Well, the chapter's a little short, and mostly setup, but it's here. I spent a lot of time trying to hash out the timeline, and then I got distracted by shiny. If any of you are interested, a fan translation of SD Gundam G Generation Overworld dropped at the start of this year. It's fun, if easy, and I now have all of Wing outfitted.

Anyhow, without further rambling, I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Chapter 2, Testing the Waters.

02/01.

Shivering, a pale, red haired figure carefully leaned against a tree, slumping down against it and letting her eyes cast around the clearing she found herself in. Of course, vision wasn't really needed. She'd know if the damned thing was still chasing her, if not from the sounds of straight-line deforestation then from the howls that seemed to resonate deep in her own chest, or the damned giggling.

She raised one hand, inspecting it, and frowned. The fingertips were tinged a bit blue. It made sense, she couldn't stop shaking and she'd ended up running straight through a river in the middle of winter, but it was still irritating. Before she'd gotten the curse she would've been able to shrug it off, but her smaller female body didn't handle the temperature as well. Still, all she had to do was get back to her camp, a warm fire and her tent in that order to fix the problem. Well, one problem at least. She still had no idea where the hell Ryoga was. She'd even tried her best to 'think' at him or however that telepathic bond thing was supposed to work but there'd been no response.

It was entirely possible that the giant had caught him, and if so, well, she hoped that he'd been telling the truth about Servants not really being alive. That was unlikely, though, they'd both been charging head-first through dark woods at night, and she couldn't think of a better recipe for a Hibiki to get lost.

That brought up a few problems in itself, though. If he were lost, then she had no idea when he'd show back up. It could be as little time as a few hours, or as much as three weeks. How long did this war last, anyways? Shaking off thoughts of things she couldn't do anything about as she started back for the city, she tried to think of things she could handle, as long as the guy who could actually hurt Servants showed up before the war ended.

That Berserker, an apt name if she'd ever heard one, he simply had more physical strength and speed than she thought possible. She was drawing a complete blank on how to face him, save perhaps luring him into a Hiryu Shoten Ha. He did produce enough heat for it, standing near him almost made you forget it was winter, and he had almost no form of tactical skill. The problem was that she could only barely stay ahead of him, and given how Ryoga had reacted to a full force punch to the jaw, she wasn't sure the technique would even work properly.

The blue guy, though, her eyes narrowed. She was fairly sure she knew how to deal with him. Tactics and thoughts flitted through her mind as she continued the long trip back to her camp, trying to ignore the cold.

HR.

He walked, road passing beneath his feet without really being noticed. Scenery changed, the time of day changed, and he walked. Behind him, a golden light cast on the road ahead, no matter the time of day, starkly outlining his shadow before him. Sometimes he'd try to turn to that golden light, but each time he would stop. About half way around, he'd catch sight of it. A jagged line of red that seemed etched into the sky, and he'd turn back. It was on either side of him, and he couldn't turn past it, so he walked.

HR.

"...What was that?" Ranma asked himself, looking up into the roof of his tent. He knew dreams didn't have to make sense, he'd had some strange ones before, but that one had seemed so clear. Shaking his head, he sat up, crawling out of the tent and blinking in the late morning light.

Evidently he'd slept in, and he was sure his old man would be barking at him about how poor an excuse for a martial artist he was, but he didn't really care.

"Took you long enough." He blinked at the figure who was standing, leaning against a tree nearby.

"Huh," The pigtailed martial artist rubbed his eyes. "You got back fast."

"The mana link I've got with you lets me find you fairly easily," Ryoga explained, and then gestured to a log near the tent where some food was set out.

Ranma didn't ask any questions, exiting the tent and setting on the meal like a starved man. When he was done, he looked up. "So, they're usually not that fast, huh?"

Ryoga winced and scratched at his bandanna. "Apparently someone chose to use the Berserker template… differently. They must've summoned a hero who was already powerful into it, but I don't know how. The mana requirement would kill most people."

