(Still farming Artorium...)
"Well, humanity has certainly more than taken up the slack in harming one another from external harms like wild beasts," Gudao shrugged. "Whle there are apparently limitations on the likes of Anti-Planet Noble Phantasms, whole collective self immolation is entirely doable with modern weaponry."
"Don't be so down on mankind. Wahaha, chaos and war has always been mankind's default state, one which it slides back into every now and then. A return to form, one might say. Sometimes the ones what speak the loudest about peace are also the bloodiest by the end - if they succeed," Nobunaga had doubtless enough experience during her run at unifying the land.
"I don't think that means we should give up on the principles of Order," Okita frowned, distracted by something off in the distance.
"No, certainly not," the Master agreed with both of them. "But we can only have real peace where guaranteed by ourselves; otherwise it is order in the manner of livestock lined up to be butchered in an orderly or even industrial fashion."
"One moment, Master..." Nobunaga had caught onto Okita's disposition and with her Archer's perception identified the cause more precisely. "There's someone else coming up on them?"
Indeed, a third figure seemed to be running up to their pair of Artoria and X as they returned back to the group's base camp in to end their last scheduled Free Quest for the current rotation.
"There's a familar atmosphere in the air," X commented to her companion while turning to see who was swiftly approaching them. "Wait, you're..."
Artoria blinked in surprise at what looked like X's twin, only dressed in white rather than blue. "A friend of yours came looking for you?"
"No one would be able to simply get here," X reminded the Saber. "Something is wrong. Hold right there, who are you?"
The figure stopped some distance away, not so far that they couldn't hear one another without having to raise voices. "X, I see. And... oho, Artoria Pendragon Saber Lily Alter says the space-scouter." She took a combat stance. "As a famous person said, X: You're off the case !"
"You can't be..." Grimacing, X quickly brought out her beam saber. "Bold move from an Assassin, to challenge the ultimate Anti-Saber. Hoh, I see. Don't think by avoiding my supereffective modifier you can win here though."
"X, you fool ! Having mastered the Saber Ninja Arts, I know that you have already brought about your own downfall: you are no longer operating solo. Don't think anyone but me will be leaving here alive. Me, Ultra Heroine Z, just a passing Saber killer, remember that ! Not that you will live long with that knowledge..."
"I'm not going to listen to you any longer !" With that X charged in quickly as Z brought up her own beam saber to meet her. The two had only exchanged a couple blows, in the span of only a single breath, before it began to seem as though Z might have had reason for her confidence.
"So weak," Z taunted her opponent. "Now that I look closely at you, you aren't even a Saber at all ?!"
"Hmph !" Quickly shifting gears, X whipped out her second, darkness-clad blade and tried to take Z by surprise, but was shocked in turn as Z calmly revealed her own second weapon to block the attack.
"You weren't listening," Z remarked smugly.
Narrowing her eyes, X took a quick step back, immediately provoking an attack of opportunity from Z, who put her twin swords to try and hem X in from either side. Cutting downwards deftly, it seemed Z aimed to end the duel by taking off X's hands.
In the same tempo, X made a horizontal cut while reversing her motion, catching both Z's weapons with her left one and immediately thrusting with her now unopposed right blade.
"Hhh..."
From her position a little behind the action, Artoria couldn't see clearly this particular exchange. However, moments before X's point might have pierced Z, she suddenly was stopped short.
*fwoosh*
Appearing as though by magic from the side, an identical copy of Z thrust into X's side, running the Mysterious Heroine through with her beam saber.
"X !" Artoria did see this surprise attack, but just too far to do anything but watch as multiple copies of Z materialized as through from a nightmare to pierce X though from multiple angles like a recreation of the assassination of Caesar. Only moments after this, though, they all turned as one towards Artoria, extracting their weapons from X's smoking body in the process."
"Kill her." "Kill her." "Kill her." "Kill her." "Kill her." "Kill her." "Kill her."
"I think not," Gudao quickly waved Nobunaga and Okita to his side before reaching out a hand to his distant Saber and using a Command Spell. "Artoria, get over here!" Almost instantly, the magical energy of the command dragged the Servant backwards to the group, away from the attacking Z clones.
"Light them up," he said moments before their Archer's guns opened the next stage of battle with a thunderous volley.
Much to the gun enthusiast Servant's disappointment, her fire did not seem to have any effect, as all of Z's copies could be seen quickly blocking arquebus balls with their beam sabers like it was an unexceptional feat.
"Ah," Artoria observed. "It seems like they've trained in the third form of beam saber combat. According to X, it was for a more civilized age where guns were more common, before everyone started picking up swords. Well, she also said that even people with guns are becoming Sabers nowadays without even a bayonet for a blade so I don't know what to make of it..."
"Artoria, I think it's high time we did another stress test of Excalibur," Gudao broke in at this moment. "Ideally before they think to spread out."
