Mistake.
"Must thee?"
Mistake.
"Must I... what?"
Mistake.
"Do not play daft. You know quite well."
Bar none, the largest mistake he had ever made. Worse than the contract. Worse than sparing Alter in that one cursed reality. Worse than any death he had ever suffered. Worse than any torture Illya or Caster devised.
"I know not what you speak of, Arthur."
Her hands in his hair, her thighs on his shoulders. A downright illegal level of physical contact.
"You have working legs, Artoria. Use them, would you?"
And it was aweso—damn it, no!
"But my legs are tired."
He couldn't take it. Were it just his Master, he could find some way to extricate himself from the situation. Distract her with his helmet, perhaps, or get her to go pick out her favorite foodstuff.
"Use thy prana."
"But my prana is tired."
"Prana cannot tire!"
"Yes it can."
"It cannot!"
The second Artoria egging her on, however, made things a bit more complicated. Shirou knew the instant he freed himself of his first passenger, the Servant girl at his side would glare and pout until he gave her a turn, too.
He reached for the cabbages. "Cabbages or beets?"
"Cabbages."
"Cabbages."
Aquae Arnemetiae's market goers graced them with bemused looks and little else. Just a bunch of kids being kids, as far as they were concerned.
...
Alaya, please, why? Had he done something wrong? Was this a punishment or a reward? He seriously couldn't tell.
Artoria - the older Artoria, the one with some actual meat on her bones - flexed her glutes and ran her fingers along his scalp. To solidify the betrayal, his mind chose that moment to retrieve a freshly banished mental image locked away in the box labeled Very Dangerous Thoughts. A precious memory, a treasured memory, one of the sacred few in his broken head that had the effect of doing things to the sword he called a body:
Artoria in Rider's swimsuit.
What was he thinking? Shirou lacked the answer to that question, unless said answer was 'committing a grievous error'. Definitely a punishment, definitely a punishment. Mistake mistake mistake mistake.
"You know, Arthur," came Artoria's smug retort. "Saber and I did something similar back in Camelot's marketplace. 'Tis practically routine at this point!"
He wished nothing more than to dig his palms into his eyes, but alas, she would fall and demand some additional torture as recompense.
"Routine does not validate an act's necessity."
"Oho, 'twas necessary, I assure thee! I caught some village girls ogling him as we shopped!"
Arthur's pout deepened. She tugged on his sleeve and pierced him with a horrendously fragile expression, like a small child begging a parent for another ride on the merry-go-'round.
"Shirou."
Seiba jealous.
Don't say it. He would not dare say it—
"It's fine, Saber. We'll switch once we get to the butcher's."
Alaya, that smile! God damn it, Shirou! Mistake mistake mistake mistake!
Shirou wasn't used to thinking about her in this way, and a keen sort of cognitive discomfort wracked him, the kind with no ascertainable answer. Logic rooted their relationship. Their love and appreciation for each other came from the soul, the heart, the mindful understanding of their similarities and their goals. Physicality? The instinct of man and woman? They sailed right past that stage, and did so early on. That purity in itself was one of the many things he sought. Of the emotions he felt for this girl, lust was one, but firmly in last place.
Until recently.
Was it wrong of him, then - was it juvenile, was it debased - to admit, secretly, that he wished Merlin would've waited a cool three years before having her pull the sword?
Because by Alaya's purple pantaloons, Artoria Pendragon was gorgeous.
"I'm trying, Saber. I promise I'm trying."
"Eh? You are trying to what, Shirou?"
Shit, uh—
"Trying to figure out a halfway decent meal with the lack of ingredients. You weren't kidding."
Thank the divine - cooking. His staunchest, most stalwart ally. Note to self: Kanshou and Bakuya kitchen knife variants. Yes, excellent.
"Aye, do you see, now?! 'Tis a humanitarian catastrophe! There are no spices, there is no rice or corn! The people are suffering, Shirou!"
She smacked a fist into her palm, eyes hard and expression grim, right as a trio of seven-year-olds bolted past with happy laughs and beaming smiles. Shirou felt his brow twitch.
"They... can't suffer if they don't know any better, Saber..."
"That is not the point!"
"Yes, yes."
He'd underestimated the irreversible gravity of his blunder. It came from a place of goodwill - he couldn't just not kiss Arthur after she said those things in the bath - but he failed to understand the confidence his actions would impart on them. Confirming them as all the same girl was equivalent to giving them permission to act like the same girl. He suspected the only things preventing their merge into some sort of outlandishly precious Grand Artoria were Alter's remnant regrets and the lack of memories shared between Artoria and Arthur.
And here he walked, trapped, a young man again, with a drooling king next to him and a humming girl riding his shoulders.
