"What." Scathach droned out.
"Oh, you poor, ignorant woman." Hitler sneered out as the Gae Bolg Alternative was being absorbed into the blob under him and through his humanoid body. "Didn't you know that a man only needs to die once and live twice in order to obtain immortality?"
"That's not supposed to happen to servants, you piece of shit!" The Caster spat out in disdain.
"Servant!?" The Avenger barked back. "NEIN! I AM A GOD!"
"AND I KILL GODS EVERY TUESDAY, YOU PIECE OF HUMAN GARBAGE!" The Caster then brings out literally every weapon that she's crafted.
Greatswords, bows and arrows, lances, throwing axes, throwing knives, Celtic-Katanas, and even a three-section-staff-nunchaku-Gae Bolg (we're not joking) were wailed at the blob while the thing was releasing volley after volley of gunfire and discharged munitions.
Neither dealt even so much as a scratch to each other, expect for their surroundings, Bazett's house/Scathach's temple included.
They were history.
"I suggest taking a step back."Amakusa stated.
Without a word, Cu picks up Bazett in his arms and the two Rulers bounce with the world's biggest grease fire trailing behind their ankles.
And speaking of said grease fire, Scathach and Hitler were still at it.
"Heh heh heh..." The Caster chuckled out. "You call this fire?"
She recalls Moses Ark of Covenant searing off her very skin, and compared that to this mess, the Fuhrer's flames were a gentle spring breeze in Ireland.
"Who says anything about burning?"
The Caster's feet then begins to be mired onto something.
She looks down, revealing that Scathach is now sunk down to her knees.
Scathach easily jumps out of the swamp, but a glop of the oil-slime extends outwards, touching Scathach, and absorbing her.
"OH WHAT THE HELL!?" Scathach cried out while breaking through the slimy tendrils, only for more to engulf her.
"Oh pitiful goddess of a neanderthal lore..." Hitler's voice echoed out. "You claim to be the embodiment of victory, but who says anything about winning?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!?" Scathach roared out while breaking through more sludge-tendrils while more continued to drown her.
"I could've won the war by not subjugating the entirety of Europe under my banner, but the Allies beat that to me."
Caster, frankly speaking, was not giving a rat's ass of his rant, for she's trying to escape his grasp, which, by itself, wasn't hard, but it's just that there were so many of them, to the point where her only two hands can do so much to drive them back, that it was less difficult, and along the lines of "annoying".
So while Hitler went on and on about how he should've won the war because of his ideals, how he doesn't need to win and just make sure everyone else loses, and how he obtained immortality by entering into the Throne of Heroes (on how he knew that, is never explained, nor Scathach gives a crap), Scathach in question was still tearing through the tendrils with her knives and bare hands.
"So you know how my immortality works?" Hitler stated.
Scathach ignores his goading and just keeps hacking through the oil-tendrils that are attempting to drown her.
"My ultimate Noble Phantasm, Mein Kampf (My Endless Crusade), activates upon the initial destruction of my Saint Graph." Hitler declared. "Once activated, all the kills that I've accumulated during my time will manifest as a backup Saint Graph, giving me another chance to wreak havoc among you peons while my first one is being rejuvenated by the souls of the ones that I've killed."
Scathach then begins listening.
"Peh, not the first I've heard of that kind of immortality..." The Caster rolled her eyes while still hacking away from Hitler's grasp.
"I've killed an entire school's worth of staff and students sans those four..." Hitler went on rambling. "And after those two other Rulers had to get in my way, I then took the liberty of assassinating an entire neighborhood's worth of populace, integrating their essences into my Noble Phantasm, right before some Babylonian Hero-King did me in, all because of he kept from having what were truly mine; the suffering souls of the innocent buried within the so-called House of God."
"Interesting." Scathach mused while ripping through the tendrils. "I'll see to it that I fight him later on."
"So what would happen if I make you submit into my very being?"
The Queen of Shadows smiles.
"You want me so bad?" Scathach goaded.
She then swings for the last time before smiling.
"Then be a lamb and say the magic word." Scathach spoke in a faux-polite tone while pointing her lance towards Hitler's face.
A wad of oil-slime lands on her face.
"... You know what, change of plans."
Scathach switches out Gae Bolg Prototype for her faux-katana and slices a gap open on the slime bastard's skin.
"... What in the bloody hell Caster's doing?" Bazett asked as she faintly saw Scathach going inside the mutated Avenger in her own volition.
"Something crazy." Cu answered. "... Which, frankly speaking, might be our only way out of this fucking mess."
