Chapter 5: Saber, Saber, Saber, Berserker!
"What do you mean, my Master's in another Singularity?" Altria snapped at the communicator.
Her only response was a hysteric "I don't know how this happened either!"
"Okay, well, Rayshift her back. Second time's the charm, yeah?" Tyler suggested.
"I'm, uh, afraid it's not that simple," Dr. Roman shook his head. "There's some kind of interference going on in both Singularities. It's similar to what we detected in Singularity F from the Fuyuki Grail, but different. Trying to Rayshift either of you back before you find and disable the Grail could be fatal,"
"So, we can enter Singularities, but we can't leave them?" Nikki's voice yelled from the other terminal.
"It seems like that's how it works," Da Vinci's smooth, serene tone grated on her nerves.
"So this was a trap?" the blue-haired Master snapped.
"I hate to admit it, but it does demonstrate some strategic acumen on our enemies' part. In theory, we could have just Rayshifted you back to Chaldea if you were in a bind with no options. Hell, that's exactly what we did to get you out of Fuyu - uh, Singularity F," Dr. Roman thought aloud.
As he spoke, a tick mark sprouted on Olga-Marie's brow. "Stop giving our enemies so much credit!"
"Director. You're missing the point," Da Vinci warned her, her brows setting. "This is a reaction to how we saved the Masters from Singularity F, it has to be. The only way that's possible is if our enemies are learning and adapting to what we do. And the only way they could have found out what we did in Singularity F is if someone who was there told them,"
"Which means the fake Lev somehow survived and escaped," Olga-Marie sussed out with a groan. "Well, that's just perfect!"
In Okeanos, Nikki listened to this and cursed. "Do you think they interfered with the Rayshift, somehow, then?"
"No I think your sense of direction is just that bad," Dr. Roman winced.
"Master, if it's all the same to you I'm doing the navigation," Astolfo put forward.
Nikki fumed, but couldn't object.
X
"We've got another problem, then," Altria fumed. "My contract is with Nikki, not you," she told Tyler.
"So I can't use my Command Spells on you?" Tyler gingerly touched the red shapes on his hand. Chaldea's system had refreshed the one he'd used on Lily to kill the shadow Lancer in Fuyuki, which he was certain would be useful at some point.
"Not just that. Without her being here, and more importantly her Mystic Code channeling power from Chaldea's generators to sustain me, I've only got so much magic energy to use. Until we can get back together, I've only enough stored power for about a week and a half. Less if I have to use my Noble Phantasm,"
"So we're on the clock, too? Brilliant," the Master groaned to himself. "Wait, can't you just break your contract with Nikki and make a new one with me?"
"Do you think my honour is so fickle and flimsy that I'll abandon my Master as soon as it's convenient?" Altria snapped.
Guilt flashed across Tyler's face, and Saber Lily revised her estimation of her evil self upwards. "So you still have some pride after all? Good, I'd -"
"You're right, it is and I'd love nothing more, but that damn oath Nikki forced me to swear means I can't break my contract with her or I'm 'betraying' her, and the backlash from that would kill me faster than any amount of mana deprivation," Altria grumbled.
". . . oh,"
"We should get moving then. If we're on the clock, we can't afford to wait around talking," Tyler resolved. "Dr. Roman, where are we? Where's the nearest city?"
"You are," Dr. Roman paused for a moment. "Huh. You are right near Paris,"
"Oh, the city of love? That's nice. Maybe we should go sightseeing," Tyler half-jokingly snorted.
"Start heading east. I'm actually detecting a couple of energy signatures not too far from you. Odds are, they'll be Servants," At the doctor9s recommendation, they started walking.
Twenty minutes later, Tyler and the two Sabers emerged from the trees onto an open plain.
As they did, they beheld a battlefield.
Soldiers clashed left and right, corpses in red, blue and black decorating the battlefield. An uncomfortable lump swelled in Tyler's throat; it was one thing to read about war in history books, but here, before his eyes, hundreds, thousands of people were dying.
And then there were the dragons.
