AN- well, here we go again. I present you more of James chatting shit.

Chapter 19

If there was ever one Sacred thing in the household I grew up in, it was evening meals. At dinner time, you must be home, you must sit at the table, phones must be put away, and by all that is holy, you must engage in conversation. To a lesser degree, I had picked up this mindset, so it was with great joy that I sat down at the table for dinner with all my Servants. Medea had awoken from her slumber a good half an hour ago and was admittedly still tinkering away with that shielding ring under the table, but was largely cognizant, while Mata Hari had only just made her way home with a spring in her steps.

"Dig in everyone~" Boudica declared, placing enough dishes down to feed an army, while beside her Kiyohime was already distributing plates and dishes and was serving the food. I made sure to keep an eye on her as she served my overly large portion- didn't want her to do anything too Kiyohime.

We needed no more prompting to dig in- each and every one of us was going to need all the energy could. And so like a pack of hyenas, we descended upon the food and for ten glorious minutes of silence we consumed and devoured. It could only be described as a massacre of calories. With satisfaction at our ruthless consumption, we all sat back and basked in the afterglow of such a well-cooked meal. Kiyohime's eastern dishes had been… interesting (I could taste something that seemed just off), while Boudica lived up to her claims of being a master of British foods- it was nostalgic to just tuck into some good old English food.

"Now…" I began, pushing my empty dish aside. "With stomachs filled, perhaps we should get down to business?"

My words echoed a shift in mood- backs straightened and eyes narrowed. Dinner had been an oddly quiet moment of reprieve from the Holy Grail War, but soon we would be back in the thick of things. It was time to get Serious.

"Shall I begin?" Assassin asked, and at my prompting she pressed on to give me her full report. She'd told me a little bit telepathically about how she'd gotten her information, but I'd decided to wait until her return for a proper report. "Well, the first thing I should mention is my run in with Gilgamesh, the Archer of the last War."

"How did that go exactly?" Lancer asked. "From what I have been told, he has yet to act, so what caused him to do so now?"

"He wanted to share some information with me. I admit that I still don't know how he found me, so I'll need to be more careful now, but he had some useful advice." Assassin admitted. "Firstly, he recommends that we go and bother Ruler up at the church. Apparently, someone has grabbed the Idiot Ball, either us or Ruler, and there's some key information that we haven't been told or asked for."

I nodded my head grimly. I wasn't looking forwards to it, but we'd need to get that taken care of sooner rather than later. "Maybe we can do it tomorrow?" I suggested. "Either way, we don't have time today."

A round of agreements all round.

"Next bit of advice. There are still 'two more'." Assassin directly quoted the man.

"Two more? Of what?"

"Exactly." She nodded her head solemnly. So, she didn't know either. Did Gilgamesh mean that there were two more Servants active that I wasn't aware of? Perhaps a sneaky Avenger or a Shielder? Or was the message a little more context specific?

"Fuck. And it's not like we can go bother him to find out more." Well, we could, if we didn't enjoy living. Gilgamesh had decided to gift us some information, for some reason I really couldn't understand, and I doubt he'd be happy to have to elaborate.

"Hmmm… I'll put some thought into the matter." Scathach mused, and I left it at that. If anyone could figure out his words, it would be my Lancer.

"Anything else?"

"Well, he also pointed me in the direction of Waver and Iskandar, and we both know how well that went." Very well indeed. Gilgamesh had done me a great boon, unfortunately… and I hoped that he wouldn't come and bother me later to repay it.

"Now, tell me of the Red Team." I demanded, for that was the most important point.

Mata Hari smiled. "Oh, I can tell you of the Red Team. Firstly, their temple. A single Servant stands guard at the temple gateway- a Berserker of some kind with inhuman attributes."

Inhuman attributes? I had no clue what Heroic Spirit could be like that? Someone birthed of a monster or monstrous? Maybe a Berserker!Medusa? "Did our little source tell us anything more about Berserker of Red?"

"The Master has refused to say anything more of his identity." She sadly informed me. "Inside the temple, most of it had already been demolished, but some of the area closer to the lake are more or less untouched. They will likely retreat there to their protections should the gate be overrun. As for the Servants and Masters… we obviously have Waver and his Rider." A tough pair of enemies ordinarily- but since we were attacking tonight I was pretty confident in our chances if we fought him.

"Berserker and his Master, a certain Haruhi Borzak, whom specialises in defensive Witchcraft." A Servant and Master whom were both unknown to my knowledge of the Nasuverse. It was a shame that we didn't know more- but she had volunteered his services as the sole protector of the temple gates for a reason. I felt that the Blues who would serve as our vanguard would have quite a bit more trouble with Berserker than expected.