"I would question you, Child of Light, but your God-Poacher of a teacher had already shattered my rationale and pissed all over its remnants." Amakusa flatly stated.
"Double for me." Jeanne reaffirmed.
The slime Avenger then grows even bigger in size, but its advance was slowed.
... Slightly.
"Ok, now what?" Bazett asked.
The four then sees a volley of V-1 Rockets fired out from the slime, and on top of said rockets were the hordes of the undead Nazis tagging along for the ride.
"KEEP RUNNING!"
Lancer then picks up his master in his arms as the rest run for it while the slime monster then begins to spout out even more slime-Nazis towards them, MP40s and Panzerfausts pointing and shooting towards their general direction.
And while gunfire and rocket salvos hailed over their heads while trying to outrun both the grease fire coming from the rear and hellfire encased in industrial-steel raining down from above, inside of the Avenger's Noble Phantasm, Scathach finds herself completely surrounded by literal meat-puppets cosplaying as Nazis.
Caster rolls her eyes. "... As expected." She muttered. "The same shit inside as outside..." The Caster remarked while rolling her eyes.
Something then catches the corner of her eye.
"Hmm?" Scathach remarked while kicking several silme-familiars aside. "What do we have here..."
A giant, double-edged, elongated-spade-shaped blade with four Celtic runes engraved onto the flat, with a glass orb encasing a spiny orb of raw slag and a giant metal ring with numerous Celtic runes glowing in the inner tubing, and below the orb were four magic circles sandwiched to each other.
"Oh?" Scathach grinned. "... So Bazett was holding back on me."
She then touches the odd-looking blade-like contraption, turning the blue runes magenta.
"Only naughty girls don't share their toys..." Caster licked her lips. "... I'll have to... 'train' her with Setanta later."
She then wills the blade towards her as she materializes her Gae Bolg Prototype while approaching the encroaching crowd of Nazis.
"Until then..." Scathach growled out. "... Fragarach will have to keep this lonely lady company for today."
The Nazis then swarm towards her with hatchets and knives alike.
They were all cut down before they could even think about said notion, due to the blade's ability to "answer" the attacks before said attack could be executed (roll with it).
Normally, said blade would only react if said enemy would unleash an exceptionally strong attack, but two modifications were made by the Caster upon claiming the blade as her own.
First, it no longer discriminates between weak and strong attacks, meaning the Pseudo-Noble Phantasm will react to all incoming attacks.
Second, the blade's already lightspeed-response time, has now been tripled (on why she did such thing, she just felt like it, and the fact that she's too pissed off to give the current opposition a good fight).
However, even with those modifications made, it didn't change the fact that there were too many Nazis to kill all at once before their crude resurrection, which then repeats the process all over again.
Regardless, only one thing was made clear.
The Queen of Shadow's animalistic glare then gleams in primal bloodlust.
Her carnal instincts then go into an overdrive.
Scathach's sense of restraint has now been broken.
"... Time to go fucking wild."
(Freeway, Fuyuki's Fringes, 8:03 AM)
3 Hours and 57 Minutes until Fuyuki Air Strike
In the freeway leading out of Fuyuki, a taxi was driving down the road amongst the traffic jam.
"Damn it." The driver cursed. "Sorry folks, looks like we're gonna be here for a while."
Sitting at the back of the seat (from right to left), were a tan-skinned Japanese man in a dusty-green parka, black beanie, and bulky-looking gray-camo cargo trousers with a pair of green combat boots in his mid-twenties (EMIYA/Archer), a sleeping Japanese girl wrapped in a patchwork quilt and a red muffler in her mid-late teens (Sakura), and an ash-gray-skinned Arab woman in a black hoodie with a skull on the chest, a tattered baseball cap with the logo of the Hanshin Tigers on it, and a red and black plaid mini-skirt with slightly-tattered pitch-black leggings with a pair of knee-high boots in her early-twenties (Aabidah/Assassin).
"No problem, keep driving." EMIYA replied.
The driver then faces back towards towards the road.
"So..." The driver asked. "Where you fine folks headin' out of town for?"
"As long as we're away from Fuyuki, it's none of your concern." Aabidah bit out.
"Oh... sorry." The middle-aged driver apologized.
The whole taxi then goes quiet once again.
"You really could've said it in a more tactful way." Archer stated.
"Shut up, it's been a rough week." Assassin stated.
Next to her, Aabidah then feels Sakura's body nudging itself awake.
