(Scathach)

The two spear-wielding Casters faced one another calmly; Scathach noticed that Cu Chulainn's looked an unusual shade of green rather than the almost glowing red of hers. But in any case, it's the skill that counts, she thought while going on the attack first. The first thrust was pushed to the side, and he went for a hand snipe which she defended against.

It was likely that once one side or the other got the upper hand in the overall battle, their impromptu duel would probably be interrupted by the winners. Perhaps both of them were thinking the same thing, since neither let up on their attacks; the closest to pulling back being really a method of footwork to get an extended point back in play after another unsuccessful lunge. It was also possible to turn into a cut, rather than only using arm strength, especially since that meant those arms could power a sudden pointwise attack.

Sidestepping a thrust in order to make her own, Scathach quickly transitioned into a side-swing as Cu turned his attack into an attempt to cut her right arm on the way back. High. Low. Their similarly lowered statistics due to class containers meant each attempt was a relatively serious commitment. On the other hand, both of them were working under similar constraints, so it largely washs out.

Spears flashed rapidly like lightning streaking forwards and bending back upon being repulsed by its like. Scathach tried using some runes to mix up the tempo and keep her opponent off guard, but it seemed that at such ranges, his (Protection from Arrows) was enough to allow him to counter despite having a lot less time to react than in their previous long-range duel. Truth be told though, it wasn't out of a desire to hold out on him that she hadn't been able to teach her student all her knowledge of runes. It would be counterproductive to leave her desired killer weaker.

"I was surprised to hear that you could be summoned into a Servant vessel," Cu commented during a brief lull. "Or perhaps the whole 'human history burning' thing means you're not around to block Servant-you."

"Apparently the World is also fine with allowing summons to before you were alive," she replied calmly. Normally, even though he could be summoned, it was unlikely that Cu Chulainn would have the ability or opportunity to meet her in the Land of Shadows - which would be pointless anyway, since her normal state was one that could not be destroyed by a Servant-level existence. "But you look better than when I last saw you."

"I could say the same for you," he countered, while countering a few of her lazier attacks. However, he did not seem tricked by them either. "You look more like when I first met you, rather than the last time."

She attempted to use bright runes to blind him while quickly repositioning to attack from the side, but something tipped him off, and Cu simply pulled back, trying to thrust low at her feet as she advanced. She sidestepped and pulled back while trying and failing to cut his forward hand. "Should that be a compliment? Obviously as a Servant my Spirit Core can be destroyed in battle."

"Depends what you want," he laughed. "Your current state means that it wasn't your indestructible self who got on the Throne of Heroes, but the Teacher of Heroes? There's all sorts. I mean... the queen's got this hilarious killing machine of a girl, even though she'd fit as my little sister before I received the spear. I'm pretty sure that her non-anger burns more destructively than most Noble Phantasms."

"Hmm, fifteen or so? Well we have a twelve-year old with us," Scathach commented idly, thinking to probe for some free information. "So she's the one blocking the summoning of this Sasaku the Masters keep trying to pull out."

"Didn't give her name," he started on the attack, but suddenly thought better of it. "But yeah, I know about your Chloe von Einzbern."

A rumbling sound approached quickly as Cu turned quickly to leave. "Hate to run, but orders, you know? Can't hold off an army of Servants solo like this," he gestured to his robes while a chariot pulled up in the usual Gallic fashion.

"Master, it's time," she sent ruefully, while saying nothing. Only a moment later, she felt a sudden burst of magical energy pouring in via their link, directing it into her spear, which was pointed at her student's retreating back. "(Gae Bolg-"

Cu Chulainn turned around, spear also at the ready and glowing an ominous red to match her own weapon. Scathach felt a quick moment of amusement, realizing that rather than specifically practice his spearwork like she had, the other Caster had worked on making sure he could use the weapon's most devastating technique. That amount of thought and preparation made her own idea of using a Command Spell to power her own seem lazy in comparison.

His hand moved back, preparing to throw, even as hers did so, almost in the same tempo.

An arrow came from somewhere off to the side, flickering towards the blue druid. Almost without having to be aware of it, Cu flicked the offending projectile away to the side, and then its partner.