"Then there is Cornelius Alba and his Caster, whom we have all come to dislike." Fucking tophat wearing prick whom burnt my damn hotel down… "He's another one with his cards close to his chest. From what I can gather though, Caster is very much a Caster. He is proficient with spells of all elements and possesses a sword that serves as his Noble Phantasm." Odd for a Caster to be wielding a blade. Whatever next? An Archer with swords? Rhetorical- already canon. "He wields Elementals, uses Jewelcraft and apparently can create Philosophers Stones."

Now that last point was an interesting one. "Oooh… he's an alchemist of some kind then. My guess is Nicolas Flamel." Thank you, Harry Potter.

"It's as good a guess as any." Lily said with some frustration. "Do you know just how many people have legends tying into the Philosophers Stone? Even Isaac Newton was said to dabble in Alchemy." So really, while we'd narrowed the field, we still had quite a lot of suspects.

"Moving on… there is one Servant we don't need to worry about. One of the Masters has already lost his Servant, and is apparently a fairly average Magus when compared to the others."

"Lost as in dead or-"

"Stolen." She clarified.

"Medea…" Caster growled, finally speaking up. So- we'd likely see the Servant when we headed to the Tohsaka mansion. "Who was the Servant?"

"Julius Caesar." I heard a sudden shattering sound. Rider had slammed her first down hard- and we now had a shattered plate and a cracked table to worry about.

"A Roman…" She growled. There was a dark look in her eye that seemed awfully unusual, and her whole body trembled. "They have a damned Roman."

"Fuck. Romans killed her whole family, didn't they? And doesn't she dislike them enough that she has an entire damned Skill revolving around her fighting Romans?"

"Boudica… is this going to be a problem." I asked softly.

"No." She said, resolutely. "I can… I can stay my hand." For Now, went unsaid. "You can't trust a Roman, but it's not like the rest of the Blue Team is very trustworthy either. No- they truly are a match made in hell."

"Very well then." I said, hesitantly. I was going to have to keep an eye out, either way. "Who… who else do we need to worry about?"

"Luvia Edelfelt summoned a noble Archer. What you would typically expect of an Archer Class Servant, really." Finally, a Master I recognised. Luvia wasn't necessarily a good enemy to have, but she was predictable. A richer, snootier Ojou-Sama version of Rin. She basically is just another Rin at this point- we should just pair the two off to have a perfectly balanced fight- what with both using the same type of Magecraft and both having an Archer whom really is an archer.

"Next threat- an Enforcer was sent into the fray to replace the one on the Blue Team that's already been defeated." Ouch- Enforcers are no joke at all. Guaranteed to be a strong Master then. I should avoid them if at all possible. "A woman named Forte." Forte… I'd heard the name before, but I couldn't quite picture it. A very minor character, in other words. "Her Servant is an Assassin not of the Hassan archetype."

I rolled my eyes at that. "Poor Hassan-kun. Looks like nobody in this crazy war summoned one of you." There, there, there. I'm sure someday will love you as one of the stone-hearted murderers that you are. Just not in this war. "How Assassin-y is he?"

"Not very. Charles Henry Sanson is an executioner, after all." There. We. Go. A direct damned name! Concrete, solid evidence!

"Ohoh. Sanson, eh? Umm… who is he again?"

"The Executioner who popularised the Guillotine and killed many a peasant and noble alike across the Revolution." Lily explained thoughtfully. "A fellow Frenchman too. It will be a shame to have to face him, as I would have loved to talk to him about the France we both adore. Alas, such is War."

An Executioner… sounded like he would be a Servant more suitable for straight up combat and killing, anyhow. No need to fear him offing us in our sleep- an executioner is direct, and you always see him coming. And I could almost sense what kind of Noble Phantasm an executioner would possess. If it doesn't include a one hit kill, I will be very surprised. "We'll have to be careful, then. One opening and it'll be off with our heads." It was a sobering thought, but a necessary one. Medea could heal the dying, but if you're dead then you are flat out of luck. And insta-kill allows no time between cause and effect of death.

And then it hit me. A Servant specialising in killing. Without thinking about it, my eyes slipped to Lancer. "Whatever I do, I cannot let them fight. Because if anyone can provide the death Scathach seeks, it would be an Executioner."

"That's six Servants." Scathach pointed out.

"The seventh is Hector." Assassin dropped the bomb rather casually. "Waver's boss lady summoned him."

"By Zeus… so we'll be facing Hector from the Trojan War." Medea's eyes squinted adorably. "He'll be a problem. I don't think that any shield I could create would be able to block his spear."

"Then I suppose I'll just have to burn him to a crisp before he can throw it then, right?" Kiyohime hummed lightly. "In fact, I should just burn them all, to be honest."