Aabidah, with no one looking, breathes her Zabaniya #4 onto her finger, and then places it over Sakura's nostrils in order to keep her asleep until they get out of Fuyuki.
Then the passengers remain completely still.
For a good minute, the riding was smooth.
... Was.
The driver slams his brakes, causing the whole care to jolt to a halt, waking Sakura up from her involuntarily slumber.
"... Hmm?" Sakura yawned out. "... Aabidah? ... Senpai?"
The violet-haired girl then wakes up to find herself in an unfamiliar surroundings.
"A-Aabidah!?" Sakura cried out in panic. "Wh-Where are we!? And what's going on!?"
She then looks at Archer.
"... And since when did senpai get so tan?" She remarked.
Both remain silent as the driver goes outside of the car beneath their notice to see what's going on.
"Hey..." Sakura moaned out in distress. "Aabidah, what's going on? And why is there another senpai!?"
While Sakura was trying to get answers, Assassin and Archer were telepathically conversing with each other.
"So now what?" Assassin relayed. "Now that Sakura's awake, things has just turned for the worse."
"Hey, it's your damn mess." Archer bit back. "I'm just here for the ride."
"Well isn't she your woman in your timeline!?" Aabidah barked back telepathically. "Or is your reputation as a ladykiller just a mere facade?"
"Okay, first of all, none of your business." EMIYA shot back. "Second, I am no ladykiller, even though three women were pining for me, which, by the way, ouch, my expertise on dealing with them is only limited to the kitchen."
"Are you sure it doesn't extend to the bedsheets?" Aabidah shot back flatly.
"Like I said..." Archer then breaks off the telepath-link. "IT'S NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS!" He cried out with his cheeks turning red, as if a shameful past was unearth.
"Oh I'm sorry, did I strike a nerve?" Assassin grinned.
The two servants then devolve into a screaming match with Sakura in the middle, staring at her knees with both of her eardrums banging with the voices of the two arguing.
She then looks up to see that the driver's seat empty, and the door hinged open, letting in the cold, early Autumn air.
"Umm... guys?"
Her voice was drowned out by the two's screaming match.
"... Um, Aabidah?" She then tugs on her sleeve.
No response. Just screaming.
Having had just about enough, Sakura takes in a deep breath, and wills out the loudest voice that she can muster with her newfound freedom that Aabidah bequeathed upon her.
"So sorry, Aabidah..." She thought.
She then lets it out.
"CAN YOU TWO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!?"
Her voice then drowns out both of their voices combined, catching their attention.
"WHAT!?" The two barked out at her simultaneously.
"... The driver's gone." She pointed towards the right seat in front of her.
Archer and Assassin then look at the taxi's driver seat, only to find it empty and the door on its right hinged open.
"... Where the hell did the driver go-"
The front window is then splattered with the driver's blood and entrails.
"... Found him."
The roof over their heads then cave in.
Assassin activates her Presence Concealment A+ along with her Intoxicating Smoke, hiding the three of them.
Because right above them, Lobo was on top of the wrecked taxi.
The giant wolf monster then sniffs the air.
"Funny." Lobo snarled out. "Thought I smelled three more below me..."
"Who cares?" The headless Hessian pointed out. "There's plenty of fresh meat around these parts... is what I would say if you haven't eaten most of them in a span of an hour."
"Quiet." The wolf snarled. "What mean is that I just felt servants being around here..."
"Hmm..." Hessian mused. "... Three guesses dictate that we have an Assassin within our amidst."
"Then shut up and start searching." Lobo remarked. "I hate leaving potential prey alive."
The two then begin their search for the three in the taxi.
"Shit, there's two of them!" Archer thought. "Even worse, one of them is a full-blown Phantasmal Beast and right above our heads while the other's Saint Graph just flat-out disappeared!"
Regardless, Archer tries to calm his breathing while the two outside were scouting for them.
Aabidah meanwhile, is now in full-"Protect Sakura at all costs"-mode, gagging her master's mouth with her hand and keeping open both ears loud and clear.
Sakura feels Aabidah's heartbeat beat with hers, literally, for their chests were touching each others'.
For the next ten minutes, they were silent, and beneath anyone's notice.
"... Don't you even think about it, EMIYA." Archer thought. "Whatever you do, do not raise 'that' flag and get us all killed-"
The window next to Archer cracks, revealing a sickle's blade jut through the sheet and nearly grazing his face.
A thick-gloved hand grasps onto the hand grasps onto the handle, pulling out the blade from the window, with Archer catching glimpse of the figure owning the blade.
