1.1
[Fate Grand Order]
Septem? (Anata Suruu)
"Senpai? Aren't we supposed to be in Rome?" Mash asked as Ritsuka, the currently male Master of Chaldea looked to his friend and Servant as the other Servants finished being Rayshifted in, his team of himself, Mash, Medusa (Rider), Chevalier D'Eon and Nitocris, looked around.
"I mean… we should be?" Ritsuka muttered in confusion. He wasn't sure why, but… in the like ten Loops he'd experienced so Far, Septem, five times, now six, out of said ten had a tendency to be… weird.
The first time, it had been an entire forest, in which they'd had to help Nero do battle with Mesoamerican Gods and Spanish Servants like Columbus.
The second time, it had been the Wehrmacht that had somehow been brought back in time, which had ended with them blowing up some sort of Mystic Code technological monster called 'De Glocke' which had been powered by a Holy Grail.
Third time, the scenario had flipped, and they'd had to help Romulus from losing his fledgling empire to the antics of future kings. Highlights there had included actually fighting Iskandar and Waver Velvet inside the King of Conqueror's Reality Marble, and that had ended with an all out war between Iskandar and one of their summoned allies, Okita and her Flag of Sincerity. The Shinsengumi were kinda good at slaughtering scores of enemies.
The fourth, and they'd appeared in the middle of the Trojan War, and had to aid Odysseus in beating back the now much, much stronger, Mecha armed Trojans. That one had been extra fun, since Ritsuka had gotten to pilot his own mecha alongside Odysseus, and duel Paris' really tiny speed mech.
Fifth time they'd actually appeared on the Shapeless Isle directly, and had to convince the living Medusa not to either turn them to stone or kill them. Apparently her sisters had already been kidnapped by someone wielding a strange cup (It had turned out to be Caenis). And they'd had to battle their way across Greece through various Greek Heroes to save them, and recover the grail. That had been a rather fun and sad one, in the end, knowing what was going to happen to Medusa.
This time, they were in the middle of an icy tundra… so that was great, they were probably in the completely wrong country this time. Knowing his luck, probably Russia. "Well we should be… but we aren't?" he scratched his head. "Maybe?"
"This cold does not befit a Pharaoh!" Nitocris complained almost instantly, shivering as she tried to cover herself.
"This is why I recommended something more covering, lady Nitocris," D'Eon chastised, the pharaoh huffing as Medusa looked around.
"No, we are in Rome… it is just covered in snow," the Rider noted, leaving Ritsuka to sigh. Oh dear, what was it going to be this time?
As it turned out, it was in fact an invasion from Russia, led by a spirit known as 'General Winter' that had possessed Ivan the Terrible (the real one, not the Lostbelt one). He had to say, Nero always had a good outfit for whenever she got involved in these singularities. She wasn't sure where the emperor had gotten the red parka and fancy snow hat from, but it was quite nice.
He was just going to have to accept that Septem was… weird.
1.2
[Fate Grand Order] [RWBY]
Meet the Newbies (Anata Suruu)
Charles Henri Sanson was never going to get used to this…
He had Awakened in the middle of some sort of shop, at the head of a gang of goons holding it up and currently robbing the place of its valuable… dust? He frowned as he tried to deal with his Loop Memories, this was only his… third Loop, so it was taking him a second as he looked down at the crystal in his hand, which was apparently also Dust.
Before he could get any further thinking about that, one of his goons started threatening a young girl, and about half a second later, he'd panicked when the shop was flooded with… cookies?
He leapt out the window, still holding the red Dust crystal. Looking at it, he then shoved it in his coat pocket, questions for later. He raised the cane he was holding like how he would normally handle a sword, prepared for battle if it came to that.
What he hadn't been expecting was for a young girl to stride out of the mound of cookies, absentmindedly munching on one as she started talking.
"Ah, these were going stale, ah well! Alrighty, Torchwick are you-" She turned to look at him. "Nevermind, not Roman."
"...What?" he asked, in utter confusion, lowering his cane slowly, before quickly raising it again. This girl was probably a Looper, at least he was going to assume she was before evidence proved otherwise.
"Did… you not get the Ping?" the black haired girl asked as Sanson slowly raised an eyebrow. Definitely a Looper. He hadn't heard of this 'ping' before, in his previous two loops, he'd been on some completely different planet away from everyone else and had only appeared before them occasionally as some sort of summoned card, and stuck on a frozen island in the middle of bloody nowhere before getting offed by some man with a metal face when he'd protested against his insanity. 'Wapol' or something.
"Hmm." He very slowly lowered his cane again. "Are you a… Looper?" he asked slowly, still a little confused, and not looking forward to getting killed again if that was the case. He still hadn't gone through all his memories yet… "That is the correct term, yes?" he asked, recalling the little bits of conversation he'd heard in the moments he'd been summoned to fight during his first loop.
The fact her eyes literally lit up like stars was, to him, not exactly a good sign as she suddenly tackled him, knocking them both to the pavement. "NEW LOOPER! Oh boy! I get to give the speech!"
Sanson grunted as he tried to force the girl off him. "Can you please let go miss?"
"Oh where are you from!? Are you the Anchor? Wait… this isn't your first Fused Loop," the girl deflated as she seemed to realize that he coughed.
"No young lady, this would be my third… but it is the first where there is actually someone to talk to. I was far away from everyone else in my first, and I died fairly quickly in my second," he admitted at sensing her sadness, trying to cheer the girl upon as best he could. And it… appeared to work as he hugged him again anyway.
"WOO! Wait, hang on," she suddenly vanished, and he was left there on the ground. He blinked in confusion before sitting up slowly before the girl suddenly appeared again, causing him to raise an eyebrow. "Ok, got that sorted out, thank goodness Ozzy was Awake, now hold on, let's talk somewhere more comfey!"
She grabbed his hand, and like that, he found himself standing in the middle of some sort of office. He blinked in confusion before shaking his head. Even Rayshifting wasn't that instant. The girl let go of his hand, before suddenly vanishing again, leaving him alone with the man in the chair.
"Well… I must say this is a surprise," the man, 'Ozzy' probably, said, taking a sip from his mug of coffee. "Three fused Loops and no one's even managed to give you the speech yet?" he gestured to the chair in front of the desk.
Sanson slowly took a seat, crossing his arms as he did so. "My circumstances seem to be… quite unusual," he admitted as 'Ozzy' raised an eyebrow. "This is my third Loop… literally."
That got both of 'Ozzy's' eyebrows to shoot towards the sky, went moments later the girl reappeared with two more girls, Sanson turned around, and smile softly. "Lavinia, Abigail," he said with a nod.
"Sanson!" Abigail said, running at him and throwing herself into his arms. "I can't believe we didn't get you, where were you last Loop?"
"Some sort of snowy island. I spoke out against a despot and got dismembered by a cannon for it," Sanson admitted rather blaise. Ironic, that the executor had been executed… if in a very painful manner.
