A mad scramble to the finish. That's what the battle devolved into. Tear down all the groups, dismiss all notions of macro. Micromanagement of each unit was the key to victory now.
And it was close at hand. Oh, so very close…
"Push forward. Push forward. Push forward. Push forward. Fall back. Emerge. Fall back. Hold position. Wrap wide."
My throat was getting real dry by this point; all the talking and muttering, just trying to keep my thoughts straight. My hands felt like they were on fire; pain in my fingers flaring beyond anything I'd ever experienced before, even from back in my WotH days.
But I just had to keep going a few minutes more. Push through the pain. Keep pushing forward. It would all be worth it. Just a few more minutes…
"Emerge. Emerge. Push forward. Push forward. Hold position. Push forward. Wrap wide. Emerge. Wrap wide."
Rider was doing his best to slow me down. I was losing units faster than ever now. But despite his best efforts, it wasn't enough. His men simply couldn't take out my units quick enough. I had seen all his tricks, calculated every line. With control of the skies, able to swoop down and reinforce any position I needed, there was little more Rider could do but fall back and take down as many units with him as he could.
He was stalling, and to his credit, rather well given the circumstances. But it simply wasn't going to be enough.
"Hold. Hold. Hold. Wrap wide. Push forward. Reinforce. Push forward. Emerge. Hold. Push forward."
The pain was starting to fade, replaced with a sense of euphoria I hadn't felt in years. I was winning. I was going to win. On the greatest stage I'd ever set foot on, against an opponent I had no right beating. Yet here I sat, in position to win. With no way to lose…
Rider's men couldn't take out the dragon, no matter how hard they tried. Rider could maybe do it, but the amount of magical energy it would cost him… I could only assume that, based on the fact he hadn't yet done so, that it would simply cost him too much; the reality marble would shatter as the result, if not be suicidal even, and where would that leave him? His master? The remnants of my army? It was simply not an action he could afford to take.
…I was going to win.
"Push forward. Emerge. Wrap wide. Push forward. Hold. Hold. Hold. Wrap wide. Push forward. Emerge. Push forward."
I was going to win.
"The lines have collapsed. His formation is shattered. All units just keep pushing- huh?"
…Wait. When did that hole in my formation get created?
"Hold position. Reform. Wrap wide. Push forward. Push-"
When did those units go down?
"Emerge! Emerge! Push forward! Wrap wide!"
…Why weren't they moving as I'd told them to?
"No! Fuck! Fall back! Emerge! Emerge! Reinforce! Hold position!"
Why weren't they listening? I told them to hold position!
"Damnit! Wrap wide! Push forward! Reinforce!"
They were getting picked apart. They shouldn't be getting picked apart!
"Argh! Emerge! Emerge! Wrap wide! Push forward!"
I'd calculated every line. No line leads to this. No line led to this!
"Get down there already, you stupid dragon! How the fuck did you not get there in time?!"
Why were they so slow to respond?! It was like I needed to input every order three times!
""Fuck! You guys hold! Rest emerge and push forward!"
It's so close!
"Wrap wide! Wrap wide! I said wrap wide you stupid chunks of rock!"
Even with these dumbass statues, it was right there! Victory was right there in front of me! A couple more minutes! Not even a couple more minutes! Victory was right! There! I just needed them to move!
"Come on… move it already!"
No… no, no, no, no, no!
"I said move already!"
No! I won't have my victory robbed from me!
"MOVE! FUCKING SHITS!"
It's not far. It wasn't fair! I have him! I fucking have him, right there! So-
"WHY WON'T YOU IDIOTS LISTEN TO ME AND FUCKING-"
…The pain… That familiar pain…
"…Move…"
…Where was that familiar pain? That fire in my hands; my fingers?
Why could I no longer feel the keyboard? The mouse?
"Move… please…"
Why couldn't I feel them?
…Why could I no longer feel my... hands…?
Looking down from the rows of screens, I focused on trying to hit the keys of the keyboard in front of me. Yet, despite putting all my focus into trying to press even a single key… I couldn't. Not a single finger responded to my will. No movement. No shakes. No pain. Nothing. Not a single, damn thing from either of my hands.