The army to the south had as its rear guard an unconscionably massive black drake, a creature that would put any plane he'd ever seen to shame. Every few moments, as he watched, a smaller Wyvern in green or black, perhaps twice the size of a human, would fizzle into existence from a flicker in the air, and fly north to add to the forces that were decimating the army to the north. On its back, he could see a woman with bleached blonde hair and, from what he could tell, a surprising similarity to Altria, waving a flag back and forth.
"Master. Look. I see three Servants," Having already noticed the dragon rider, Saber Lily drew his attention to the very centre of the battlefield.
Straining his eyes, Tyler saw two figures that stood out against the monotonous liveries of the clashing armies. One was dancing around, wearing bright baby blue finery and a wide, foppish hat with a feather protruding from it, wielding a dancing line of silver light that he could only assume to be a rapier. It was beating ineffectually against the guard of a figure in black armour, who seemed to be almost cloaked in black mist with a glowing red line for a visor shining through. They were surrounded by broken weapons, and as they watched the black knight snatched up another weapon from a dead soldier and immediately broke it over the the rapier-wielder's head.
"I recognise that armour!" Saber Lily exclaimed, and suddenly took off, racing into the battlefield.
Tyler owlishly blinked after her. "What? Hey! Don't just run off!"
"Gah, she acts like she's so much better than me but she's still so impulsive. C'mon, let's go catch up," Altria snapped. The next thing the young Master knew, a gauntleted hand was wrapped around his waist and Altria was dragging him along as she chased after the younger incarnation of herself.
X
"Land ho, Master!" Astolfo cheered.
"Already? Maybe this ocean's not as big as I thought," Nikki mused. As they approached the shore, a seaside town came into view. It was rickety, to say the least, seeming to be built out of driftwood and shipwrecks, but bustling with people.
Astolfo brought the Hippogriff down to land on the Docks, which garnered no small amount of attention, curious people crowding around them as the mount vanished into Spiritrons, depositing Servant and Master onto the dock.
"A Servant!" someone recognised the phenomena for what it was. "There's a Servant? Here?" "What do they want?" "Someone get the mayor!"
Nikki scoured the crowd that was rapidly gathering at the edge of the dock, and - to her consternation - blocking their way into the town. "Looks like they have experience with Servants around here. Oi, you rabble! Does anyone care to answer some questions?"
The crowd shuffled uncertainly, but no one stepped forward.
"Well that was helpful . ." Nikki groused.
"Should I summon Hippogriff again? We could fly over them," Astolfo offered.
"That shan't be necessary!" With a flash of light, a Servant manifested before them, emerging from Spirit Form and offering them an affable smile. He was tall and dark-skinned, with curly black hair, wearing a slightly tattered dress outfit in black, red and white.
"And who might you be?"
"Just the mayor of this little town, taking care of all the miserable miscreants that wash up here in Okeanos. I'm charmed to meet you, my lady, and would be honoured if you knew me as Bartholomew Roberts,"
"Never heard of you," Nikki admitted. "Still, it's nice to meet you too! I'm Nikki, this is Astolfo, my Servant. We're from Chaldea and we've come to investigate this Singularity, and hopefully restore the damage it's doing to Proper Human History,"
"And I'll be happy to help with that in any way I can. Unfortunately, I think the most I can do is put you in touch with someone a bit more helpful. If you'll come with me, I'll introduce you," Bartholomew beckoned, and with a gesture the crowd parted enough to let the two Chaldeans escape in his wake.
Under Roberts' guidance, the group headed into town, and the interior of the shantytown was just how Nikki had expected from above.
She had not, however, expected the smell.
"What do you people eat around here?" she groaned, pinching her nose and closing her eyes.
"Ah, well. We're pirates, see. We don't have much in the way of sanitation, unfortunately. But we're surviving, so we don't complain. Speaking of survival, you two understand that sometimes, we have to do things we don't really want to, right?"
"I feel like this is a lead-in to something bad, but yes," Nikki nodded, still more focused on the smell than anything else as Bartholomew took a right turn into a shadowy area of the shantytown.
"See, the thing is, there's this goddess, and she's quite insistent that if I run into any Servants I need to beat them up and deliver them to her. And she's so beautiful that I really can't bear to say no to her. So," Bartholomew snapped his fingers, and a mob of pirates emerged from the shadows, forming a ring, and he turned around. "This is an ambush! Surrender peacefully and you won't . . what?"