"... Okay." Archer thought. "16th-17th century-era military garbs from the West, colors are all faded to ash gray, seems to be lacking a head for some weird reason... just who is this servant?"
The Phantasmal Beast above them then get off the crumpled roof and while the headless man walks away, both servants going elsewhere.
"... Okay, now I think we're in the clear-"
The whole taxi flies into the air as its fiberglass hulls are tackled from the right.
The flying taxi lands on its roof, with the three people in it hitting their heads on the caved-in roof.
"Ugh..." Aabidah groaned out. "... Sakura?"
She then looks to her left, to see her head bleeding and out cold.
"SAKURA-"
The flooring where their feet were pointed towards begins to peel off, slowly revealing the Phantasmal Beast's snarling, lupine face with its blazing topaz eyes glaring holes into their souls.
"Get in my belly."
The creature opens its horrible maws towards the three, intending to eat all three of them in one bite.
EMIYA, disregarding all common sense he had left in his brain, traces Caladbolg II between the beast's fangs, jamming the mouth to prevent its incisor-like teeth from chomping down.
The thin drill-sword then forms between the wolf's fangs, forcing its jaws to remain open, lest the drill-blade gore its gray matter out of its scalp.
Aabidah then throws a smoke pellet onto the beast's eyes, blinding it as the the servants make their escape.
"Shit! What now!?" Aabidah cried out.
"RUN!" Archer then traces three pairs of Kanshou and Bakuya between his fingers.
He then executes a frontal flip, throwing all six of his blades towards the wolf upon facing him.
The first pair strike Caladbolg II's hilt, moving the blade deeper into the beast's throat, the second and third pair ricochet off of each other, guiding each other towards the beast.
The second pair lodge into the beast's forelegs, cutting through its tendons and forcing the beast to kneel.
However, the beast avoids its gray matter from getting nailed through by the drill-blade, by tilting its head sideways, preventing its own jaw acting as a point of pressure to drive Caladbolg into his brain.
Which then the third pair of the Chinese short swords then arc towards an upturned armored vehicle across from the kneeling wolf, with Kanshou #3 embedding into its reinforced metal hull, allowing Bakuya #3 to ricochet off of the pommel, and directly hits the wolf's chin, causing the drill-sword to drive into Lobo's brain.
Not deep enough to kill the beast outright, but more than enough to leave him immobile.
"ASSASSIN!" Archer cried out. "SMOKE EM'!"
Aabidah then materializes her Hassan-Skull-Mask onto her face, its "mouth" opening, expelling out the Intoxicating Smoke behind her, covering their tracks.
"Well... scheisse." The Headless Avenger commented upon looking at his unwilling companion's pitiful state.
Because there is no other way to describe a canine creature with a drill-sword partially jutting out is scalp, its foreleg tendons cut, preventing it from standing back up, and a sizable pool of blood under his chin, and yet, somehow, its topaz eyes were still blazing with life, and twice as furious, that it makes the flames of hell look cold in comparison.
"... You want me to help you out?" Hessian asked the wolf.
The eyes remain firmly on "no", with Lobo's view on humanity as a whole not making him the most cooperative with his unwanted partner.
"I have a live 5-year-old as a throw-in." The Avenger then presents the wolf with a squirming and flailing Japanese child held up in his left hand.
The wolf closes its eyes, with reluctant agreement.
"... I'll take that as a 'ja', then."
The Avenger then hangs the child's clothes collar over a improv-coat rack fashioned from a car's hood and one of his sickles.
He then kneels down, and begins to pull out Caladbolg II from his companion's head.
... With varying results.
"(WRONG WAY, ASSHOLE! MIERDA!)" The beast growled out from his maimed mouth.
With the smoke behind them now clearing and sensing no movement, mana or physical, both Archer and Assassin look back to see if they're coming.
"... Hide. Now." Aabidah stated.
The two then hid behind a totaled car and make their brief respite, reactivating Presence Concealment A+ to hide their mana signitures.
"So..." Aabidah stated while wrapping Sakura's head injury with a torn sleeve. "... That just happened."
Archer then peers over the car before ducking back down. "Whoever those two were, we're in no position to so much as face them." He stated. "Right now, all we can do is to keep Sakura safe."
"Then you go out and act as bait." Assassin hissed out. "I'm the only one that's linked to Sakura, while your Independent Manifestation is starting to expire."
"One oversight." Archer replied. "There's two of them, and one of them happens to you, but with a lid secured in its head."
"And what do you mean by that!?" Aabidah hissed back while tugging on the head-wrappings.