Oh well, I guess this turned into a two-on-two anyway, Scathach reasoned, not hesitating at all to follow through with her attack. "-Alternative) !"

Leaping out as though trying to race unseen Chloe's third arrow to the target, her scarlet spear struck true. Undoubtedly killing even him-as-a-Servant in one go. She watched without satisfaction as Chloe's shot was deflected moments before the spear that did it fell from Cu Chulainn's powerless hand.

But still brightly emanating with power itself, Gae Bolg never reached the ground, flinging itself towards its original owner, who could only chuckle in dark amusement before she was run through. Because, of course, as long as he called its name, nothing else mattered, she thought as the summoned copy of the original spear ripped apart its first owner from within.

A meeting that could never have happened, and an exchange that would not be possible without summonings in a scenario so impossible, its very existence could damage the World's lines.

"How wonderful..." Someone praised the battlefield's many joinings and partings.

l

(Decebalus, last king of Dacia)

"Really?" he asked, as though unimpressed by the samurai's first attack. The plumes on his helmet nodded in agreement with his assessment. However, his opponent was not going to be baited that easily, only switching into a guard stance, all the more formidable by the reach advantage of his weapon.

He was unmoved. Armor aside, even reaching the king's hands would be hard given the forward-curving length of steel that would disagree with such an offense.

Smiling at the obvious trap of an invitation, he dropped the two-handed weapon in favor of a large oval shield and smaller falx before charging in. Kojirou deftly poked at the left side of his shield in an attempt to turn it in his hand, before smoothly transitioning to a downwards cut at his leg.

His speed is good, even for a Servant. Having a number of studs across the surface of his shield meant that it tended to catch the enemy's blade, rather than allow it to smoothly pass across in order to cut elsewhere, as Kojirou probably quickly noticed upon being thus caught.

Decebalus considered simply charging in, betting the engagement on his shield. But the uncertainty in how well such a defense would work against the samurai's special technique made him hesitate. There was also armor on his side and not the other, but...

"Tsk." He stepped back as the blade went for his feet again. Unlike with a spear, simply cutting around in a circle made for a decent play. Hmm.

Bringing his weapon close to his body, and hidden behind his shield, the Dacian made to attack, slightly turning this shield to the left, with his body angled the opposite way. A sword flashed past the right edge, doubtless thinking that the mail protecting the holder's shoulder would be easily pierced.

*clink* The attacking steel was caught and trapped as Decebalus quickly dropped his defenses to quickly grab hold of the weapon with both hands. Blades that pushed the lengths of the day's metallurgy, as he well knew, usually had some issues of their own - otherwise they wouldn't be exceptional.

Pushing with one hand and pulling with the other, one warrior bent about the end third of the other's weapon out of shape.

"Damn," Kojirou said in some astonishment as the Dacian closed in on him, sword in hand to exploit the opening. "You knew."

"I have you now!" He charged in, ready to lop off whatever target first presented itself within range of his largest falx. He swung.

Kojirou disappeared moments before being struck.

*slice* The screams of iron rings protesting as they snapped, maybe a hundred of them, was his warning that the samurai had cut him somewhere at the back, right side! Stumbling in that direction from the momentum of the cut more than pain, he turned his blade around and blindly let fly. And was rewarded with a massive spray of blood as the falx bit in and ripped its way through unprotected flesh.

Gritting his teeth as Decebalus' cut laid his gut open, the samurai steadied his apparently now undamaged blade by moving his left hand about a third of the way up from the guard, clearly going for one last attack.

The king saw the attack coming, of course, and met it with his own weapon coming in a simple pass back from his earlier, devastating, swing. The two blades made contact.

Impossibly given the momenta involved, the heavy falx simply bounced off as though it had been swung into a rock. The incoming thrust, undeflected, kept going as the surprised defender turned to avoid taking it head on, while taking out his shorter weapon.

The samurai's weapon made contact, blowing through armor, flesh, and then more armor on the way out. "Ah," he commented while both of them dropped to their knees. "You dodged it."

Decebalus could only laugh in a manner of speaking, given that about half of his left lung had just been lost. Even though that attack had not been successful in reaching his heart or spiritual core, he could tell that... "A mutual kill?"