Astolfo looked around, following his gaze but finding nothing. "Is something the matter?"
"Where'd your Master go?" the pirate Servant demanded.
"Oh! She got lost on the way to your ambush. It happens all the time, really, you get used to it. I'm sure she's around somewhere,"
"What? But - how does that even . ." Bartholomew squinted at the pinkette. "You're being awfully blasé about this?"
"Well, I am insane. They do call me the Knight of Evaporated Reason after all," Astolfo nonchalantly shrugged, pulling out the new sword that Da Vinci had given him - a jewel-encrusted blade with a green tint. "Really, this is just another Tuesday for me. Now! You said this was an ambush?" He offered a feral grin in turn. "I haven't had a good, satisfying fight since beating that Archer. So let's see what you've got!"
X
Meanwhile, Nikki was frantically casting around the suddenly-empty streets for any trace of the two Riders. "Damnit! Why does this keep happening to me?!"
X
The battle parted around the two Sabers with Master in tow, the soldiers of Britain and France alike seeming to have enough self-preservation not to obstruct a Servant, and within moments they were backing up Lily, whose interjection into the fight seemed to have turned this into a three-way stand-off.
"And who might you be?" the battered nobility Servant challenged. "More Servants of the British?"
Lily, though, only had eyes for the dark knight. "Lancelot!" she cajoled, raising her sword. "Do you recognise me?"
Slow, heavy breathing was her only response.
"We're from Chaldea. We just got here and don't know what's going on," Tyler raised his hands, showing that he was unarmed and gesturing to his Command Seals. "Who are you? Why is there a battle going on here?"
"I am Chevalier d'Eon, Saber. A humble servant of France, in life and in death," d'Eon raised their rapier and looked back at Lancelot. "We fight because the British have taken Paris, and Jeanne d'Arc had decreed that they shall be ejected from France!"
"Jeanne d'Arc?" Tyler parroted in disbelief. "Hang on, isn't she supposed to be dead at this point in time?"
d'Eon just shot him a look that reminded him of a teacher addressing a particularly obstinate child. "We're Servants,"
". . . right, of course," he conceded the point.
"Hold on!" The communicator flared to life, and Dr. Roman glared at all of them. "This is twenty years too early! Sure, the French are supposed to win the war and push the British out of France, but not until the year 1450! I know it doesn't sound like much, but the French shouldn't be winning this fight, Servants or no!"
A frown crossed d'Eon's face. "If you would stand against French victory, then you are my enemy," they declared.
"Oh, bring it, half-pint," Altria snorted, pulling out Excalibur. "Sounds like fun,"
As she did, though, Lancelot, who had been studiously ignoring Lily's attempts to cajole him in the background, turned his head and locked into the black sword, an angry red gleam in his visor. "Ex . ." he growled.
The malice in the syllable drew everyone's attention from the impending French/Chaldea conflict, as, after an agonizing moment of mental struggle, Lancelot finished. ". . calibur,"
"What, you wanna make something of it?" Altria snapped.
A roar that would shame a freight train built in the base of Lancelot's throat, and some kind of tentacle shot out of his back, ripped a sword out of an unfortunate soldier's hand and delivered it into his own grip. "ARTHUR!" he bellowed, taking off from a standstill and leaping into the air, sword up and descending on Altria like divine punishment.
"Whoa!" Altria cursed and rolled out of the way, sliding behind him as he landed and going in for a strike to his back - only for the shockwave generated as he hit the ground to knock her back and cause her to stumble.
"I don't think he's on our side!" Tyler shrieked and back-pedalled, Lily moving to his defence as Lancelot picked himself up and started swinging at Altria again.
A crushing blow knocked Excalibur aside, and in her weakened condition Altria couldn't react in time. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Berserker's off hand going in for a crippling blow - only to bounce off a thin blade that defended her.
"Oi. Thought you didn't like us," she accused d'Eon, who nonchalantly shrugged.
"That was when I thought you were on his side," they clarified. "You know what they say about the enemy of my enemy. At the very least, I expect Lady Jeanne will wish to talk to you, so I can't have you dying before then!"