"Exactly what he says, even without context."
The two turn around, revealing an albino man in a suit with a P90 in his hands.
Assassin and Archer take out their arms and point it towards the man.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" The man shot his hands up. "I ain't here to hurt anyone!"
"Explain that then." Archer stated.
"Okay." The man stated. "I'm a mage passing by this town, and when I heard a call from guy, I had a few of my friends to pick me up and get me the hell out. As for the P90, just a Mystic Code that I just got a year back."
The two's expression of suspicion did not cease.
"... Fine, I'm actually Cujo's meal for the day, and I happened to have this baby on me. Happy?" The albino man stated.
"Somehow, I actually find that even more believable than the first one." EMIYA remarked.
"Anywho, I should be on my way before that bastard makes you three his dessert-nevermind, there he is-"
"AAAAAAAABBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!"
The wolf monster then dashes towards where they were at.
"Fuck, that bastard picked up my scent..." The albino man stated. "... Well, better get going."
The submachine gun clicks.
"Name's Abram, and I gotta a really big doggy to pet."
Mana circuits then begin to glow through his clothes, reinforcing his whole body as he bounces off of a car's hood before spraying bullets towards the Phantasmal Beast.
... It ends as expected.
The albino man ends up between the monster's fangs, bleeding out the sides like a leaky barrel of ale, flung around like a ragdoll.
"... We should run." Aabidah stated while hoisting Sakura onto her back.
"I'll watch your back." Archer stated while materializing a pair of his Kanshou and Bakuya in his hands.
"Right behind you."
Upon hearing the ethereal-sounding voice whispering into their ears, Archer quickly turns around to block a sickle blade with both of his swords.
Standing behind them was the Headless Phantom, blood-drenched sickle on one hand...
... With another held in the other.
Archer, out of blades and hands, goes against all logic, and bites down on the second blade with his teeth in desperation.
"My, crafty one, aren't you?" The Headless Avenger's ghastly voice echoed out.
Archer could only grumble lest the blade dig through his cheeks and sever his spine from his skull.
"Well, that's what sucks about having only two arms to work with..." The servant stated. "Even after being reborn as a servant, I sure as hell ain't no Ganesha or Asura."
Suddenly, the sickle on his left hand and between Archer's teeth vanish.
"Huh?" Hessian cried out. "Where the hell did it go?"
The Avenger then sees his own weapon hurled towards him, thrown by a skeletal-looking hand glowing in a dark-amber hue coming out of the Arab woman's back.
Hessian then tries to grab it out of the air, only to find that his left hand was now clamped down by Archer's teeth.
Both Archer and Avenger kick each other away from each other, with the sickle's blade landing where the beheaded servant's neck base was at.
"So..." Assassin spoke out upon EMIYA landing on his ass next to her. "That was easy."
"Warn me next time, would ya!?" Archer groaned out.
Before they can turn around, the headless servant ceases from is post-mortem stasis right before its right hand pulls out its embedded sickle from its neck base.
"Archer..." Assassin voiced out as the not-so-dead Hessian crawled towards them.
EMIYA wastes no time materializing his longbow and Hrunting, firing the sword towards the dullahan, skewering the headless servant onto a freeway sign and nailing him in place there.
"RUN!"
The two servants then make a run for it, not intending to stick around any longer to know what the Hessian can do.
"Tch..." The Phantom bitterly spat out. "... That was just rude."
The headless servant then pulls out Beowulf's blade from his stomach, along with his long-rotted entrails.
The Hessian falls off of the sign in an undignified heap.
"Well shit..." He remarked. "... Had to happen sooner or later."
The headless horseman then begins to stuff it's putrid organs back into his body while wrapping his cut with his own coat.
Going back Lobo and his new prey, the wolf monster was flailing him around like a chew toy, spraying blood and gore everywhere.
Surprisingly, the albino man was not screaming in pain.
Rather, the man was slightly upset that his P90 crushed under the King of Currumpaw's paws.
"Do you know how much that cost me, you damned mongrel?" Abram stated.
The beast's maw then chomp through the man's torso, rending the albino man in two.
Even with its prey dead, Lobo still glared its prey's dead fish-eyes.
"Don't bother playing dead." Lobo remarked. "I can literally hear your heart still beating through that torn chest of yours."
The mangled albino corpse sighs out. "... You mind giving a man time to stitch himself back together?"
The wolf then chomps down on the leg's crotch before devouring the whole bottom torso whole right in front of the albino half-man.