"Ouch," Lavinia noted softly as she walked up as well, putting her pale hand on Sanson's leg. "Are you alright mister Sanson?"
"Doing better," he chuckled as the man behind the desk coughed.
"I'd hate to interrupt this touching moment, but I believe we have a very intriguing situation here," he said, looking to the other girl that had both brought him here and had went and found Lavinia and Abigail.
"What's that Oz?" she asked, hands on her hips as he looked between the three others in his office.
"May I ask again how many Loops you three have experienced?" he asked. Sanson just raised two fingers, Lavinia doing the same as Abigail giggled.
"This is my third, and it has to be their third as well!" the little blonde girl said as the other girl in the red cape had her own eyes shoot into the stratosphere.
"Huh? Have you three not… what?" the girl started questioning.
"I think we should introduce ourselves at this point. My name is Charles Henri Sanson. In… what I believe is my original baseline, I was a Servant of Chaldea, class Assassin," he said simply, 'Ozzy' hummed.
"So you are from the Nasuverse Loop then. I wasn't aware that variant was capable of producing Loopers," Oz started as Abigail giggled.
"It's not a Variant, grandpa told me we were being 'Activated', and there was a complication, so the three of us are 'Traveling', while everything is getting fixed," she said, and Sanson raised an eyebrow.
"Grandpa?" the red riding hood asked as Abigail tapped her forehead.
"I'm Abigail Williams, class Foreigner. Grandpa Yog told me all this," she said with a smile as the girl's eyes literally went blank as she apparently tried to process that. Sanson was similarly curious, who was 'Yog'?
"I might as well add my own piece," the albino girl said with a small bow. "Lavinia Whatley. I'm not a Servant, but apparently I have been bound to Abigail. Wherever she goes, I go. Sanson's the same," Lavinia pointed out as the girl finally introduced herself.
"Well ok then! My name's Ruby, Ruby Rose, Anchor of Remnant!" Ruby finally introduced herself as Oz coughed.
"And I am Ozpin, I believe we are going to be having a very interesting conversation, mister Sanson. Seeing as how no one has officially gotten around to doing it… welcome to the Multiverse," Ozpin said with a hand out towards Sanson, who shook it as Ruby pouted.
"I wanted to give the Speech!"
1.3
[Fate Grand Order]
A Friend Returns (Anata Suruu)
It was… lonely.
Ritsuka was quiet as she sat alone in the cafe. This Loop, as it happened, there wasn't a Chaldea, at least as she knew it. She was just another resident of the 'Chaldea' ward in Osaka. Said ward being quite literally full of Servants, or rather, normal humans who most certainly resembled the Servants she knew and loved, was certainly interesting. It was never boring to say the least. Be it the Chulainn siblings and their various antics. Another one of Karna and Arjuna's brotherly duels. Nero and Elizabeth getting into another concert face off (the entire ward had learned when those happened to lock the doors, shut the windows, and barricade yourself inside of a safe place to save your ears), or the D'Arc siblings just as well.
It was pretty much Chaldea, just spread out over an entire ward of Osaka, and with no superpowered stakes. Indeed, she was sitting at the 'Lion King Cafe', run by 'Lady Rhongomyniad' and staffed by the various Knights of the Round… and Barghest. Even Mash was working here as a part-timer.
What was sad about it to Ritsuka was… technically she was alone. She'd been fighting for so long already that… Well, not having something to fight for was… new to her. Even during Chaldea's most peaceful times, she was always ready for the next mission.
That wasn't the case here. Here she was just a normal high school student, going to the exact same school as everyone else, listening to lectures from Merlin or El-Melloi II, or Scathatch. She wasn't even part of one of the various 'cliques' around the school.
Indeed, she was one of the few students who, from her Loop Memories, ironically had no friends. An average student in all respects who was completely out of place among all the excelling students.
She'd been here for a week, and already she was not only bored but… she was quite sad. She didn't… really want to put forth the effort to actually excel in the school. Mostly because she was alone. Cu wasn't awake, and neither was Altria or Artoria. So… she was alone again. In a place where she currently had no friends.
So as she sat there, drinking her tea, she looked around at the various other cafe patrons. Edmond Dantes was sitting at his own table, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee that had been served to him by Bedivere, the assistant manager, after Gawain had managed to screw up Edmond's original order. Oe'i was painting something, she wasn't sure what, and Vortigern was similarly on the phone, trying to apparently speak to someone about the painting he'd ordered that hadn't arrived yet, the tea drinking businessman getting more and more annoyed as the conversation went on from what she could tell.
It was fairly peaceful… but she was lonely.
"Excuse me, young miss?" Ritsuka looked up from the table to see an older gentleman sitting there with a smirk on his face. It didn't take a genius to tell that this was Merlin. "There's someone outside who wishes to see you."
She actually blinked in confusion before Merlin chuckled, walking around the table and patting her on the shoulder. "Go on, I know you've been waiting a while for someone to say hello to you for a change," he winked before walking away humming, his words only heightening her confusion as she got up, leaving behind some QP to pay for her drink and walking outside of the cafe.
There was a light drizzle going on, grey clouds filling the sky with rays of sunshine blinking through rather sporadically. Off in the distance, she saw someone waiting by the sidewalk near the lake just twenty meters away. Her eyes went wide at the sight of pale purple-pink hair, head raised toward the sky, illuminated by a single ray of sunlight, filtering in from up above.
She ran, daring to hope that Merlins' words were right.
"You've been waiting for someone to say hello to you for a change."
As she slowed down, coming to a halt… she felt her heart practically leap into her chest. The cynical part of her that had built up over her already over one hundred loops daring to say that this was just something meant to happen in this strange 'normal' world. That she would meet Mash.
Yet… when the girl turned to her, there was a smile on her face as she said the words that broke… and then mended her heart.
"Senpai… I wanted to say hello to you after our adventures together… I… wanted to ask why we're here, in this-" Mash began to say before Ritsuka just threw herself as Mash, the pinkette blinking in surprise as she unconsciously wrapped her arms around her closest friend. She hadn't even gotten around to asking all her questions yet.
But as Ritsuka held her tightly, Mash decided… questions could wait.
"I'm here Senpai… I'm not going anywhere, I'm not going to leave you again."
"M-Mash… It took so long… for you to remember…" Ritsuka sputtered out.
"Well… I guess I remember now… how long have you been waiting?" Mash asked as Ritsuka choked.
"How long doesn't matter… what does… is that you're here," she just squeezed her beloved kohai, her Servant and best friend in every Loop tight. "Welcome… welcome to eternity…"
"Eternity Senpai?" Mash questioned as Ritsuka finally laughed, even as she sky opened up with rain upon them.
They had a lot to talk about… but one thing was for certain.
Ritsuka Fujimaru knew… she wasn't alone anymore.
1.4
[Fate Grand Order]
Gambling Spree (Anata Suruu)
"Senpai, do you really think this is going to work?" Mash asked as Ritsuka hummed, and got a smile in response.