"You… you go do that." I told her, giving her my full blessing for her homicidal urges. Because better they be directed at them than at myself.

"Oh Anchin, I will." She said, and it was sorted.

I rose from my seat and approached Assassin, who looked up with a pouty face. Then… I gave her the best head pat I could. "Mata Hari… you did good." I told her, matter of factly. She'd finally delivered on the hype today- giving me the information that I desperately sought. The Reds were no longer the ominous spectre that I'd feared for so long. The curtain had been pulled aside, and the actors revealed to the stage. She couldn't get everything, but her actions today had exceeded all my expectations.

Assassin, funnily enough, looked like a cat in the way of a truck. "E-eh?" And so in a very rare occasion, the spy and seductress flushed a hearty crimson- apparently in embarrassment. "W-well, of course I did." She spluttered. "P-praise me more!?"

"You did very good." I reaffirmed- because good work should be rewarded. And I could give her nothing but my praise. Nothing but praise and a headpat worthy of Shade himself. "Thank you. Not even Saber could have gotten me all this."

"Thank you, Master~" Mata Hari basked in the praise and the head pats- finally vindicated.

However, all was not well. "I. Am. So. Damned. Jealous." Kiyohime, please don't set fire to the table. Correction, please stop setting fire to the table.

"You certainly seem happy." Lancer noted.

"Why shouldn't I be?" I finished the head pats and returned to my seat. "I feel ready for tonight. For the first time in forever, we aren't going in blind. We'll be going in with an army, and it is with every resource we can muster. The Red Team are known factors now, and even my Magecraft is finally starting to come along."

"Did you finish your homework?"

"Damn skippy did I." With a flourish, I removed my finished product- a single sheet of paper with a set of Runes carefully traced upon it.

"I asked for one set of Combat Runes, not two."

"The second was so quick to do it really wasn't a worry." I shrugged. "Besides. The first one is the only real combat combat spell. The second is just kinda a specialised last resort, y'know?"

"Even so, good job. And since you seem so fond of them…"

"Lancer, when did you rise from your seat, and why are you now patting my head?"

"Good work is to be rewarded with head pats, is it not?" I was almost certain that Scathach was teasing me, but I damn well couldn't call her on it, could I?

"Urk. Can we get this soppy stuff out the way?" Medea called out. "We still need to go over the plan for tonight, don't we?"

"We do." I agreed.

"Also, here." A throw and a catch, and a second ring was added to my collection.

"You finished the Shield Ring?"

"I finished the Shield Ring. Amazing the quality of your work when you aren't high as a kite from magical energy drinks, huh?" Energy drinks are hit and miss. The work you do at 3 in the morning and high on caffeine either far surpasses anything you could ever do while cognizant or is actually just trash.

"Even better then." Because James always approves of new toys to help stop myself getting shanked. "So yeah. Let's go over things one last time before we set off. We're going to the Tohsaka manor to gather up, then we'll head to the Temple. The Blue's will be the vanguard that hits the Temple first, while we'll act as support and sweet in when the way is clear. We'll need to decide tactics when we meet the Blues, and we'll also need to make sure the terms are fulfilled on their end. A Command Seal applied to each Servant, and a Geass contract for each Master. So while the Blues are all filthy backstabbers save for Rin, we should hopefully be able to limit their avenues for betrayal."

Head, meet table. Except that for once it wasn't me doing the headbashing. "I'm an idiot." Medea stated.

"How so?" Lily queried.

"I really should have pointed this out the moment you told us that we were teaming up. Blame it on the energy drinks and lack of sleep and absence of me at the meeting with the Blue's representative. Master, the Geass contracts and Command Seals… they'll be about as useful as a boat made of tissue paper."

Say what now?

"Rule Breaker severs contracts." The loli told me bluntly.

"Well, yes. We can't expose our backs since she can sever the bond between Master and Servant-" Except hang on a second- Medea is right. Yeah- Rule Breaker was mostly used in canon to steal Servants, but it's not like it's the only thing it can do. It can sever and break any Magecraft. ANY. MAGECRAFT.

"You understand, right?"

"I do." And then I cursed with every swear word I knew. "Fuck me in the arse, what was I thinking? A Geass contract? I was trying to sucker the Witch of Betrayal with a Magical Contract… the same damn thing her Noble Phantasm is MEANT to break! And it's not like the Command Seals would work well either, since she could theoretically just sever the bonds between Servant and Master so that the Command no longer applies, and then have them re-establish their Contracts. Fuuuuuck!"

All my newfound confidence… down the pan. Because the fear of betrayal had just exploded exponentially. If I lost sight of Older!Medea even once in the battle… "If the Geass was worded correctly, could it identify if Medea tried to break it and act?"