"Yeah, well, how they got it isn't really important, if we've gotta take that thing out, winning this grail thing ain't going to be easy," Ranma mumbled. "We've already gotta do some training to deal with the blue guy."

Ryoga crossed his arms and glared at his master. "I told you before, I'm not sparring with-" He was cut off as Ranma raised his hand. He watched a bit apprehensively as the younger boy stood, brushing his hands off on his black pants and walking over to the side of his tent, retrieving a long, thick stick that had been leaning against it.

Tossing it up and catching it in both hands, the pigtailed martial artist ran through several quick forms with it. "You don't have to show off your style or anything else. I'm gunna try and stab you with this, and you're gunna stop me. No breaking it, no fighting back."

Ryoga raised an eyebrow. "And what's that going to do?"

"You've never fought against one of these before, right?" Ranma asked. "Your form wasn't that great for it, like you were making it up as you went along. And believe me, you suck at makin' stuff up."

"Hey, that's-" Ryoga started before Ranma cut him off.

"Prove it." He scowled, reaching over his back for his combat umbrella, but Ranma shook his head. "How much does that weigh?"

"Little less than two tons, why?" The lost one asked.

Ranma's eyes widened a fraction before he managed to get them back under control. "Because you don't need it slowing you down when it doesn't give you that much reach for the speed loss. Now drop it."

The older man shrugged, but complied, the weapon making a noticeable impact as it hit the forest floor. Ranma merely smiled, nodded, and lunged forward.

HR. 02/02.

Ryoga's head shot up and he stood from where he'd been leaning against a tree as a feeling ran across the strange extra senses he'd gained since he became a servant. His eyes flicked quickly around the darkened clearing where Ranma's camp was set, eventually catching on a hint of red moving in the tree line. Slowly, he reached up and peeled several bandannas off of his forehead, holding them in a tightly clenched fist. Could he get to Ranma and wake him up before the fight started? For a moment his mind blanked on the location of the tent from where he was, and he growled irritably deep in his throat. He'd probably have to yell, just in case he turned in the wrong direction, and Ranma,

"Ryoga Hibiki." The voice was deep, confident, and obviously not trying to conceal its location as the blur of red emerged from the trees, revealing a tall, white haired man in a long red coat with a set of light black armor beneath. "The wandering Landslide. The only human non-mage to annoy the clocktower enough to get a squad of Enforcers out for your blood and survive." The man rattled all of this off, not taking his eyes off of Ryoga's.

The lost one knew that this was meant to rattle him, and it was working. Still, he responded as best he could. "And you would be the second magus killer, right?" To his surprise, even with how much less information he had on the other, this got a slight, but visible widening of the eyes and a tensing of the hands as though the red coated man were gripping a pair of blades. "So now we know each other, what do you want?" He continued, pushing his advantage and trying casually to reorient himself so that he could wake Ranma if it got ugly.

The taller man shifted again, thinking over his response. "I could take you out now," he said, casually stating what he saw as a fact. "From what I've heard, though, that might not be a good idea. I'm sure you can guess there are several masters in this war who shouldn't be allowed to get their hands on the holy grail."

Ryoga snorted. "It's a bunch of mages, so yeah."

The Magus Killer actually winced at that. "I can understand why you'd react that way, but it's a bit worse than that. Rider and Lancer's masters shouldn't be allowed to gain the grail at any cost, and Caster herself will stop at nothing for it. I'd warn you that the grail itself in this war isn't worth going after, but I doubt you'd believe me."

Ryoga shrugged. "I've got my own goals. Getting the grail would be nice, but if I can accomplish them without it then I don't care." He smiled crookedly. "Besides, you've got your own reputation, so I'm fairly sure you're not going to let your master do something too evil with it."

The Magus Killer's smile was much less pleasant. "My reputation, hmm?" He then looked away slightly. "So I stay out of your way so long as you stay out of mine," he laid out the deal as he saw it.

Ryoga nodded, and the other turned to leave, disappearing into mist in mere moments.

HR.