"Do I think it will work? I hope so. I haven't spent all Loop preparing for Vegas for nothing," he responded. It had taken Mash a few loops to get over the whole 'gender changing' thing, and Ritsuka still wasn't certain if he was really a boy or a girl.
The Vegas of course Ritsuka was referring to was the Las Vegas singularity, with the Seven Swimsuit Swordmasters. But that wasn't what concerned Ritsuka right now, no…
What concerned him was that this Singularity held many, many resources that he couldn't get anywhere else.
Catalysts.
To be more specific, there was something about Las Vegas that had almost every Servant that went there gambling away damn near everything. So for this trip his goal was to buy, gamble, or obtain the various catalysts required for summoning to shove in his pocket. There was just one catch.
All the damn casinos were beyond expensive to gamble in. So he'd spent nearly the entire loop stockpiling QP for this… and he'd managed to rope Edmond into teaching him how to play Poker… and James into teaching him how to calculate the odds of victory and count cards.
It wasn't exactly cheating, but there were literal clairvoyants and people with Golden Rule here, which was worse than simply counting cards and calculating equations in his head, so it would probably be fine. But with Siegfried, Kotaro and (sometimes), Merlin on his side. They'd be able to get rich, get resources, and defeat the Seven Swimsuit Swordmasters!
Mash, however, was a bit skeptical, mostly because Ritsuka still was going to be gambling against Servants. "You… do know that they don't always take kindly to losing right? You remember Atalanta and Jeanne Alter?"
"Yeah I know, but here's hoping," Ritsuka muttered. Honestly, he was just hoping that he wouldn't have to gamble against Achilles or Odysseus; those two had been notoriously lucky gamblers, even without Golden Rule.
'Note to self, stop tempting fate, it hates me.'
He was currently in the Casino Camelot, sitting at a Texas Hold'em table with Bedivere as the dealer. And his three opponents being, of course, Odysseus, Achilles… and for some reason Jason.
"I'm surprised your gambling here Master," Achilles pointed out as he looked at his cards, keeping a straight face on him as both Jason and Odysseus did the same with their own cards, showing them only to themselves and the camera under the table to make sure they weren't cheating.
"Yeah well, this place does have the most stable QP to Coin ratio," he admitted, which wasn't a lie. He could have gone to Suiten Palace, but that place was slots only, and he'd very quickly learned that the place did not play nice when it came to EXP tokens for himself and Mash. It just outright refused to give out any.
Not that he wanted to gamble away his life anyway.
As all four of them put in their 5 chip Blind, Bedivere began to speak.
"Now gentlemen," Bedivere started shuffling the deck as Ritsuka frowned. "The name of the game is Texas Hold'em. We'll be starting from the left. Jason, you are first."
"Alright… ten chips," Jason pushed ten chips from his pile into the pot. Ritsuka knew each chip was a 1 to 10,000 QP ration, so that was a hundred thousand QP he'd just put in the pot. Given how all of them had come in here with a lot more than just that, it wasn't a very big and mostly safe bet.
"Twelve," Odysseus raised, pushing in twelve of his own chips as Ritsuka thought about his own cards… He currently had the jack of spades and two of clubs, meaning he had a jack high.
"Call," Achilles said bluntly, pushing twelve more chips into the pot as well, leaving Ritsuka to either call, fold or raise.
"Call," Ritsuka said with a nodd, pushing his own chips into the pot. He was at least going to see what the Flop was before deciding whether to fold or not.
"Very good gentlemen," Bedivere stated before pulling the next three cards from the top. 3 of Spades, Queen of hearts and 9 of diamonds. With his current cards there was a chance for a straight if a ten and a king dropped, but those odds were terrible… this could be either a big win or he'd get his ass beat.
Jason called, but Odysseus raised again, going for twenty chips instead. Achilles, similarly, called the raise. Ritsuka followed them with a check.
"Checking Master?" Jason asked with a huff as Odysseus kept his face neutral.
"It is a valid strategy, one I expect all of us will use at some point or another," the hero of the Odyssey remarked as the Turn card was placed on the table. Queen of Spades.
That's it, he was out for this round. Jason similarly seemed to think the same. The Argo's captain folded as Odysseus called, Achilles doing the same as Ritsuka folded. With only the two heroes from the Trojan war left in the game, Bedivere set down the last card, the 4 of Diamonds.
Neither the green haired or silver haired hero looked at each other. But they both proceeded to bet, taking the bet from twenty to forty chips from Odysseus while Achilles called, placing in forty chips of his own as they revealed their pocket cards.
Odysseus had the Queen of Diamonds and the three of hearts, while Achilles had the 4 of hearts and Queen of Clubs. They looked to each other as Achilles took the pot, having won the hand barely with his full house matching Odysseus' except for being one number higher.
Jason and Ritsuka shared a look across the table at this. Everyone threw in their now ten chip blinds as they were passed out their new cards by Bedivere.
"What is it with you two and getting such good luck," Jason complained as he looked at his cards before setting them down, settling into an emotionless expression as Ritsuka looked at his cards. He had the two of hearts and two of clubs, giving him a pair outright.
"Hey it's not that hard," Achilles admitted as Odysseus frowned as well.
"These casinos do nothing to cancel out Golden Rule. Just be thankful none of us have it," the rider currently in a blue floral shirt said before pointing over his shoulder. Everyone turned to look at the High Stakes table where Gawain was the dealer... With Gilles de Rais, Darius III, Francis Drake and Siegfried all playing, and Gawain was looking overwhelmed as their own game of standard Poker was going around, with all four of them flashing Royal Flushes of the different suits at each other, forcing Gawain to try and figure out which one of the four had actually won.
"Ouch, that's painful," Jason noted as Bedivere nodded.
"I'm sure sir Gawain will be able to figure out a solution, now then on to betting everyone?" Bedivere asked as Jason lead with a call, putting ten chips in the pot as Odysseus raised again, this time to fifteen chips to start with as Achilles called him again. Ritsuka similarly called, despite his decent hand as Bedivere dealt out the Flop.
Three of hearts, five of spades and jack of diamonds. Now Ritsuka was worried again, since there was a very minor chance of him getting a straight, three of a kind, two pair, or full house.
"Raise, twenty," Jason pushed in twenty of his own chips. Odysseus called, putting in twenty as well. Achilles, for once, folded outright, revealing his Ace of spades and seven of hearts to the table. Ritsuka, deciding to take a chance, called, pushing in twenty more chips as the flop was dealt out. The three of clubs.
Ritsuka had two pair now, but that was a low hand in a game like this, especially with Jason's raise… However, Ritsuka knew the man well. Going through Atlantis and Okeanos alongside him many a time, Ritsuka felt he had a fairly good read on the sometimes Rider, sometimes Saber. And he knew one thing very well.
Jason was a master at bluffing.
So when the Saber raised again, going for thirty chips, and Odysseus matched him, Ritsuka decided to take a chance.
