Fate: Damnit
Harry Potter/ Fate Stay Night
VI
Harry paid for the travel and soon enough the Red Team of Mages, were on a private first-class flight to the destination of the Holy Grail War. Harry had fallen asleep the moment he was in the air, something that Rin, Flat and Svin swiftly mimicked leaving Dudley, Hermione, El-Melloi II, Sisigou and Shiro awake.
Shiro looked at his colleagues "Sensei, what was your Grail War, like? Any tips?"
El-Melloi sighed "I couldn't trust anybody, this is a completely different style of Holy Grail War. Yours and Mine were similar, Emiya…But we need to know more about our three…wildcards. You've had Magecraft training, but you're not Mages."
Hermione nodded "Witchcraft and Wizardry as we call it, or Age of the Gods to you, still exists. We live in…backwater communities and governed by equally backwater governments whilst hiding from those without magic."
"What about magical creatures? We've, I've been informed that they no longer exist." Shiro stated.
"Still alive, still exist, I've got the evidence to prove it…Phoenixes exist, good friends with one. I owe him my life." Harry murmured blearily.
"You, owe a Phantom Beast…" That got people's attention.
"Potter, you and Granger…from the very little information you've given us is warranted with a potential sealing-desgination." Lord El-Melloi II stated although the look in his eyes revealed he wanted to learn about these other practitioners of Magecraft.
"Potter…" Rin stated. With bleary eyes Harry turned to look at her.
"Tohsaka…can I help you?"
Rin looked at Harry "I…need to know; what did she do? What did your servant, who looks precisely like you, do to become summoned by you? Why is she summoned to you? Also, what do you bring to the Magus Association?"
Harry groaned "Fucked if I know. Me and my counter-parts we're normally so close to death, we start giving high-fives as we pass by or Death swipes left. Second answer, see the first. What do I bring to the Magus Association? Good looks, twisted wit, twisted charm and an affinity for Trouble…Although providing the catalysts for your Servants is another reason."
Rin paused before turning to Hermione "Is Caster's Master normally like this?"
Hermione blushed slightly "Normally worse. Much, much worse."
Rin gulped "Do we have a plan?"
"Stagger our ways through customs, separate hotels, act like Tourists. Enjoy ourselves and should we be attacked; take 'em out. Hermione, you go with my cousin; not because I doubt your prowess or your capabilities…"
Hermione nodded "He doesn't have your…spectacular reflexes. Lord El-Melloi II, you wouldn't per chance have a map of the local convergences of Leylines?"
"I do…the Territory Creation skill of Caster. When we enter, we're going to need Caster to start doing her Territory Creation." Hailey de-astrilized, clad not in robes as she first did but rather form fitting leathers with a secondary belt with no evidence of a sword.
"Will do. Little brother, I'm going to require your assistance for this." Harry nodded.
"What do I need to do?" Shiro asked curiously.
"Can you fight after death? Are you able to get up after you've potentially lost arms and legs?"
"Shiro is my Scabbard, Lord Potter. If you're familiar at all with my life…" Artoria said wearing a blue knee-length skirt, with tights and a white shirt with a blue string tie and a pair of brown boots.
"Avalon…the Scabbard of Excalibur said to not spill blood or to have high-end regenerative borderline restorative properties…Shiro; contains Avalon within him…How?"
"My…adopted father, he found me near death in a fire that destroyed a good part of my hometown from the Fourth Holy Grail War…I ended up in the Fifth and I summoned Artoria." Shiro summarised.
"Seems wherever you go Shiro, that your path always intertwines with Artoria…Although a Lancer…That is curious. What are the side-effects of being the bearer of the Everdistant Utopia?"
"I'm a third-rate magus who specialises in Reinforcement and Projection magecraft…I specialise in swords, you could say I am the bone of my sword."
As Shiro spoke the last line, Harry and Caster shivered "Shiro, that…last line is part of some trump card."