"I'll kill you over and over, Abel." Lobo snarled out after slurping the bones from the legs. "So hurry up and grow back your legs already. I need to see you in pain."
"I fucked Blanca's corpse after I stuffed her with cotton-"
Lobos bites his whole head off without warning, Abel's head popping between Lobo's molars like a grape.
In rage, Lobo then devours the remaining parts of Abel's corpses, feeding off the rich supply of mana left as residue.
As the beast swallows the body whole, the ingested mana healing his head wound, an injured man with both of his eyes slashed out stumbles onto the clearing.
"H... Hel... Help me..." The man groaned out. "Help... me-"
An arm burst out of the man's mouth.
The man's jawline then begins to strain as something bigger comes out of the orifice right before the whole head explodes, revealing a whole human body sprouting out from the now-dead man's throat.
The freshly-grown man crawls out of the neck base, revealing Abel, resurrected.
"In my defense..." The blood and bile-covered Abel stated while commandeering the corpse's pants. "... He was going to die in about a minute or so, provided if we didn't intervene, and that poor bastard died from his injuries."
"You're an abomination, Abel." Lobo snarled out.
"Yeah, well..." Abel states while tightening the belt around the pants. "... You just kinda don't stay dead."
Abel then traces Trishul in his right hand and the Narayanastra behind him.
"So do me a favor and play dead." Abel stated while pointing a copy of a Divine Construct towards the Phantom Beast.
"I WILL NOT BE COWED BY ANYONE!" Lobo howled out. "NEITHER MAN, GOD, AND ESPECIALLY YOU!"
Abel smilies cockily.
A red marking reminiscent of a 13-section-Command Seal glows and burns onto his back.
"Counter Guardian #0: Abel." The albino man stated. "Class, irrelevant."
The arrow-wheel behind the Counter Guardian along with the 13-section rune on his back begin to glow.
"Time it'll take to kick your furry ass: less than a minute."
Omake #5: Procrationation
(Freeway, Fuyuki Outskirts, 8:58 AM)
3 Hours and 2 Minutes before the Fuyuki Air Strike
"Remind me..." Daisuke stated while taking his 8th smoke of today. "Why am I even here?"
"You're an accomplice, and the least we can do is to stick together, can't we?" Monica stated while checking her .50 Magnum. "Worst case scenario, we strap you all over with bombs and turn your ass into that somethin' straight out of Iraq."
"... Dude, not funny." Bingqing stated.
"Sorry..." The lavender-haired girl stated in annoyance. "... Might be PTSD talking."
"How old are you again?" Daisuke asked. "Because I'm starting to think that 'high-schooler look' is starting to look a little... funny."
Monica's .50 Magnum's hammer clicks back threateningly.
"You got that part right." Monica then points her loaded Magnum towards the pathologist. "And let's leave it at that, m'kay?"
The dirty-redhead man nearly swallows his cigarette before hacking it back out.
"... I'll take that as a yes." Monica stated.
"... Kid, you sometimes scare me." Bingqing pointed out while loading her own P90. "And I did my fair share of fucked-up shit in my line of work..."
"Like that time that I helped you out gather centipedes for that bitch from the Black Dragon Triad?"
"We do not speak of that day." Bingqing pointed out adamantly.
The three of them go quiet for a moment.
"... So why are we even here again-"
The three of them hear an explosion coming from a distance.
"Fuck, so soon!?" Bingqing pointed out.
"Nah, that came from elsewhere." Monica stated. "Everyone who doesn't have a gun, grab one or hide."
The two women then load their guns, while Daisuke hides back in his car.
"Again..." Daisuke stated internally. "Why am I even here!?"
To Be Continued...
Author's Notes: Okay, a few things.
First, sorry if this took so long. Had to deal with pre-college & casual shit (ALEK, EOP, SOAR, BlazBlue Central Fiction, F/GO's Onigashima rerun, etc.).
Second, from now on, this fic will be updated every once in a blue moon/side-gig, due to me finding my true calling in the Black Clover & Rising of the Shield Hero fandom.
And finally, just to reiterate, I'm only doing this fic for my sense of self-closure and expression of ideas. Selfish, yes, but in all fairness...
... This is all just a hobby. I've also got a DMV on my plate to boot.
There, satisfied?
If not, then take your problems elsewhere. Until then, I'm finishing this shit, whether it takes, and like I said in the New Years, I'm doing it right.
Please leave a comment or a review, for regardless of review #35's... slightly provocative tone (had to get it out of the way), I'd still love to know what my audience is thinking.