"Raise, fifty," he pushed fifty of his own chips into the poke. For a moment he saw Jason's lip twitch, and he had to fight hard to keep his own expression completely neutral. Odysseus was still in the game after all, and he didn't know him nearly as well as he knew Jason.
Achilles whistled however as he crossed his arms. "Damn master? Going that far in?"
"I'll manage," Ritsuka said with a small chuckle as Jason huffed as the final card, the King of Hearts, was dealt.
"Call," he pushed in fifty chips, now Ritsuka wasn't sure. He might actually have something, knowing his luck and the current hand.
"How are they doing over at high stakes?" Ritsuka asked as Achilles looked behind them towards the table, and scoffed.
"Another round of Royal Flushes again," the Rider complained. He knew he was pretty darn lucky when it came to casinos, but still, the amount of blant near cheating that went on when Golden Rule was involved was kinda stupid.
"They really need to find a way to nullify Golden Rule in here," Ritsuka noted as a loud painful sound came from nearby, Gawain having smacked his head against a wall, cracking a pillar out of frustration as Drake and Gilles started fighting over who had actually won the hand, leaving Darius the Berserker and poor Siegfried to watch them argue.
"Indeed, call," Odysseus said with a nod, pushing in fifty more chips into the pot as Ritsuka called, no point in betting higher since he was the last one in the row.
All three of them flipped their hands. Jason had the four of spades and two of spades… which sadly meant despite the other cards on the table being a near straight for him, he only had a pair of threes. Odysseus had a similarly poor hand, with the six of spades and seven of diamonds.
"I believe this round is mine gentlemen, two pairs," Ritsuka said with a smirk as he flipped his pair of twos. Jason rubbing his forehead as Odysseus nodded, Bedivere allowing Ritsuka to take the pot as they began again.
The game went on for a while longer, and chips continued to pass between the four of them as they talked and shared some stories and laughs as the game went on further. Hearing Odysseus talk about the time he'd death matched the Cyclops with his mecha was amusing, as was Jason's own complaints about how Okeanos had gone this time around from his own perspective. Ritsuka had to hold in his laughter, as he'd gotten lucky enough to throw Hercules against Hercules, which had ended with both of them in a deadlock that forced everyone else to pick up the slack, where Ritsuka's superior numbers had gained them the advantage.
By the end of the game about an hour later, everyone but Darius at the High stakes table had either been kicked out or moved on to get away from each other so that their Golden Rules would stop conflicting. No one was willing to even go to the High Stakes table with Darius still sitting there however. Ritsuka had gained much more than he'd lost, more than quintupling his amount of QP in a single game just from smart betting and knowing his opponents. Jason had walked away similarly well off, while Achilles was nearly broke and had decided to call it quits before he was completely out and go play roulette while Odysseus left to go get more chips after he'd run out from a particularly bad hand where he'd gone all in on a Flush of Spades, only for Jason to beat him with a Four of a Kind, the four sixes to be precise.
As Ritsuka flipped a poker chip up and down before grabbing it out of the air, he smirked. He could tell he would be running into Jason a lot more… This was gonna be a fun two weeks.
Ritsuka's eye was twitching as he ran the numbers. "Mash?"
"Yes Senpai?" Mash asked as he finished counting out all the QP they'd earned.
"Why are we fifty billion QP short?" Ritsuka asked. More than half of the QP he'd made through careful betting and a bit of help from James, Kotaro and Seigfried… and some from Merlin, was just up and gone.
"...I don't know Senpai, me and Ushiwakamaru were keeping a careful watch on it. The only other person who'd been here was…" Mash started before a dawning horror hit Ritsuka.
"CARMILLA!" he roared in anger as the card of Mistress C flew in through the window tauntingly. "BY MY COMMAND SEAL RETURN THE QP!" He shouted as he ran out the window, seeing Carmilla sitting in the seat of her car with the massive bags of QP in the passenger's seat, hands gripping the wheel as he leapt out the window to get his hard earned winnings back.
The sudden airlift by origami puppets on said bag, followed by another burned Command Seal to try and force Osakabehime to give up the bag, and it was passed off to Musashi, who then proceeded to suddenly vanish with it before he could order her to hand it over. His eye twitched as he realized that she'd Rayshifted out of the singularity.
Both Carmilla and Osakabehime were then punished by being forcefully dragged along to Atlantis and Olympus and similarly being forced to give up Catalysts for their antics. All in all, they were surprisingly helpful, but Ritsuka was still incredibly annoyed at his QP accumulation being cut by more than half, which meant he'd hadn't been able to secure the full set of Babylonian Catalysts for Ishtar, Gilgamesh, Enkidu and Ereshkigal, so he'd been forced to go for quantity of less expensive Catalysts from the various pirates and authors who were willing to sell, rather than going over the deal with Gil again.
Some people did all the work...
1.5
[Fate Grand Order] [Fate Stay Night]
Swapping Places (Anata Suruu)
"The Seventh Serva-" Cu Chulainn's voice was cut off as Shirou Emiya awoke in a familiar spot, the shed where he summoned Saber. The thing that met the Lancer's surprise however was not a sword hidden by wind.
But a black blade, one that, without hesitation, sent the unawake Lancer flying outside the shed with no issue at all. The woman looked familiar, yet the air around her was beyond different. Rather than the warm, comforting air of the King of Knights… around this black armored maiden was an air of cold, a chilling air that felt oppressing… yet at the same time, this air held so much emotion within. A whirlwind of anger, a gust of disappointment, sadness in the wind that filled the shed from the summoning of the Seventh Servant of the 5th Holy Grail War.
The woman turned to him as he looked up from his position on the floor. She was wearing familiar black armor, and underneath a black gown built for battle. Pale white skin, and piercing golden eyes. The woman that, even now, could still haunt his dreams of the Heaven's Feel.
The Dark Side of Artoria Pendragon, the corrupted version brought about by Angra Mainyu. Saber Alter.
She looked down at him in an all too familiar pose, her eyebrows raising to the sky as she held the blackened Excalibur. It wasn't the first time he had accidentally summoned this woman in place of Saber normally, but it was typically a harrowing experience. A vile, evil woman who stood guard over the Holy Grail… or occasionally came back home drunk during Carnival Phantasm loops, but she always had turned back into saber in those.
The words she spoke however… kinda threw him off.
"...You are not my Master, at least, not the one I accept as such," she pointed Excalibur at him. "State your name, I know that you are the body of Muramasa boy, but the hound neglected to tell me your name."
"What!?" Shirou spat out in surprise. What the hell? Muramasa? Wasn't that the Guy from Grand Order variants who… used… his… body…
"Who are you?" he asked, genuinely curious now as the woman spun around.
"Hmm… the hound is not Awake. Pity," she bent her knees. "We will be having this conversation in a moment Red," she shot out of the shed, and he shot to his legs, running to the door to already see Saber Alter battling Lancer, the Irishman being pushed back by her savage blows… and then getting blasted in the stomach from a point blank laser shot to the stomach that Saber Alter shot from her hand.