…That's it, then…
I didn't even bother looking back up at the screens, knowing full well that, at this very moment, Rider's forces were dismantling the rest of my army. Even the dragon, my ace in the hole, would be brought down eventually, seeing as my last order to it had been to land. No… all I could manage to do was stare blanking at my hands, as I tried to process everything…
"But I had him…"
Empty. Hollow. Defeated.
A failure.
That's all I felt; all I was.
All I'd ever been.
…All I'd ever be…
It was only then, it the otherwise silent command room, that my mind began to truly register the music still being played.
"This endless nightmare has just begun! Nowhere to run!"
…
"My heart is dragging me down into-"
"Oblivion…"
Leaning back in my chair, looking up towards the ceiling, I couldn't help but… laugh… ever so slightly…
"Couldn't even let me have one victory, one moment, could you, God? Oh, how I can't wait to pull you off that throne, and burn your kingdom to the fucking ground…"
With a sigh, I rose to my feet, taking one last look at the screens as Rider's men finished obliterating the last of the statues.
"Good game Rider" I felt myself smiling slightly, as I made my way for the door of the command room. "Good fucking game."
Match length: 41:13
Current APM: 0
A/N (A LONG one; skip if you wish, I won't be offended ;)
And with this, the great game between Rider and Nathan is finally over! Now that it's all said and done, I'm not so sure doing it like this really works without visuals, but eh, an interesting experiment for me nonetheless.
Also, for those of you who have been sitting there and wondering if Nathan would ever be punished for his antics/actions, well, here it his: Nathan's 'divine' punishment. Hopefully, the build-up to this in the previous parts of the story doesn't make this come out of left-field or anything, but I don't think it did.
As for the reviews...
Glad to see I'm not the only one who has played P5R here! Figured I wasn't but, always nice to know for sure that I'm not just talking to myself when I mention it in other A/N bits! Can't say I learned about Hereward from the game, but I definitely remembered him existing thanks to the game, so... there's that.
As for how 'strong' I've made Percival and Hereward in this... well, ok, first let's start with Percival.
I know Percival has his own stats (at least one set of them, from FGO JP). However, all of that is, for the sake of this work, completely irrelevant. I know for a fact I've said this before in other A/Ns, but just to make it clear here, I started writing this, and had my idea for how I wanted to do Percival, before Lostbelt 6 even released for FGO JP. My version of Percival here is BY NO MEANS CANONIC IN THE SLIGHTEST, and shouldn't be ever considered as such. If other info on Percival was available before Lostbelt 6 released, then I have never seen it, or heard of it. Did I suspect he would come out with Lostbelt 6? Yes. Should I have used him as my Lancer for this then? Perhaps not. But I did, and he did, so here we sorta are xD
By no means do I hate what Type-Moon did with Percival (I actually really like their take on Percival), but by the time he released in FGO JP, I had what I wanted to do with him set, and I wasn't going to change it while I was still writing this. If people have a problem that I'm not using the official version of Percival, I understand, but that's also not changing (evidently) so... I hope people in that bucket at least find what I did with Percival here... interesting?
Now, I agree completely that neither of them should be stronger (or even really anywhere near as strong) as the likes of Orion or Enkidu. Really you could add quite a few more to that list really, really easily. However, I don't think I have made them stronger than any servant that should he stronger than them, if you look at what they've actually done. Now, are their stats overly inflated? Perhaps. I admit, I may have gone overboard with it, just a bit xD
Unfortunately, there is no real... formula... when it comes to actually calculating stats, at least from what I can see. While the letters do correspond to a number within the stat system of FATE, how that number is calculated, and how heavily something affects a stat, is entirely unknown to me, and I've yet to come across anything that any kind of formula-like thing for that.
As for why I did make them as I have, it's for two reasons. First reason was that I believe that having the 'home field advantage', in that sense, should lead to a massive buff, and I couldn't find any prior examples to work off of. Far as I'm aware, the only time such a thing would have been applied in a canonic FATE work would have been Apoc with Vlad and Semiraimis, or with some cases in FGO. In none of those cases do I get to see their stats are changed by the circumstances though, so by what degree it has affected them, I don't know. The second reason is that it was a simple way to convey an increase in power relative to what he had before (this is for Percival specifically, really) within a textual medium.