"Fine by me!" Recovering her stance, Altria brought her sword around for a crushing blow of her own into Lancelot's hip. Another tentacle shot out of his back and latched onto the blade like a leech, and she cursed and yanked it back.
"Okay, why does Lancelot have eels or something growing out of his back?" Tyler demanded, staring in disbelief.
"It's a manifestation of his Noble Phantasm, Knight of Owner. Anything he grabs onto with those tentacles becomes a vessel for his Noble Phantasm," Lily explained, then frowned. "I . . I don't know how I know that. Why do I know that?"
"Doesn't matter!" Altria snapped, wheeling around as Berserker focused on her, only for d'Eon to leap over him and strike at the back of his neck. "Just means there's no use trying to disarm him!"
With a roar, the knight's tentacles batted at d'Eon, Lancelot easily splitting his focus to engage Altria from the front and d'Eon from behind.
The exchange continued for a few minutes, but Lancelot's guard proved to be too perfect and few, if any strikes made it through. Eventually, D'Eon skirted around and rejoined Altria before him, whom the Berserker was still single-mindedly fixated on. "If I set him up, can you hit him hard enough to take him down?"
"I can't use my Noble Phantasm right now. Hers is fine, though," Altria gestured with her chin at Lily.
"Works for me! Hey, little girl! Get ready!" d'Eon yelled, and Lily nodded
With a flourish, d'Eon raised their blade and lowered their head, the world around them growing dark as all light seemed to concentrate on the Saber. "Sword Dance of Falling Lillies: Fleur de Lys!"
As they twirled in place, spinning their sword in the air, buds of light floated off the sword and hung in the air around the battlefield like snow. d'Eon stopped in place when they were facing Lancelot and gently thrust their sword in his direction, where the tip sprouted a white lily in full bloom. It floated into the air as the other buds sprouted into celestial carnations of their own, soft light washing over Lancelot as he slowed and stumbled, gazing at the display in awe.
"Right," Lily raised her own sword and it flashed with golden light. "Master? May I?"
"Whenever you're ready," Tyler confirmed.
"Golden Swo-: Cali-"
"I do believe that to be quite enough!" An unfamiliar voice interrupted the battle. Lancelot started and growled, but still turned to pay attention to the unknown speaker, as did everyone else.
"Berserker, this fight is lost. Come, we shall win nothing by continuing to engage," the man said. He had orange hair and an elegantly trimmed beard, wearing a green three-piece suit with a black mantle hanging from his left shoulder. The rail-thin man calmly strode through the carnage without even a hint of blood touching his suit.
Tyler and Lily backed away. "And who are you?" the Master challenged.
"Who might I be, you ask? 'Tis obvious!" the strange Servant crowed, speaking in a strange, harmonic inflection . "Can't you tell by my use of the iamb?"
"Iamb? I know that word," Tyler mused, thinking furiously. "As in, iambic? Tenth-grade literature class. Iambic pentameter?"
"I see! You are a well-read Master then?" The man continued to speak in that strange one-two cadence. "How wonderful to meet one of my fans!"
"Fans. Tenth-grade literature was all about the Shakespearean plays, which were all written in that awful iambic nonsense . . you're William Shakespeare?"
"Indeed! 'Tis true, 'tis I, playwright of -" Shakespeare cut himself off and spluttered. "What do you mean, awful?!"
"He got him to break character," Altria observed with a wry smile.
"I had to write essays about you and your miserable tragedies!" Tyler snapped. "What the hell was the deal with Macbeth, anyway? He was pathetic!"
"It was a tragedy!" Shakespeare snapped back. "It was art! It resonated with the audience of the seventeenth century!"
"Oh, so it's a period piece, then?"
"No!" the writer yelled.
"As . . riveting as this is," Lily interjected, since it looked like Master and author were about to come to blows, "why are you here, Shakespeare? Are you pulling Lancelot's strings?"
"Very astute, miniature king of knights," Tyler fumed; he was speaking in iambic pentameter again. "But now, alas, Lancelot and I must leave! Berserker, come with me, the king awaits!"
"And what makes you think we'll just let the two of you go?" Altria challenged, brandishing Excalibur. It was an empty threat, but the Caster didn't know that.