Lancer, Cu Chulainn, grit his teeth as he spun backwards before using his momentum to try and stab Saber Alter through the head. She, however, was not in the mood for games. Where normally, Saber would have deflected the lance upwards, she slashed horizontally, the power of 'Vortigern, Hammer of the Vile King', flowing through Excalibur Morgan as she cleaved the Lancer in two.
He spat up blood as she quickly spun on her heel, kicking Gae Bolg out of the fallen Servant's hand as she huffed. "I'll see you later, Caster," the woman noted solemnly as she started walking back towards Shirou.
'Well this has gone off the rails exceptionally fast…' he noted mentally as Lancer began to vanish as he lay on the ground, fading away from his brutal and efficient execution by Saber Alter.
"Now then Red," she started, once more raising her sword towards him again. "Your name, 'Master'."
"Hang on, Red? Uh…" he raised his hands in surrender as she glared at him. He could easily beat her ass, but… he did kinda want answers. "Right, Shirou Emiya," he said, and she huffed.
"Very well," she lowered the black blade, and tilted her head. "I am Altria Pendragon," she stated simply.
"Hang on, not Artoria?" He asked, and she huffed.
"No, though I have met my counterpart once," she tilted her head, eyes closed as she raised her one free hand, palm up and shrugged. "I was not impressed at her,"
'Lady, I think she's worth several billion times you,' Shirou wisely kept to himself, from her utterly brutal and pragmatic dispatching of Lancer, he could tell that she was highly dangerous… and very experienced in Servant against Servant combat… and even more experienced in fighting Cu Chulainn in particular. Her comment of calling him 'Caster' had been a red flag.
"Are… you from the Grand Order variant?" he asked, and she scoffed.
"My home of Chaldea is no variant, Shirou Emiya, it seems that the hound has yet to inform you, so it seems I must do so in his steed," she opened her eyes, planting Excalibur Morgan in front of her. "I am Altria Pendragon, the first Looper of the Grand Order Branch, the Anchor of my Branch is my real, and only Master. Ritsuka Fujimaru. Know it, and understand it. I care not if you are Looper or Anchor," she huffed, before turning away. "Simply that you accept this, Shirou Emiya."
'Oh… Rin's not going to be happy about this,' Shirou thought… Anything that cut into 'Baeber' time was not fun in Rin's book, and with this… very, very different Saber Alter here, that most certainly was going to cut into fun times.
"So… uh… what are you going to do?" Shirou asked as the woman hummed.
"Introduce myself of course, and demolish this Holy Grail War, as is my duty. There is a corrupted Grail, and thus it is my duty to destroy or recover it," she explained as Shirou blinked.
"Wait? Not… get a wish?" Shirou asked as she scoffed.
"No need, afterall," she held her hand out, and Shirou watched as she summoned a Holy Grail over her hand. "These trinkets are little more than mana batteries," she caused it to vanish again, obviously back to her pocket.
'Right, Grand Order…' he recalled. The times he'd looped into Chaldea recovering Holy Grails was part of their mission. He hadn't exactly gone through one in a while, a couple million loops ago maybe? Apparently quite a lot had changed, they weren't exactly an overly common variant.
As she started to walk off, he looked to his hand, three command seals glowing, obviously. "Where do you think you're going?" Shirou questioned as Altria turned to him.
"I think I'm going to do my job. This is a Holy Grail war, and like back home it is my duty to recover or destroy the Holy Grail. In my memories it told me I had responded to your summon, and that I was summoned before and failed to destroy the grail under one Kiritsugu Emiya. As this is a stain on my record, it must be removed," she said plainly, and he crossed his arms.
"Yeah and how do you think you're going to fight all the other Servants and destroy the Holy Grail without my help…" he looked down at her sword. "And a corrupted sword."
"Corrupt or not, Excalibur is a sword I trust to see me through to the end. However, if that will not suffice, I suppose my new blade will have to do," she said, before suddenly drawing a sword.
Excalibur… but as he copied it for Unlimited Blade Works, he took a step back in surprise. The sword's history… Its recent forging... the blade was him. The sword that been used by a young Mage to battle Calamities alongside a young girl. And then a young man pulling out that self-same sword as a gift to the woman who now held it, and had used it in battle when she'd felt the need to draw the sword.
"Hmm?" she questioned before holding Excalbur's hilt with one hand, and the blade with the other, the person he… wasn't so sure was a 'corrupted' king anymore giving him a smirk. "And here I thought the older Anchor wouldn't be surprised. Are you surprised, Shirou Emiya, at seeing yourself?"
He… stared. "...What?"
"Allow me to explain," she said softly, before smiling. "This sword was forged by Senji Murasama, with the world as his forge, and your body as the material to make the blade. This is the Excalibur I have come to own, and I will accept no other, despite how many times it will be made, this sword is mine, it's history mine to create," she turned the sword towards him. "Even if it was forged for my sister."
He nearly blue screened again. "S-sister? Morgan le Fay!?"
"In a manner of speaking," she shrugged, and looked at him with a smirk and amused yellow eyes. "Now then, Shirou Emiya, I will permit you to aid me, or not. This is a provisional contract. Should I find you wanting, I will revoke it, and sustain myself off one of my Holy Grails. I plan on winning this Holy Grail War, and completing my mission of destroying the Greater Grail," she said, commanding and true.
"Hey, I'm the Master here, and the Anchor!" Shirou shot back, already annoyed at this woman who had taken Artoria's place.
"Then by all means, kill me now, or stay your hand forever," she offered, placing Excalibur blade first in the dirt.
...He was tempted to take her up on that offer, but she was fairly certain that was the point. She didn't want to be here, and he wasn't about to grant her that request… besides, Rin had pinged as Awake and… she was gonna need to see this.
He put a hand to his face. "At least let me introduce you to Rin and EMIYA first…" he complained… at least this lady had priorities. Honestly it would be nice to let her either get herself killed or wreck her way through the Holy Grail War… a break would be nice.
"Tell me… who was Ca-Lancer's Master. You must know, right?" She asked not even caring about his 'introduction' and he sighed.
"Seriously, Rin and EMIYA first," he muttered. He was extremely tempted to use a command seal to enforce this, but this… version of Artoria was so commanding, he doubted it would actually stop her.
"Fine, if you are that insistent," she complained, placing Excalibur back in her pocket before summoning Excalibur Morgan again and resting it on her shoulder, her armor fading away to reveal an elegant black dress. "I will meet with them, in my capacity as a Chaldean Servant."
'You… are not going to be well liked," Shirou realized, very, very quickly.
"Servant… Saber," Artoria Pendragon started as she awoke, in the middle of being summoned. As the light was dying down she saw she was standing inside of a room, and through the glass window before her, she could see two people she recognized.