His hands moving almost as a blur, Ryoga countered what felt like a dozen spears, all coming from slightly different directions. He moved slightly to the left, raising his right arm and allowing one strike to slide between his arm and torso before clamping down as hard as he could, and hearing the snap of shattering wood.

"Damn it, P-chan," Ranma huffed, wiping sweat from her forehead. "We're runnin' out of small trees."

"I'm not sure we can take this much farther," Ryoga replied. Truth be told, he was fairly impressed with how the training had gone so far, and how fast Ranma could push herself. In the beginning, the spear had found its way past his guard far more than he'd like to admit, but he'd started learning how it struck and moved over time, breaking more than a few as he did. Ranma had slowly stepped up his speed, eventually resorting to the Amaguriken. Earlier in the morning, he'd shifted to female form to get that last little drop of extra speed out.

"Yeah, guess you've got a point," She leaned on the shattered remains of her weapon, gradually slowing her breathing. "It ain't fair that you've got…. What, ten, fifteen years extra trainin' on me right now? Never thought you'd be as fast as I am."

"Yeah, that's… close," the lost one said, looking uncomfortable. "You seem a lot calmer about it than I'd expect, though. Usually when I got stronger than you, you'd get mad, or sulk, or go off and train for a week straight."

"I didn't sulk," the redhead glared irritably. "Besides, it's different." At a raised eyebrow from the other martial artist, she continued. "I wanna be the best martial artist in my generation. I mean, yeah, I wanna be the strongest ever someday, too, but I'm not an idiot. I know the ol' ghoul can beat me right now. The ol' freak could too, if he didn't get distracted by a pair of boobs every five minutes. If it were…" She stopped for a moment, looking for the right word. "If it were the Ryoga who's my age who's as fast and strong as you, I'd have issues, but as it is it just gives me a target." She smirked, straightening and flipping the broken spear to land in a pile of wood next to the fire. "Besides, I'm betting where you're from, I can still kick your ass."

"Yeah," Ryoga said slowly. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Ranma snorted.

"Well, we… haven't fought in a long time," the lost one explained. "Anyways, now that we're done training for the day, should we go into the city and continue hunting?"

"Yeah, sure," Ranma said, "just lemme get changed."

HR.

"Wh… what the hell?" Ranma asked, his face pale as he staggered back from the figure that lay on the ground in the alley. The man was sprawled out, skin pale and the early stages of decomposition already taking hold. His cause of death was evident, a small, jagged gash torn in his throat with a trail of blood leading away from it. "Where are they?" He demanded, jerking his eyes away from the sight before him and trying to keep down his lunch.

Ryoga scowled down at the body before him and shook his head. "They were leaving when I first sensed them," he answered. "They moved pretty fast."

"So… a servant just ripped a hole in this guy's throat and left him?" Ranma asked, angrily.

Ryoga nodded. "Given how little blood is left, I'd guess they used it to drain his mana."

"Wait, so… we're dealing with a vampire here?" Ranma asked incredulously.

"No!" Ryoga snapped, going pale himself now. "At least… I really hope not." At the younger martial artist's questioning look, he shifted uncomfortably. "Servants live on mana, usually provided by our masters, but the Chi a human body produces is a lot like mana, so feeding on humans directly can let a servant gain more power."

"And the master lets 'em away with it?" Ranma asked.

"Given the moral codes of a lot of servants, the master probably has to order it," Ryoga disagreed. "For example, I wouldn't do it without a command seal order."

"...right," Ranma said, glancing down at his leg again, disturbed. He was tempted to ask how someone could do that, but then, with the incentive of a wish for absolutely anything on the line, he guessed a lot of people would probably go pretty far to get it. "Then I guess we know what we're doin' now," he started walking out of the alley. "Don't suppose you got any idea which direction this Servant ran off in?"

HR.

"I can't be sure it was the same servant, but there was definitely one around here," Ryoga reported as he and Ranma made their way down a shadow and fog covered street, the sun having gone down an hour earlier. They'd been chasing momentary signs of other Servants for the past few hours, and were both getting irritated by this point.