Rin paled "That was the beginning of my Archer Servants Noble Phantasm; Shiro and my Archer were one and one the same as you and Caster…"
Hailey grinned "Harry and I…we have a few tricks that I'll learn from him and stuff he'll learn from me…" With that, Hailey stopped what she was saying as the announcement said they were coming to land. The Servants who were astralised quickly vanished leaving the Eight Magi to disembark the plane.
Harry, with Hailey ghosting him blended seamlessly into the crowd of tourists and with decent Romanian entered the region. Lord El-Melloi II; assembled his students and blagged their way through under the pretence of a school trip. "How was that?" Rin asked, a smirk on her face.
"Not bad…Not bad at all; feel slightly stupid really."
"Your idea and plan have merit, never dismiss a plan even if it goes off the rails. Someone once said 'make a plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to off the rails and throw away the plan'. We're still at execution of the plan and expecting it to go wrong." Sisigou rumbled. The freelance agent of the Clocktower liked the Master of Caster, the perfect mix of paranoid wreck and functioning human.
As they loaded themselves into a mini-bus, Harry extended his magical senses, just on the reaches of his senses he picked up somebody. "We're being watched…specifically me. Hermione, we're going to be having some fun company."
"Anyone of importance?"
"Anyone from inbred schoolfriends who tried to kill us, mercenaries for Harry because he rejected the status quo…all in all quite possibly people who we might be fighting." Hermione replied, Dudley popped his neck and Saber materialised.
"I suggest we all split up; double up in rooms if we must…then we'll wait until nightfall. Because that's when everything truly begins." El-Melloi II instructed.
"Just like last year, Hermione."
"Harry…please, don't ruin this. But I reluctantly agree; just like last year only this time we're gambling our lives for something inconsequential. What are you planning on doing? Should we survive this mess?"
Harry sat on a bench "See the world, go to California or Texas, buy some land and take up farming. Something that no-one would expect me to do; leave Britain behind me for sure. You?"
Hermione paused "I had this dream...funnily enough you could call it an Avalonian dream. You as Head Auror or Head of DMLE and guest lecturer at Hogwarts; Ronald being your second or running Games and Sport and me being close to the Minister or THE Minister. Ron and I married, you and Ginny married and the Wizarding World run more or less by the Weasley family...Harry, I know my weaknesses; I know yours better than you do. You and Ginny, you'd have married because you were expected to but there'd have been no love between you, it'd be 'We're together for the kids'. Harry, don't be stupid in this war."
Harry nodded, he looked his oldest friend in the face "I won't. I swear on me, that I won't willingly sacrifice myself for this war."
The Red Faction set up their camps. Harry informed El-Melloi II of his, Hermione and Dudley's actual hideout and fed the others different locations. "It wouldn't do if we were sold out. A Magus walks with death, I as a Potter; do not walk with death. We dance with death in the moonlight...and it feels just right."
Tohsaka sighed "Have we found any of the Black Faction?"
"Not the Black no. I DID however, detect an old acquaintance, attempted murder victim if I'm allowed to be brutally honest. He did try to murder me, however I got him…but his bastard of a Godfather intervened. I then died, his mother bullshitted my faux-death so I owed him. Anyway little peroxide blonde shit is here; the chances are he's wanting the Grail to reset the Status Quo. If he's here as a Master, I've no idea what his servant is, however if he's here as an assassin against me and brought his entourage...I favour my chances."
Hermione nodded "If they overpower you?"
Hailey giggled "Harry'll use the Trump Card of the Potter Crest; the Mystic Arcanum."
"Mystic Arcanum?"
Hailey sighed "It taps into Gaia and Alaya to start with and then contorts the blessing of Alaya and Gaia by allowing us to subject our immediate vicinity to a reality of our own."
"That sounds very much like a Reality Marble." Boomed Iskander.