Ritsuka Fujimaru, the Anchor of the Grand Order branch, and Mash Kyrielight, who the last time she had been here, had not been awake. "Artoria Pendragon," she admittedly had to try not to glare at the reason her dark counterpart was now Looping, or at least assumed she was the reason.
Admittedly the one time she had encountered Ritsuka Fujimaru, it had been in Shinjuku, where apparently she'd replaced her Alter Counterpart, who was normally there. It seemed that in this timeline, as loathe as she was to admit it… the woman known as Altria Pendragon had a far bigger presence than she.
"I'm going to make the assumption that you were trying to summon your 'Friend'?" Artoria guessed, and Ritsuka rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
"Uh… yeah, but um… We kinda Awoke post Singularity F," Ritsuka admitted as Artoria raised an eyebrow, leaping off the platform as Mash Kyrielight bowed.
"Um, welcome to Chaldea miss Pendragon, I uh, woke up a little bit ago. This is my… twelfth Loop," Mash said softly, and Artoria just smiled. At least the people were pleasant here.
"Tell me, have you already encountered… her?" Artoria asked and Mash nodded. She took a deep breath. So much for making a good first impression upon her newest Knight of the Round.
"Well then, my newest Knight of the Round Table, stand up. There is work to be done is there not. Now that I am here, I intend on taking this seriously," Artoria said bluntly. She'd heard from Cu once (When she'd cornered him and literally forced it out of the man), that her counterpart had ran havoc among the original Baseline activation, and in the various times they'd worked together, she was an extremely pragmatic and efficient fighter who dealt with Baseline Problems quickly and efficiently if she could.
That would not do, she would not be upstaged by her counterpart.
"Um… about that. Miss Altria actually inducted me into her own… 'Neo Round Table'?" Mash asked, a little confused as Ritsuka facepalmed and winced. Artoria had to fight to keep a smile on her face. Oh, had she now?
"And who are the Knights of this 'Neo Round Table', tell me, so I may prove that I am the better King," Artoria proclaimed as Mash winced.
"Um… just me at the moment…" Mash said… very unconvincingly.
"Only you miss Kyrielight?" she asked, walking through the door to the two Loopers, well, Anchor and her newest Looper. Ritsuka, rather protectively, got in front of Mash and pulled out a dagger, colored gold, and pointed it at her. She frowned. She was obviously still so far above Fujimaru as a Looper that despite being an Anchor, she didn't feel a lot of power coming from her. But she was still willing to put herself between a much more powerful Looper to even defend her friend for a moment.
Perhaps she was being too harsh? Perhaps it hadn't been her other half that had influenced Fujimaru, but Fujimaru that had influenced her other half? That made more sense.
She still wasn't going to like it though. "So then, how do you two feel about a vacation?" Artoria asked as Ritsuka and Mash both looked at each other, Ritsuka slowly putting the dagger again back into her pocket as she scoffed.
"I'm not sure it'll be that easy Artoria…" Ritsuka said softly as the older Looper scoffed.
"By all means, try me."
"Well… for starters, the King of Mages is… an issue," she started and Artoria raised an eyebrow.
"Really. I was there and I watched you beat him during your Activation loop. My apologies Ritsuka, but if you can do it, I can do it." Artoria boasted. Really, it couldn't be that hard. After all, Ritsuka had dealt with him with only Mash directly helping him, it would be easy.
Both Ritsuka and Mash shared a wince between each other before Ritsuka took a deep breath. "Ok… but please give me a catalyst before you attempt to do so,"
"Ok come now it can't be that bad, but if it will ease your worries," she said before pulling a copy of Avalon out of her pocket and tossing it over, both Mash and Ritsuka just staring at the legendary sheath in shock before she walked off to go find something to eat.
"...I think I'll just hold onto this and use another one of the catalysts I have for Altria…" Ritsuka muttered slowly as she pocketed the sheath. Someone was going to enjoy that present later.
Altria Pendragon was quiet as she sat across from the two other currently awake Loopers. Rin Tohsaka, and the soulbound semi-Anchor EMIYA, who was the future self of the young man beside her, Shirou Emiya. She could tell, very clearly, that they were not happy with her presence.
So, she decided to wait until they tried to execute her or something.
"Shirou, I already hate this variant," Rin complained as Altria scoffed, and Shirou coughed. "Why is she still here?"
"She's… not a variant," Shirou started and Altria decided that was her cue, slowly leaning forward and resting an arm on the table before speaking.
"Altria Pendragon, Servant of Chaldea. Red here is only my provisional Master," she leaned forward smirking. "I plan on bringing an end to this Grail War, personally."
"Yeah good luck with that," EMIYA muttered, glaring at the pale-skined woman in a black dress. And Rin frowned.
"Chaldea, you mean that-" In an instant, there were five blades drawn, one black blade pointed at Rin's head, and four different swords all aimed at Altria's own.
"I was simply giving her a warning," Altria slowly raised one hand and pushed one of the swords EMIYA was holding away from her neck as she continued to speak. "I don't appreciate someone making light of our home," slowly, she lowered her sword, letting it rest tip first on the wooden table before pulling it back, both Shirou and his future counterpart pulling their blades away from this clearly, already quite insane woman.
Or perhaps it was just a complete lack of fear.
"Right," Rin muttered, not caring about the sword which had been pointed at her throat. She probably would have been fine anyway, this girl was clearly a very new Looper so she doubted she actually had something that could feasibly hurt her, even if this woman was Saber Alter. "I already hate you," Rin complained and Altria scoffed.
"And I can see where Ishtar gets it from, I wonder was Ereshkigal tempered by you, or was it the other way around," The woman shot at her with a smirk on her face as Rin tried to process what she meant.
"I don't think she's been to Grand Order in a while," Shirou muttered, vividly recalling loops where he'd accidentally summoned the former in place of Saber… or Rin had summoned herself similar.
...He didn't want to think this woman had a point that the other one had tempered Rin rather than the other way around.
"Either way," the woman put her arm on the table before summoning a cocktail out of her pocket and taking a sip from it. "Hmm… that professor does good work when you bribe him enough, still fresh," she noted absentmindedly before downing the rest of the cocktail and putting the glass back in her pocket. "I plan on doing my duty here, so I would appreciate it if you stood out of my way."
"Now listen here! What makes you think you can just come in here, replace Artoria, and think you can boss us around?" Rin pointed out putting her finger in Altria face as she scoffed.
"I have already dealt with Lancer. Seeing as how he is Awake, I doubt my chances against Archer. So I will simply deal with the rest that I can't recruit to my side and destroy the Holy Grail," she said confidently before standing up. "I can tell you don't enjoy my presence, as much as I don't enjoy yours, perhaps even more so. So I'll simply get my job done and be on my way.
"You know what, go knock yourself the hell out," Rin crossed her arms and both Shirou and EMIYA looked at each other and shared a wince. For once, they were in agreement… they didn't really like this woman, and she was probably going to be showing up a lot more often.