The creepy atmosphere, including an ominous fog and a nearby graveyard didn't help, to the point where when several skeletal figures loomed out of the mist, Ranma almost wasn't surprised for a moment. Shaking his head, he looked from the five skeletons before him to Ryoga. "Am I seeing things, or…" he said, uneasily.

"I see them too," the older martial artist responded, readying his umbrella.

"So, are these things gunna be immune to punches, or…" Ranma asked, surveying the nearest creature. At first glance, it looked sort of like a human skeleton, save the fact that there was something seriously wrong with the way its ribs were arranged, and its spinal column terminated in a set of sharp-toothed jaws, without the rest of the skull.

"They're probably just regular familiars," Ryoga answered as he also looked them over. "Resistant to physical damage, but if you put enough force into it they'll go down just fine."

Ranma grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Just what I wanted ta hear." He leapt forward into the group of undead without a second thought, dodging as one attempted to stab him with their blade, snapping one arm out and bringing a hand down across the thing's wrist, causing a very satisfying snap. He noticed only distantly that Ryoga was standing back, watching the fight as he danced between two more attacking creatures, kicking one in the knee and checking the other one off of its feet with his shoulder. More of them loomed out of the shadows as most of his opponents fell, and he looked around for the source but couldn't see much through the fog. For all he knew, the summoner of the skeletons had probably conjured the fog, too, but he didn't have time to think of that.

Leaping up over another swing, he kicked off of one of the bony creatures' shoulders, flipping backwards and landing easily. He was about to charge back in when Ryoga suddenly interrupted. "Stop!" He immediately froze, the frantic note in the yell catching his attention, as a bandanna spun through the space before him. He was about to ask why Ryoga was tossing bandannas at him, when a shimmering silver strand seemed to melt into existence, snapping where the bandanna had cut through it. All around him, he could now see more of the strands, gleaming against the cloudy grey behind them. "What the…"

"You can see them?" Ryoga asked, surprised.

Ranma shrugged, careful to keep his arm from brushing one of the strands nearby. "Well, I can now."

"They're part of a spell," Ryoga answered, carefully using a hardened bandanna to cut away the ones near him. "Not sure what it does, but we probably shouldn't find out."

"Yeah, got-" Ranma was cut off as one of the skeletal figures lunged at him, paying the silver strands no attention as it passed right through them. He winced, clapping both hands down on the sword the thing aimed at his head, yanking it free of its owner's hands before kicking the thing away. There weren't that many of the fake skeletons left, but they were still a threat, even moreso now that he couldn't move around much for fear of the threads. Quickly, his eyes traced the ones around him, looking for intersections and patterns. When he eventually found one, he hurled the bone blade he was holding at the central point as hard as he could.

Many of the threads parted and melted away, leaving his field of movement much clearer and allowing him to dance backwards out of the way of another enemy. He was about to fell it with a strike to the spine when there was a huge flash of light, followed by a loud rumbling explosion from nearby. Everyone, including the familiars, froze for a moment as the bright flash cut through the fog, but Ryoga was the first one to move, sending his umbrella spinning through the air at a shadow that had been silhouetted by it.

There was a female sounding cry from the fog, and the rest of the spiderweb of lines suddenly vanished. Ranma was about to sigh in relief when the skin on his arms prickled, and he rolled sideways, a beam of reddish energy as thick as his torso passing close by and blowing a hole in a stone wall behind him. After this, the familiars faded away into nothing, the street settling suddenly into an unsettling silence.

The pigtailed martial artist continued to look around for any signs of renewed hostility until Ryoga spoke up. "The other servant's gone."

"What the hell was that?" Ranma asked, turning to his companion. "they just show up, sick some skeletons on us and leave?"

Ryoga shook his head. "They were probably trying to eliminate us quickly. It might have been the servant we were chasing, or maybe just one who thought we were easy targets. Either way, I'm pretty sure it was Caster Class. She was using a lot of indirect magic there, and doing it pretty fast without chanting."