"Understood." Quickly sheathing her Caliburn, the Saber paused for a moment to pull her Santa hat out of Inventory before gripping the related Noble Phantasm firmly in both hands.
Chaldea's Master thought for a short second. "Try to direct the blast horizontally to catch them all. Alright, receive my Command: Show them your Promised Victory !"
The Holy Sword lit up brightly as the energies of a Command Seal swiftly flooded it to capacity. "It's time for presents," the blade's wielder braced herself against the upcoming recoil. "Receive the enlightenment that comes of destruction, (Excalibur) !"
l
As they were swiftly closing the distance on Chaldea's group, Z couldn't miss the light of their Saber's weapon, being the type to notice anyone carrying a sword.
There's no way X could have taught her how to fire something like that, the Assassin clones all thought in the same tempo. After all, the Excalibur from our Servantverse doesn't shoot beams.
But of course, as X with more information had surmised, Artoria already knew how to fire off a Holy Sword, Caliburn, and the main task was simply to strengthen Excalibur with Artorium to enable it to be used to its full potential. And repeatedly, at that.
Though obviously Z couldn't have known all this. However, Artoria was about to bestow upon Z a much more succinct and directly applicable understanding. There was no way to defend against such an attack with only beam sabers, Saber Ninja Arts or not. In other words:
I made a mistake!
l
*CRACK* *clatter*
"Aaaah !"
*thud*
Even above the deafening roar of Excalibur's discharge, Gudao could make out the sickening sound of the weapon breaking. There was no way to know if the last harvest of Artorium would have provided enough Strengthening to prevent it or not, but considering that the backlash of unconstrained energy from the tail end of the attack had doubled back and ripped open Artoria's right arm, there was no time for pondering.
"How many of them survived?" he asked crisply, focusing on the main threat.
"A few right at the back of the group seem to have been shielded by those in front," Nobunaga confirmed grimly. "They're still charging, of course."
"Well, after that I don't think they'd feel confident in escape," Gudao remarked, thinking quickly.
"... I still have Caliburn," Artoria groaned, leaving her Santa hat where it had fallen on top of the dropped Excalibur.
"I don't think so," the Master said while adjusting his plans. "Okita. One Command Spell left, think you can tie them up?"
"I can take them," the sakura Saber replied confidently.
"Yes, but not what we need; rather you focus on not getting cut. Nobunaga, use your fire to keep them suppressed, but see if you can also concentrate say half your guns on one or two to try and break through." The Archer quickly nodded, preparing more weapons.
"Ok, let's see... Okita, show them how a genius wields a sword."
With a flash of steel and light step, the Saber headed out fearlessly towards the incoming knot of surviving Z clones.
"Right." Gudao turned his attention towards his wounded Saber. "Don't worry about that sword for now, let me take a look at your arm." There were sections of his multi-layered Mystic Code setup that would greatly amplify his abilities to help restore damaged Spirit Origins; in other words, healing for Servants. Not a bad trick, considering how normally mending higher-level entities would be extremely taxing. Indeed, it was a collaborative effort with Scathach's healing runes, which was in fact the basis for that particular Mystic Code.
(First Aid)
(A few minutes later)
*huff* *huff*
Carefully making sure that the enemy Saber was between her and Chaldea's Gunner, the very last Z couldn't help but feel that things had gone very against plan. Taking out X was well enough, but it was important that she take up, or continue performing rather, the anti-Saber work.
Fortunately I do have the protection of being a 'Joke Chara-
*slice* *thud*
Z's head fell to the ground as Okita's last attack sharply ended the battle.
...
"I see you've cleaned up already," Artoria commented while coming up on her ally, who had calmly begun cleaning her blade.
"They were surprisingly careless," Okita shrugged while looking around her. "Or rather, they expected to only be facing a single blade at a time." After witnessing the developments of Kojirou and Chloe, the genius swordswoman simply had to come up with something new herself. While such a feat would be hard for a Servant, whose vessels usually had fairly stable parameters, for someone like her it was possible.
After observing the Laundry-Drying Pole being used to triple cut, making evading near-impossible, the next thought for one who might have to face multiple opponents at once was to now strike about herself three times at once. As a result, a Z who had thought to take Okita from head-on and either side at once, would be taken by a nasty surprise. Okita herself remembered being on the receiving end of Kojirou's three cuts.
"Wonderful," Artoria was also keeping an eye out just in case. After all, Chaldea's group had already been attacked once, and the thought of enemies dropping in to ambush them even in the relatively randomly located and short-lived Free Quests would now be a long-term concern for standard resource runs. "To be able to use that 'quick-step' over and over though, that must have been due to-"
"Command Spell, yes. Ah... if it was like flying before, that was like flying with a jet engine. Or something."
"If only it was possible to learn this power..."
"Your type leans more towards Holy Swords, so it certainly would be hard. But unfortunately it's hard for us to teach as we don't have that sort of affinity like Scathach."