"I say we let her, and see how far she gets," EMIYA offered and Shirou nodded, standing up to go make some popcorn. At the very least, it would probably be interesting to watch...
London had been… a bit of an eye opener. While it had been intriguing to run into her son Mordred, and her various friends as Ritsuka had put it, fighting Zouken as a much younger man who turned into a Demon God Pillar was an interesting experience.
Then Solomon had shown up, and Ritsuka had wisely made every other Servant they'd brought along retreat. She had scoffed that that, and had gone out to fight Solomon and had dragged Ritsuka along to show her how it was done.
That… had ended very, very poorly. She had expected Excalibur to do something to the King of Mages, but it had done absolutely nothing at all. He'd laughed her off and had proceeded to kill off everyone but herself, Hans and Mordred (And all the Chaldean Servants Ritsuka had effectively forced to retreat, she could see why now). So she decided to get serious had start pulling out her various other powers.
...He didn't react to the Force, to her blasting him with spells from Harry Potter, and when she'd gotten sick of him and pulled out a EVA… he'd taken it apart quickly, methodically and with absolutely serious prejudice, ramping himself up to match her quickly increasing pace. She could tell that she could outpower him if she really felt like trying but… even so, any damage she dealt just didn't do anything, and he'd ended up ripping the EVA apart through analyzing the AT field and then penetrating it with an exceedingly powerful piercing spell, which had then exploded inside the AT field, damaging her EVA before he'd used the hole in the AT field to rapid fire spells through it to break the thing before it could regenerate.
She was actually surprised that he hadn't killed her, and instead only called them pathetic, if interesting to watch before leaving. She… had decided to take a step back
"...That wasn't Baseline right?" Artoria had asked when they'd returned to Chaldea, Ritsuka looking incredibly tired as Mash grabbed her by the shoulders and prepared to lead their Master to her room.
"That is baseline Artoria-sama… The King of Mages," she had said softly as they led Ritsuka into her room and let her lay on the bed. "Senpai will be out for a few days… but now you know why we don't exactly have an easy time here."
Artoria frowned as Mash led her out of the room, tempting to ask why Ritsuka was going to be unconscious, before deciding against it. "May I ask just how Solomon was capable of doing all that? I wasn't going all out, but I was at least being serious."
Mash shook her head. "I'm… not at liberty to discuss the King of Mages," she said sadly and softly, leading Artoria to raise her eyebrows in confusion and concern. Was Solomon really that threatening? "I know you said you saw Senpai fighting him in his other form in the 'Activation', but… I do think you don't know the whole story."
"Then tell me the story," Artoria pointed out, and Mash shook her head.
"If I do, he will be prepared for whatever I say," Mash offered and she took a very deep breath. Right… Solomon, King of Mages and that true form of his, Goetia, were clairvoyant… dammit. Was that how he'd been prepared for her? But she hadn't even gotten somewhat serious until that point.
"Very well… I'll just have to try harder next time!" Artoria declared. This place hadn't too terribly hard to deal with, Ritsuka had a very firm grasp on what to do and how to lead her Servants into battle, but she still believed she had more experience than both Mash and Ritsuka when it came to this sort of situation.
Oh… how quickly she was to learn that this place was no cakewalk.
Artoria Pendragon was not amused. At all.
They'd reached Solomon again, and she'd built up what she felt was a solid plan to defeat the King of Mages because he could turn into that second form of his, which was probably far stronger (since that was how this sort of thing went), so she'd opened up on full blast from Excalibur infused with as much magic as she could safely pour into it and she'd even gone so far as to infuse the attack with spiral power the moment they'd engaged, having joined Mash and Ritsuka in attempting to do battle with the King of Mages.
That… had ended exceptionally poorly, as she finally figured out why there were several hundred Servants doing nigh constant war against the 72 Demon God pillars infesting the Time Temple. Solomon was dispersing all the damage she was doing, which was already not a lot for some reason (How durable is he!?), into the 72 Demon Pillars. And Spiral Power, for all its amazing world shattering power, worked best when it was put to a single point. So dispersing it among the Demon Pillars had… effectively nullified most of the damage it would have dealt to him.
Part of her, albeit begrudgingly, had to admit it was rather ingenious. She had decided to change tactics at that point towards more… defensive measures. Mash was holding up Lord Camelot with Ritsuka, both of them just watching alongside Fou as she prepared to do battle with the King of Mages once again now that her original attack hadn't gone so well.
"Artoria," Ritsuka called out, but she ignored her, she wanted to win this fight on her own, personally. "Artoria!" Suddenly she felt a familiar energy, and she actually spun around to find… Excalibur flying towards her.
She caught it will confusion, wondering how the hell this was going to help when Solomon had already been ignoring her normal attacks. "It's the 'Real' one!" Ritsuka called out. What the hell did that have to do with anything.
Solomon seemed to realize it through as she very quickly found herself face to face not with the King of Mages, but the King of Demons, and sent flying directly into Lord Camelot's walls with a crumpled chestplate while she'd been distracted.
Gritting her teeth, she picked herself up off the floor as Goetia looked to them all in his unholy glory. And as she raised the Excalibur Ritsuka had thrown to her, Goetia vanished, and she suddenly was flung away without a care in the world as he started beating on Lord Camelot's walls.
Picking herself up, Artoria ripped her chestplate off, Avalon healing her shattered ribcage as the wounds she'd been slowly picking up rapidly healed themselves. She was getting incredibly pissed at this 'King of Demons' Beast I. So she raised the Excalibur Ritsuka had thrown to her. At this point she was willing to try her idea.
"EXCALIBUR!" She fired, the beam being much much larger and stronger than she had been expecting as the King of Demons raised his arms, actually being pushed back by the attack. But when the light died down, not only was he still standing, but the chips that the attack had blown off his arms were repairing themselves.
She warped forward herself, aparating behind the King of Demons and taking a swing with the new Excalibur, only for the King of Demons to snap two fingers, completely bypassing her Magic Resistance and freezing her in place before spinning around and barraging her with a flurry of punches that would have made Jotaro blush.
Being flung through several floating islands, and even through a Demon Pillar, was not a pleasant experience, as she was entirely certain the only reason she was alive was Avalon… and the amount of power she'd built up as a looper, and that was a close shave. Gritting her teeth, she apparated back to the battle, to look up at the sight of the oncoming attack.
"Mash keep it raised!" Ritsuka ordered as Artoria glared at the attack head on… this amount of energy was actually immense. It was no Big Bang from the Anti-Spiral, but it was most certainly an attack even most loopers would be hard pressed to take.
Well, she'd tanked Ea before, this should be no problem at all. She just had to match it in power.
As the massive laser with the power to shatter the planet with its heat alone fired, she met it with an Excalibur blast, powered by all the different various energy sources she had picked up over Eons of looping, she shouted as she met, and matched it… and her attack was the one faltering. "Come on! How much power are you packing!"