Ranma snorted. "Seriously, P-chan, how do you know this stuff? Is this more knowledge you have just because you're a Servant?"

Ryoga looked uncomfortable. "I've... dealt with mages before," he explained.

"And that explains everything," Ranma grumbled. "Any idea what that big explosion was?" The lost martial artist shook his head. "Then I guess we should probably go check it out."

The two didn't bother with the gently curving street, cutting straight through the cemetery, the christian church looming next to it, and making a straight path for the forest beyond. Given they'd already fought skeletons, they doubted anything else would show up. They stopped before they got to the likely location, though, Ryoga kneeling down and looking at the ground.

Ranma quickly followed and noticed what the older man had a moment earlier. "That's… a lot of blood," he noted, cataloging several blotches of the red liquid that covered the ground, a few shreds of discarded clothing nearby. There were no other traces of it nearby, so this had probably been where a wound was treated.

"Servant blood doesn't really stick around," Ryoga said. "This was a person."

"So does our vampire cause explosions?" Ranma asked, though he doubted it. The last time they'd found a body.

"I really wish you wouldn't call it that…" Ryoga muttered.

"Yeah, well, if it bites necks and sucks blood-" Ranma cut himself off as he brushed a tree limb out of his path, and almost fell into a crater. It was about twice as wide as the one he and Ryoga had made during the perfect Shishi Hokodan battle, and just as deep, the tree cover blown back from around the edges as though by a strong wind, and several small fires burning themselves out. "What the hell did this?"

"I have no idea," Ryoga admitted, stepping down into the crater, inspecting the crushed and pulped remnants of forest cover that lined the bottom.

"If this is our vampire, we might have a problem," Ranma commented, glancing around for any other evidence of what had happened. "Especially since someone human definately got involved."

Ryoga nodded. "No one around now, though."

Ranma nodded. "Let's see if we can figure out where anyone went. If we can't, I guess we're heading home for the day and starting again tomorrow." He was irritated, but there wasn't really much else they could do. At the moment they seemed to be running around behind everyone else in this stupid conflict, with no idea what was going on. That was going to have to change, but he didn't know where to start making that happen, and now they had to deal with someone who could make giant explosions, with no idea how quickly or often they could do so. Still, this wasn't the worst situation he'd been in… probably, and Ranma Saotome didn't lose. He reminded himself of that as he climbed back up the crater's side and headed into the trees.

END.

"Look, Mr. Kojiro, I'm sorry but that's just how things have to be. This fic's already got an Assassin, so Caster can't summon you. There's simply no place for you."

"But… I must be in this story. I need to have my duel with Saber."

"Caster can't invoke the ritual to summon you unless there's a space open. There isn't. That's why she moved to try and capture the other Assassin in this chapter. You simply can't exist here."

"But I must! It's absolutely essential that I have this fight! I can win it this time, I know I…."

*Sliding door sound effect.*

"Metafictional Moeblob number 1, why is there an angry Samurai looming over you?"

"I am not looming."

"He's mad he got cut out of the fic. And yes, he's looming."

"And you explained why he can't appear?"

"Yes, but he doesn't seem to want to listen."

"Hmm… I see."

"What are you doin, drawing a practice sword on me? ...and what's that thing on the end?"

"Oh dear…." *Illya's sprite changes to closed eyes, as crashes are heard.*

"And stay out!"

"Did you have to throw the shrine gate on top of him?"

"No, but I didn't want it in here, so…"

"This… isn't…. Over…."

"Ahahaha…. Anyhow, I'm sure that won't amount to anything, so please read, review, and tell us what you think!"

Quick response to anon reviews that mention Ranma's nerfing, and Kuzuki. 1. Humans without magical assistance can't really harm Servants. This is mentioned several times, and Kuzuki is actually an example, not an exception. he only harms Servants due to Caster using her powers to buff his hands with that ability. It's not Ranma's skill that puts him out of his league against Servants, (Though against some of them that is still an issue,) it's that he literally can't harm them at the moment.