"I don't know. Maybe?" My Medea honestly looked worried now. "Maybe… maybe we should call this off. We can't trust me- her."

"We can't." I agreed. "But even so… can we give up the opportunity to gang up on the Reds either?"

Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Either we maybe get stabbed in the back by Older!Medea since my ironclad precautions were actually made of plasticine, or we potentially have to face the prospect of needing to assault the Temple later on our own, against the full might of the Red Team when they were already well entrenched in a defensive location. Either our 'allies' could potentially stab us in the back, or we could suffer far more bloodshed in taking the Temple later.

"Fuck! Just… fuck!" It's never easy, is it?

Then, a feeling or warmth as a pair of arms encircled around me from behind. The smell of fields, and red hair lightly obscuring my vision. "There, there, there." Boudica whispered as she hugged me tightly. "Calm down. It'll all be alright."

No. It wasn't. Her words were platitudes at best, but they were still reassuring. Boudica truly is the Best Big Sister character, isn't she? Even with just a few words, she was capable of calming me down to such an extreme.

"Okay." I said, pulling myself out of her grasp before Berserker got any madder and finally acted upon the terrible idea I could already see her mind processing. "So. Things are bad. Tonight's events now have a very real chance of going badly. We all know how badly this could go." Because while normally alliances have no means of ensuring compliance while our alliance did, we were also working with a group that was far more likely to backstab us than most, and in a position to do a lot of damage if they did.

"Where are you going with this?" Lancer asked me.

"I'm calling for a vote." I announced. "In this case, I really don't feel confident deciding. Maybe if we tweak the Geass and force them to use the right Commands then we could get away from this intact, and maybe they don't want to stab us in the back and battle us so early. But, there is always the chance. So since this is a problem of paranoia, I'm putting it to the group, since you're the ones who will be risking your lives for me. Either Yay we go, or Nae we do not."

A disheartening silence. I looked around the table, everyone was deep in thought. Finally, someone spoke. "Yay." Chevalier d'Eon said, with resolute determination. "In War, risks must be taken. And so long as this Dragoon is guarding your back, then even with betrayal, then I shall allow no harm to befall us."

"Nae." Lancer suggested. "As much as I want to fight this Red Team… I must also do what is best for this entire team, must I not? And I have a bad feeling about this." And I'm pretty sure that when Scathach has bad feelings they are premonition, and not paranoia.

"Nae." Rider says. "I can't trust the Blues. And I would sooner be accused of cowardice than face both Red and Blue tonight."

Two votes for no and one yes, with three still to go.

"Yay." Mata Hari made her decision known. "I may not be one of those fighting tonight, but we underestimate our own strength and advantages. One must know when it is the right time to strike, and I feel that time is now. In the worst case scenario, we outnumber the Blues, and have enough firepower to escape. And in a REALLY bad scenario, I would even accept being Summoned." And with three of her Command Seals left, it was certainly doable. It would DEFINITELY break her remaining cover, but sometimes a nice bit of Mind Control can make such a sacrifice worthwhile.

Two for yes, and two for no. The vote is tied.

"Yay." Kiyohime was the one advocating it this time, to my surprise. "No matter what my darling, I shall always protect you, so fear not the traitorous Blue Team. I will destroy all your enemies for you, if you would only ask. And sometimes… one can no longer wait. Action must be taking, regardless of the potential consequences, and you must burn them all."

Okay. A little too Aerys Targaryen there for my liking, but still a valid opinion. I suppose. Which leaves only Medea…

"Nae. If I know my elder self, then she WILL betray us at the first opportunity. No matter what bindings we give her, no matter what command, no matter how smart we play this… at the first sign of weakness, we shall find her dagger plunged into our back, and lose everything in the process." Medea's decision was as predictable as it was troublesome.

Because I had six Servants and received equal votes.

"It seems that you will have to act as the tiebreaker." Saber said. "Your decision, my Master?"

"Fuck it all." Because I'd done the damned vote to try and get some help in making this decision, and yet now I was in the same damn place we started. So, like it or not, I was going to have to make the decision. The consequences would be on my shoulders.

"We'll go." I decided. "We'll go and destroy the Red Team, and if it looks like the Blue Team will betray us, then we'll destroy them too."

Damn me, damn them, damn us all. The die was cast, and I was committed to trying to make this night the bloodiest I possibly could. Servants would fall tonight… now if only my gut would stop tightening up on me. If only I could rid myself of the suspicion that I was walking head first into a Dead End.

AN- damn has this build up lasted longer than I expected. Oh well. That's the problem with treating characters like they are competent and that the Grail War involves actual Strategy- namely this. But rejoice! The Talking Shit is almost over! Next chapter the Blue Team enters, and after that the attack itself happens. I have such things planned…