"The energy of all of history up to this point across every available timeline this world has accumulated. Every speck of it," she nearly gasped before a massive fist impaled her through the chest, she spat up blood as the sudden attack allowed the king of Demons to raise her up, impaled on his fist as her own attack cut off. Ars Almadel Salomonis still going as he vanished again, leaving her to face down the oncoming attack with a hole through her chest.
The last thing Artoria Pendragon saw before her own annihilation was Mash's shield still raised, ready to take the very attack that was about to… and succeeded in killing her.
When her eyes blinked open again, she was in the summoning chamber, Ritsuka Fujimaru and Mash Kyrielight were looking at her with relief as she felt her mouth run dry.
She, had… died and been resummoned by them.
"What… happened?" She asked as she got down from the platform, and Ritsuka winced.
"That was… Goetia. There's a reason I'm the one who has to fight him, after Roman sacrifices himself to completely destabilize his existence. His Nega-Summon ability, which negates attacks from Servants and Noble Phantasms that aren't 'real'. That's why the Excalibur I gave you actually affected him, it was the real one… but as he could see, he is still… yeah…"
"Goetia is… packing a lot of power. The entirety of the world's history being used as power… please tell me that's only this loop's history?" She asked, very concerned as Ritsuka shrugged.
"I mean I would assume so, but that's not exactly an energy amount to scoff at." Artoria took a very, very deep breath.
"Ok… I can see I was overconfident, and that Goetia is a… problem. I assume he would have been easier to beat on my own if I had waited for Romani to… destabilize him?" the King of Knights asked and Ritsuka shrugged.
"We typically don't bother, he loses the ability to disperse the damage he takes around, and the absurd durability, but he still has Nega-Summon, so even Altria just lets me handle it, since its the only guaranteed way we have to kill him. You even missed his King of Men form, which is really, really easy. Even with all ten rings of Solomon at his disposal, I would expect you could kick his ass, since he's not a Beast anymore and doesn't have the entire energy of human history at his disposal." Ritsuka provided as Artoria started to rub her face.
"Ok… ignoring Goetia, is there anything past this point you can now inform me of?"
She really, really didn't like the pained looks both girls were giving her as it finally, finally settled in for Artoria Pendragon.
'Oh… this is going to be a long, long… long, loop.'
Shirou Emiya, begrudgingly, had to admit, she was impressive for someone so young. Altria had managed to find Rider and beat her with ease, killing her rather than sparing the gorgon with a frown on her face. She'd then moved on to find Caster and Assassin, informing the gatekeeper she had come to bargain with Caster.
Even more impressive, she'd managed to convince Medea to support her and explain how the grail was corrupted. She'd even given up one of her Holy Grails to Caster just to secure her support and Assassin's support. Apparently she'd had quite a lot of experience dealing with Medea in her own timeline, and knew just how she ticked, or at least knew her well enough that acting as model for her and giving up a grail was a small price to pay for her support.
Then she'd gone and found Gilgamesh, outright challenging the incarnated Archer outright with Medea and Sasaki as her back-up. He'd gotten angry, but accepted the challenge, which was where she proved just how far she'd planned ahead by managing to distract the King of Heroes long enough for Sasaki to sneak around and stab him with a borrowed Rule Breaker, which had just pissed him off, but had distracted him long enough for Artoria to pull out that self-same Excalibur she'd kept in her pocket and launch herself at Gilgamesh while he'd been trying to off Kojiro, taking the King of Heroes head as he'd neglected to put on his armor, like normal.
Then she'd moved onto Berserker, with Medea and Kojiro now told to stay back, and she'd just up and bested him without even bothering to pull anything fancy. When he'd asked later, she pointed out in her Baseline, she'd had to fight Hercules one normally, and another time with him being enhanced to being a sort of 'Super Hercules' or 'Megaros' as it had been dubbed, and she'd beaten both of those before.
With Lancer, Rider, Berserker and Gilgamesh dead, she'd gone after Kirei, killed him out of unbridled anger, then followed up with going straight for the Grail and blasting it with Excalibur, the one she'd had in her pocket.
In less than two days, she'd ripped her way through the entire Holy Grail War, and kept herself around using one of her spare Grails as a mana source, with Medea and Sasaki doing much the same with the one she'd given them.
"This was short, but it was enjoyable. Good practice," Altria had admitted, and Shirou remained silent. There were others who done similar, or worse to the combatants of this grail war… but there was just sort of a way of efficiency she had worked with that made it interesting to watch.
Quick and brutal to enemies, capable of making allies, utterly pragmatic, and focused entirely on achieving her goal, one set at a time. She hadn't even been tempted by the idea of the Greater Grail. She'd just did her job, and that was that.
"We could have done that far quicker," Rin complained to both version of Shirou.
"No one's denying that. But its still a bit shocking how young of a looper she is and this was how quickly she was capable of dismantling the Holy Grail War.," EMIYA admitted, as Shirou was quietly making dinner for the three of them.
He could say he hated her, and he probably would never accept her. But respect was a different story. She wasn't Saber Alter as they knew her. She was a warrior king who looked at their baseline and scoffed at it, because she fought things that easily outdid the 5th Holy Grail war in her own baseline, and even there, a lot of things gave her trouble, and she'd readily admitted as such. She knew when she was capable of doing something 'solo' or when she needed a team. And given the choice, she would always take a team with her… unless it was just not worth it.
The fact that Hercules was 'not worth it' by her standards already was a bit frightening.
"I would like to point out that our baseline is basically her job from what I remember correctly. She even said it herself, she's dealt with the fourth Holy Grail war before, that was how she knew how to deal with Gilgamesh so easily.
She hadn't shared much about her Baseline, only that they should try asking Cu later when he was awake. Similarly, he fully expected him to be just as annoyingly hard to pry information out of, but the Lancer hadn't been Awake in quite a while.
When the loop had ended, Altria Pendragon was nowhere to be found… outside of fashion magazines, since she'd seemed to be working with Medea on some… very interesting things.
He had however teased Rin over the fact she had clearly Pocketed a lot of said magazines because, even if she wasn't 'baeber' she still looked close enough. Rin had promised vengeance, and to shoot the crap out of Ritsuka Fujimaru the first time they met them, consequences be damned.
All and all, their first encounter with Altria Pendragon was… one they'd rather forget happened, but accepted had happened. They were all very glad to stay away from each other and that was good.
He also wasn't sure if the magazines he'd pocketed would be good blackmail material or if she was completely shameless about them.
AN: Welcome back, everyone, to the Fate/Type Infinite Loops. This hopefully be far more digestable chapters. I hope you all enjoy!
1.1: Septem in baseline is terrible. Septem in the Loops is... interesting.
1.2: Welcome to the loops Travelers! Sanson has poor luck with a lot of things.
1.3: Kouhai comes home.
1.4: Gambling and Golden Rules, never a good mix.
1.5: A pair of Sabers, Soulbound for all time. No one is happy with this, but everyone must live with it. Also, Modeling.