"Shut up." Unnoticed up until she spoke, Boudica arrived on her chariot, having already observed that the field was lost. Reaching down, she grabbed her Saber and hauled him up into the chariot as the Chaldeans came running up to get revenge for their comrade. "We're getting back to the fortress, now!" She ducked as a black beam shot overhead, but abruptly cut off to shouting from the enemy Archer about someone's terrible aim.

l

(An hour later)

(Outside the Control Hub, Boudica's Oppidium)

One of the druids reviewed the outcome of the Servants' skirmish to the west; Boudica's side had lost Lancer and Caster, Saber was also wounded. The Chaldeans had lost their Caster and one Saber. Though their knight, Saint Georgios apparently, had been shot up by Berserker, it seemed likely he would be combat-ready given her attacks were ineffective against armored Servants.

"It's four on three, they will press the attack," Boudica muttered darkly. "And Assassin is too far away, basically off the board."

"We should prepare the defense," Saber muttered while several druids tried to speed up his regeneration. However, it seemed like that Kojirou's thrust had done far more conceptual damage than expected and they couldn't figure out why.

"That's a big ask," Robin Hood said from near a window. "For our 'three', Berserker can't actually fight them directly. And well, I've laid my traps but they might be cleverer than to walk into them. Or their Archer might good enough."

"That girl is the least fighty Berserker I've ever laid eyes on," Decebalus groused. "She's also probably the least berserk one too."

"That's because you haven't heard of the future's concept of Berserkers," Boudica explained. "As I understand it, they're self-replicating systems capable of exterminating any amount of life."

Robin Hood shrugged. "I've never seen more than one of her, and if she could 'exterminate' four Servants worth of life, we wouldn't have this problem."

"You probably need at least two of 'compatible types' for... wait a moment, Servants don't have children," Saber tried to follow along largely because there was little else to do while he was practically out of action.

"She'll suffice to kill the Romans." Boudica had made her mind up. "Archer. We'll need to put up a good show and buy as much time."

"So. You're going to use the Grail on that?" Archer had his doubts regarding her perceived path to victory. "I don't see why killing more Romans will solve the force about to attack us."

"They're from the future, which in this case really means, across a Quantum Timelock," Berserker said in her usual neutral tone, appearing without a sound as was her wont. "If there is enough disruption within this period, the path which the World order wants to take becomes impossible. They become impossible."

She tried to hand over the Holy Grail to Boudica who, surprised at first, tried to stop her before thinking better of it; after taking the Grail into her hands, the Queen then handed it back to Berserker.

"Ah." Watching that exchange had apparently given Robin Hood a sudden, particular, insight. "So that's her Madness Enhancement type."

"Heh. So you figured it out," Boudica chuckled. "She doesn't have any internal motivations except to carry out my orders."

"You know, that seems like even more of a liability," the Archer commented. "I mean, there's a whole lot of stories about exactly this sort of thing going horribly wrong."

"Worry not," the Berserker smiled indulgently as though the reassurance was unnecessary, but not begrudged. "I don't happen to suffer from the corrigibility problem."

"Yeah... that probably makes me worry even more. But in for a day, in for a campaign, I guess." He looked over at where Decebalus was. "You going to be able to take part in this?"

"If they get this far I'll give them a fight," the Dacian said while not moving from his position. "Lancer's healing water trick would have been very useful here."

"It would have been," Boudica agreed with only half a mind on their discussion, already turning to other matters. "Alright. Cancel all my previous orders."

"Understood."

"Now, follow these ones in the given priority; first..."

l

"I do appreciate 'use it or lose it', but couldn't you find a way to turn this apocalypse launcher setup to ground defense? That's a lot of magical energy to not be using on Chaldea." Robin Hood looked out over the rolling landscape that was the most direct path from their previous battlefield to the fortress they now stood in. It was also, of course, the least likely path for them to take, though he did make sure to put some traps just in case they were so bold and so foolish as to simply walk into their sights.

"Unfortunately, Berserker's shots are limited in power depending on the distance involved; it's not tactically applicable. That's why she wanted to shoot them at Arretium." Boudica seemed uninterested in the upcoming battle. Perhaps resigned was more like it.