Now, from what I've gathered from the review (and I could be wrong on this), it appears as though you are comparing servants based on the ranks of things they have (stats, skills and NPs), rather than what it is they have, and can, actually do. Respectfully, I think this is a bad way to compare power/strength between servants because the letter grade/rank of things in FATE (outside of *maybe* NPs) is irrelevant. As for why I believe that, I think it's best displayed by looking at the original FATE VN (all the servants from all the routes) and reading through some of Nasu's old interviews.
Kojiro, in the original VN, has the highest Agility stat out of all the servants. However, at the same time, Nasu himself has confirmed in interviews that Kojiro is the slowest servant in the VN. So, how does that make sense? How can he have the highest Agility stat in the war, yet be confirmed as the slowest servant in the war? It is because, according to Nasu himself, that Kojiro's swordsmanship is so good, so next level, and so fast that it compensates for every other aspect of the Agility stat (that we don't even know, because the stats are that vague in what they signify) so his Agility stat get's the ranking it has, despite every other contributing factor to it being way below that of every other servant in the war.
Because of the vagueness of the stats, due to them be such large overarching umbrella terms, while they may signify... something... and may grant you a super vague idea of what to expect from a servant, at the end of the day, they really mean nothing. Any servant can keep up with any servant in FATE regardless of their stats, because FATE doesn't bother taking stats into consideration. They're pretty pieces of fluff data, that are ultimately irrelevant (again, except for *maybe* some cases involving NPs).
So, regardless of what I've made their stats for their fight now, I don't think I've shown either of them to be capable enough to take out Enkidu, or Achilles, or Karna, or Herc, or any of those top tier servants. To speak on Enkidu specifically, because he was used as an example in the review... the guy (girl? it? whatever) is basically immortal while on Earth. Nothing either Hereward or Percival can do, I don't think, could compensate or overcome that, REGARDLESS of what I made their stats and skill ranks.
As for 'Super Orion' (or Grand Archer Orion)… frankly, due to how the summoning system works in FATE, Super Orion could have E rank in literally every stat, and still beat ANY servant, because by nature of the system, ANY Grand Servant is just a whole other league above even the best of the best regular servants. There is literally no point in ever trying to compare a regular servant to a Grand servant: the Grand ALWAYS wins (yes, even against Gilgamesh). Now, when 'Super Orion' isn't summoned as a Grand (like how he is for the play in FGO), I still say he'd easily pummel Hereward, no question. He'd also pummel Percival as well, though I'd like to think it'd take him a *brief* moment to pummel Percival into the dirt. I don't think that's making either of them overpowered, but if people disagree, then... respectfully, agree to disagree xD
Now, on the number of skills and NPs I've given them, I can't honestly say I see an issue with it. To my knowledge, there is no maximum number of skills or NPs a servant can have. The only requirement I am aware of, when it comes to skills and NPs, is that to be summonable as a servant, you MUST have AT LEAST 1 NP. So, a minimum, not a maximum. Now, I could be wrong and missing something, but to my current knowledge of how that works, I'm fine within the rules of the system.
Subjectively, have I given Archer too many NPs? I could see an argument for him only having one, in which case I would remove the first one from the list I gave him, which is his own territory manipulation one. As for his skills, I think they're fine. Some aren't even relevant in the context of the war, and I don't think any of them can't be justified by his life/legends. As for why Lancer has as many skills as he does... I've explained that in past A/Ns, and as this one is getting long, I'll avoid re-explaining it here.
Honestly, I'm surprised THIS is what people seem to be having issues with here. I thought for sure, if anyone was to cause this kind of issue, it would be Rider and Caster. After all, I just had Rider, of all people, use a reality marble for over 40 minutes straight (even with 2 command spell uses, that's... I thought I was pushing it, y'all). And what Caster has done... frankly, I'm convinced I've broken so many rules with Caster, that I don't even want to try and think about it!
To anyone who did read all of that... you're crazy, but thanks xD
See y'all in the next post o7