"Because it is." Shiro said, attracting everyone's attention, "Mystic Arcanum; I have no idea how it works but I have a feeling it's like my own Reality Marble."
"You have a Reality Marble?" Iskander questioned.
Shiro nodded "I do."
Hailey looked at Harry and they both nodded "We do."
Iskander chuckled "As do I! My own Iown Hetori...Waver, we should forsake our paltry name as the Red Faction; we should dub ourselves the Marble Faction!"
"Never change, my King. Never change. Anyway, what have we found out about our opponents?"
"There's more of them than I would expect. I didn't run across the Black Faction; but I found a few annoyances whom I fully anticipate to get themselves stuck into this fight."
Shiro sighed "Nice to know. Do we need anything specifically to deal with them?"
Hermione shrugged "Depends on who they are, the Masters themselves Harry and I could and will walk through them; depends on if my surrogate little brother can be bothered not to unleash his inner Zelretch." She eyed Harry warily, Harry and Zelretch had bonded slightly too much.
Harry rolled his eyes "It'll be done as I dealt with Dawlish; fast, furious and brutal."
Eventually nightfall came and the Red Faction took to the streets. Harry and Hermione; disillusioning themselve effortlessly, then with silencing charms on their clothing...on the spur mystic code creation was a thing for wanded practitioners was a thing to the Clock Tower magi. "The more I see of the wanded practitioners the more we should hide; I fear the Clock Tower would lose a war with the Wanded Communities." Flat murmured to himself.
It was Svin Glascheit who managed to save Flat's life. Due to his experiments with Beast Magecraft; Svin, better known as Chien, hauled Flat backwards as a scarlet bolt hit a nearby lamppost. More bolts shot down the alleyway as Hermione reappeared "That was an eruption hex...I replied with some bone-breakers."
"It's Granger!" Came a voice and the initial attacker revealed himself to be Crabbe Senior.
"Crabbe Senior…I was wondering when you'd be crawling out of the woodwork." Hermione spat; contempt and disdain.
Crabbe smirked as the air shimmered "Have you met my latest acquisition?" The shimmering revealed a slender figure with green hair. Hermione quickly backpeddaled away.
"You recognise me, my Lady?"
Hermione nodded "You're...a servant. That much is certain."
The Servant grinned wildly "My mother is Thetis; a Lady of Lord Poseidons' court."
"You're Achilles!"
Achilles smiled "Unfortunately my contract with my original master has been subverted...but he's proving useful." Crabbe's eyes narrowed.
"I'll gladly erase…" He began.
"Hector Crabbe…you most certainly will not. You lost your son to his own stupidity and that of your own; this…is sweet relief, Osis Fragmentum." Achilles watched in wonder as his human compatriot fell his skull freeing itself most violently from the confines of blood and flesh.
Achilles, moved himself gingerly into the open only to find two Servants waiting for him "I am Achilles, son of Thetis and Peleus, Rider of White at your service."
"Well met Rider of White; I am the Rider of Red! The King of Conquerors; Rider of the Fourth Holy Grail War; I am ISKANDER!"
"Rider of White, I'm the Saber of Red; well met." Lugh stated.
As both Riders prepared to attack one another, a ball of flame erupted into existence followed by other White adorned Servants as the Servants of the Black Faction appeared. "Red, White and Black Factions have all appeared to face the Judicial Force of the Father in Heaven, Amen! Welcome Magi's of the aforementioned Factions...I am Alexander Anderson, Leader of the Vaticans Thirteenth Division and under the moonlit world and the nights to come, We, Judas's' come seeking redemption in combat."
The scattered members of the factions used the newcomers' monologue to reassemble with their faction "The Church Faction, for the record Father, which colour are you paying tribute to?"
"The Blue Faction, as so decreed by his Holiness the Pope and witnessed by his Eyes and Ears of the Pontifical Swiss Guard Commander! Prepare yourselves for the Power of the Church shall be demonstrated!" Anderson declared as his servant materialised.