Somewhere behind them, magical energy began spilling out from the extremely compact storage known as a Holy Grail.

Closing her eyes, the Servant turned ever so slightly, pointing in the exact direction of Roma as the numerous ritual circles laid down by Caster between her own setup and the city began to resonate as designed.

Heading and distance locked in. The spears would only interact with gravity before materializing, making considerations of wind unnecessary. Her consciousness, instead of being confined to her internal space, expanded to fill the details of the stronghold in the sharpest awareness.

"Follow along now," she murmured, easily and clearly heard in the quietness of the Hub.

"Let us begin to build, so that the builders build in vain.
Let us keep watch, so that the watchmen watch in vain."

At first, the larger system's activation was like watching a hologram unfold in parts, centered around Cu Chulainn's prepared areas. Distances, angles, the curvature of the earth across such ranges all began filling in, along with Assassin's last few calibrated target coordinates of various Roman cities and towns. She took a moment to remove Massalia from the target list since it had already been taken and occupied by friendly forces.

The druids were talking among themselves quietly, but in many ways they were far away while Roma was very close. Close enough that one could simply throw a spear over its walls.

The many voices in the grail were praying, singing, crying, begging, depending on who exactly it had been that died and found that, in the confines of a Singularity, a Grail might have a far greater draw on their soul than the Root which it would normally run to. For the Queen's warriors, this was a chance to stab at the enemy from beyond the grave, and for those enemies who had fallen in already...

l

(Two months ago)

"They deserved it. They deserved worse!" The Queen had demanded vengeance in bloody and no uncertain terms. "If it is not for me to bring down the Romans, then you do it; tell me how to kill as many of them as possible."

"Do you want to farm them?"

Boudica paused upon hearing this answer, realizing immediately the mistake she had made. "I want to destroy their civilization, nation, people, whatever it is that they call Roman."

"That problem is not so hard." The Berserker had taken in all this calmly. She was there, after all, to solve problems. "We are nearing the Second Punic War, with Servants it is very unlikely for the Romans to survive. Then resettle all their lands, replacing whatever is there with your own people. Then you will have blotted out the memory of them from under heaven, as we say, 'I remember what he did to me along the way,' our children not even knowing the name thereof."

"The World order will not allow such a divergence," Fionn had added at that point. "If this Singularity does not diverge enough to cause a breech, the World may be able to replace it with some alternative, and we will all be pruned away."

"I see." The girl toyed with the sleeves of her dress while thinking. "So it comes to extreme measures... allow me to propose something which will accomplish your goals and satisfy your desires-"

l

(Present day)

Human souls could not do as much work as those of Servants, but even so, she would lead them all. She checked the list of targets; fifteen long, Roma showed up several times. Due to its size and the established circular error probable, she adjusted these to specific sub-targets within various districts.

All the initial fluctuations of startup had bled away to acceptable levels, and as expected, the link between the Grail and the rest of the system seemed stable enough. She told one of the druids to inform Boudica that everything was ready for her order.

It didn't take long to arrive.

"Kill them all and let us see what the World can do."

She nodded simply. Unlike the druids, there was no reason for her to have expected otherwise. Things have come to this point; this is the moment of decision.

"This is a day of judgment, these are times of retribution.
This is a day of right-ruling, these are times of vengeance."

The Second Exchange was shot about two minutes after that, and travelling at about five times the speed of sound before materializing, would arrive at the Forum Romanum another fifteen minutes later. Without Hannibal around to provide damage assessments, and honestly even with it, she was shooting into the dark, like one throwing out a net into the sea at night and pulling it out full of catch. Except, of course, it was millions of shards moving fast enough to complicate evasion for a Servant.

However, all of that was idle thought. Integrity assessment, no issues. Opening the metaphorical sluicegate, she began drawing out another Exchange worth of the stored magical energy, preparing the calculations to target Ariminum this time.

Let's dedicate the Third to Caster, who made this possible.

"A man with no lance crafted for himself, A barbed spear that pierces with death.
Flying with speed to shame the eagle, A soaring spear that strikes with death."