Nobunaga and Gudao met up with the pair of Sabers, also on high alert. "Where's X?" Gudao asked.
"... let's take a look and see if we can find her." Sheathing her weapon, Okita moved towards the place where X had fallen to the blades of the first few Zs to appear.
"Well, I'll be !"Nobunaga was of course the first to spot the prone figure of X. "She's still alive. Either that or people like her actually leave a body." The Chaldeans quickly rushed over to attend to Artoria's sword instructor.
*cough* "That would qualify as a close shave indeed," X mumbled as Artoria helped her to her feet.
"I thought for sure that she had done you in for good," the Saber apologized, thinking the statement was in reference to her Excalibur attack.
"Nah, thankfully I shelled out for the deluxe Aahvalon armor with low-observability features that Z hadn't... observed. After all, don't you know that most of the old Caesar's wounds were relatively superficial, and we have regeneration? After losing consciousness for a bit I was able to recover automatically once combat ended," X explained. "By the way, Z is totally dead, huh?"
"Seems so," Nobunaga informed her. "Unless she has something like Presence Concealment?"
"Not really part of the Saber Ninja Arts. I mean it includes ambushes but not in the manner of an Assassin. Though, she was an Assassin, huh. How odd..." No one wanted to comment on the irony of said statement.
"We should return to Chaldea so that Scathach can look you over," Guado said. "Also, this Free Quest is probably about to collapse and while we can be pulled out by reversing the Rayshift, your link to Chaldea's Grail System is much weaker so you risk being lost to the Void if we don't get back to our drop-in point for an organized extract."
"Wait. Z's ship should be nearby, and it will have her navigational data to get back home." X suppressed a cough. "Though she did a number on me, it's also that break we were discussing before. Since she didn't seem to crash, I'm sure it will have functional shielding that will keep us safe even if the Quest falls apart."
"It'll be a close call," Nobunaga shrugged. "We better go now, one way or another."
"We'll have to go with you," Gudao quickly decided. "Can the two of you help her?"
(Ultra Heroine Z's Spaceship)
"It's a bit odd that Z's craft just dropped shields and opened up for us," Okita said, helping X into the pilot seat before looking around. "You don't look so good..."
"It's just the lighting in here," X lied. "Can the three of you quickly go outside and check for any anchors? We wouldn't want to go down with the ship, er Quest rather. I'll run though the start-up sequence."
"... not much time but we'll get it done," Nobunaga quickly answered, receiving a nod from their Master. "What do the anchors look like?"
"Like beacons or something stereotypical. If it's just sitting outside looking futuristic, destroy it."
"We better hurry then," Gudao checked some of his sensor Mystic Codes. "Get on that startup."
...
Watching the Chaldeans leave, X waited for them to move away a bit, specifically a minimum safe distance, before pressing the emergency take-off sequence button. The ship's Artorium reactor quickly kicked into high gear as the shields went up, locking the outside group, well, out. They probably wouldn't notice anything was up, but X knew that it wasn't the time for discussion.
Because after all, Z had damaged X's Spirit Core in the sort of first-strike sure-kill method espoused by the Saber Ninja Arts. Gudao might, or might not, have caught X's small slip in that Caesar had sustained at least one mortal wound... and in this case that was precisely Z's very first attack. And that meant it wasn't likely she could survive the process of returning to Chaldea.
If, as the ship seemed to think, Z was very close to X in essence, then the former's death strongly implied that X could in fact fully die in this Universe; because her character protection, much valued in the Shining Blue Galaxy, didn't hold here. Added to which, there was no guarantee the usual result of being reborn would occur if she perished outside. So I'll just have to skip out right now.
None too soon: readings suggested that the outside fabric was rapidly starting to break apart, due in general to Excalibur, but more locally to her engine activation. Based off the usual pre-flight safety scans, the Chaldeans had already been pulled back to safety homewards.
Excellent.
Coughing up blood, X quickly opened up Navigation to examine Z's preset route home and turn on the autopilot while she was still able to act.
The system was empty.
Panicking slightly, X got up and awkwardly stumbled over to the full mapping console a little further back, only to confirm that Z had presumably downloaded all navigational data and wiped the system before confronting her.
Ah, I use the same old anti-theft measure, X thought numbly looking at the blank screen. She did that sort of thing on worlds where thieves were known to make off with spacecrafts via the emergency takeoff and then be picked up by accomplices with their new ship at the nearest preset jump location which the system would fly to. The emergency system and autopilot made it easy to get away with a ship one was not otherwise familiar with, as those systems were mostly universal due to navigational safety regulations.
I can still try to pick up Chaldea and hand-fly there.
*footsteps* ... *thud*
Half-way back to the pilot's seat, X 'tripped' and collapsed onto the floor. Even if she was able to get back up, it was obvious that there was no way she would be able to pilot the ship to, even though it was literal in this case, save her life.
Can't be helped... X thought hazily before blacking out for what she expected to be the last time ever.