"Well, I'm afraid that you don't have a choice!" Shakespeare snorted. "When the Curtain Rises, the Applause Shall Be As Ten Thousand Thunders: First Folio!"
"No!" Lily yelled, charging, but it was too late. The world around them rippled and went dark, and Tyler was alone.
No, that wasn't true. He was . . back in high school.
There were people around him as he went to his locker, earbuds nestled in his ears but playing no music.
"I remember this," the Master muttered. "This was eighth grade,"
He paid the world around him no heed even as everyone watched him. "What a weirdo," someone muttered. "Loser," another whispered. "He never talks to anyone," someone remarked. "Did you hear he got called to the year coordinator's office? What was that about?"
Tyler walked on, even as his shoulders grew tighter and tighter from the weight of the words around him.
The scene flickered, momentarily fading into static, and then he was approaching his locker again, earbuds emitting no sound.
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
At a different locker, in a different classroom, the scene repeated.
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
The scene repeated, save for one key difference; the boy's shoulders got heavier and heavier.
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
"Weirdo," "Loser," "He never-"
"Shut up!" Tyler screamed, tears escaping his eyes, "Why should I talk to any of you when not a single one of you has anything worth saying?!"
He fell to his knees, eyes screwed shut. "You're all pointless. Transient. You'll leave me too. This isn't even real, no one ever said those words," even if he knew they'd been thinking them.
"Why am I seeing this?!" he challenged the world around them. "What's the point? They're all gone, they all left me - and they're all gone for real, too! Burnt to ashes!"
"What a weirdo," "Loser," "He never talks to anyone,"
He sobbed as misery and loneliness spiralled around him in an unending cycle of regret and despair. "All . . all I ever wanted is one person,"
"Weirdo," "Loser," Never talks,"
"J-just one. One person who'll love me without judging me,"
"Loser!" "Never!"
". . is that so much to ask?"
He didn't know how long he kneeled there and wept, but eventually he looked up as Lily shook his arm. "Master? Master, wake up!"
". . Lily?"
"You're back!" Dr. Roman yelled in relief from the hologram on his wrist. "He's back! Oh thank the Root!" Olga-Marie practically sobbed.
"W-what happened?" he mumbled. Distantly, he noticed that the battle around him had died down. It looked like it was a French victory.
Surprisingly, d'Eon of all people took his shoulder and hoisted him up. "That was First Folio. Shakespeare's Noble Phantasm. One of the cruelest, nastiest effects I've ever seen. It traps everyone hit with it in a waking nightmare of their worst memories and most deep-seated regrets,"
Tyler swallowed. "I-I see," He looked around, and saw Altria crouched into a ball, shivering violently. "Is . . is she?"
"We haven't been able to wake her up yet," Lily explained. "It's only been half an hour. I managed to break free fairly quickly - advantages of youth, most of the things that Artoria Pendragon regrets haven't actually happened to me yet - but you were in deep,"
Tyler pursed his lips and looked away. "Right. I guess Lancelot and the worst writer escaped?"
"They're gone," d'Eon, still shaken, confirmed. "The fight's over,"
"I want to celebrate, but I'd hesitate to call this a victory," Lily grimaced, then paused. "Master. Someone's coming,"
"So! You all are the ones who saved my darling d'Eon, are you?" Striding towards them was a woman, who looked surprisingly similar to Altria. The same platinum blonde hair, the same pale skin, even her armour followed a similar dark colour scheme, though without the visible traces of red corruption that encrusted parts of her body. The armour style was different, though, and she wore an M-shaped plate of black metal on her forehead that wrapped around her eyes. Most notably, she held high a massive lance, from which a seven-foot-long white banner flew proud.
"And who might you be?" Lily questioned, shifting position so that she was between the newcomer and the prone Master and Saber Alter, even as d'Eon fell to one knee.
"Why, can't you tell?" the newcomer asked with a smile. "I'm Jeanne d'Arc,"
A/N
A/N
Okay, so this is another short chapter and I'm not very happy about that but this just felt like such a perfect place to end a chapter I just had to. So you all get to see the next instalment a bit earlier than I'd really intended. Next time I want to reach 6k words, though! Hold me to it!