"You should discover America, Saber. We can lay claim to all the ingredients we desire and turn Camelot into the world's largest pantry!"
"That's how you create a Lostbelt, Artoria."
"What is a Lostbelt, again?"
Suffering, thy name was Shirou Emiya.
"They're illogical, upside-down worlds where your poor Saber has to harangue and bargain with some guy named Mura—"
He cut off abruptly to spare Arthur a wary sidelong glance. Trigger phrases.
The king sighed. "'Tis moot, anyway. We cannot leave the Isles with this Reality Marble over us."
Artoria blinked as the conversation escaped her. "Eh? Reality Marble?"
"Yeah. You grew up here, so I'm not surprised you haven't noticed, Artoria," Shirou explained. "Believe it or not, the ambient mana's far denser than normal, even for Britain during this era. I'm not sure why it's needed, but it's coming from Rhongomyniad. Gaia's trying to keep Britain separated from something, would be my guess."
"The source of the Crystals, perhaps?"
"Maybe. I've never seen the Counter Force take such a direct involvement in things, honestly... and it's doubly strange, because there are foreigners here, too, like Palamedes and Bors, but they're acting like nothing's happened. Just another thing to interrogate Merlin on."
The girl on his shoulders sighed.
"Aye, aye. We have dilly-dallied enough, I suppose. Let us go to the butcher's and—"
Got him.
"—eep! S-Saber?"
His sudden turn caught the two Pendragons off guard. Shirou made no attempt at fighting Archer's smirk.
"...Heh."
"Shirou? What is it?"
He peered through the buildings, hills, forests and rivers, all the way back to the erratic magical signature at the Camelot smithy. Far faster than anticipated, but in no way was he complaining.
—Permission to transfer Noble Phantasm data. No, stagger it. Information overload would confuse him more than needed. Delayed release, prioritize historical acquisition. Targets of focus: Camlann, Guinevere, knights. Confirmed.
Like a mouse in a trap.
"It's nothing."
Like a knight drowning in a lake.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. Let's go."
Time to wake up...
"...Lancelot? S-Sir Lancelot! Please, wait a—!"
"OUT OF MY WAY!"
"—urk—!"
"...Gaheris? Gareth?! Lancelot, why, you—!"
"Lancelot! Gods above, man! Breathe!"
"Nrghk—!"
Yet more bile spilled into the pail. The knot entrapping Lancelot's mind squeezed harder still; unwanted, fragmented memories - at once both foreign and familiar - played their disastrous contents before his eyes like the world's worst movie.
What in the divine's name was a movie?
"Gugh... aghurhk—!"
"Kaaaay. Brought water. Bastard still pukin' everywhere?"
"He is. Thanks, Med."
"Mhm."
Medraut - Mordred. The arch traitor! He needed to warn...
"Sir Lancelot."
...his king...
"A...Arrrr...thur...!"
Gawain leaned in close. "Arthur? What about him?"
...
"...Her..."
"What?"
His manic stare petrified Gawain. Lancelot paused, collected his bearings, breathed. Kay kneeled beside him; their eyes met. The king's brother leaned in close, searching the knight's face for something, anything, that might give them their needed answers.
"—What did you see?"
And the Knight of the Lake, with bile in his throat, replied:
"You run."
...
"I... run...? I-I am... a..."
Lancelot spat into the pail. He gripped its rim, straightened, glowered up at that silent suit of armor, with its long shadow and its putrid, black gaze. A suit of crimes. A suit of treason, disaster, ruin.
"Bedivere alone remains by your sister. He is the only one who fulfills his sworn duty."
Stunned silence claimed the assembled gathering. Tristan took a seat, shaken. Bors ran a stiff hand through his beard.
"Every other person on that list flees, betrays her, or dies."
A single question rang out.
Fate/ess
"Who is Saber?"
Blue Grass - 3
"—I do not know."
EFFECT AND CAUSE
And the suit of armor judged them all.
Lancelot would make a point of asking this Saber fellow why he felt it necessary to pass along warnings via horrendous, crippling migraines. 'Twas as though an invisible war axe continuously mauled his skull and everything within. He needed a helmet. Gods above, he needed a helmet! Or perhaps a pillow or a stiff drink.
"I cannot make blade nor hilt of this, Lancelot."
Gawain's lamentations were a dagger rudely probing his ear canal. His quill continued its wild scrawl, lest he forget the part of the story whereby this Percival stranger died on some asinine journey to reclaim a holy chalice.
"W-What part, Gawain?"
By the Lady, he named his son Galahad?! Born out of wedlock?! What was wrong with him?!
"This bit you've written about myself, Palamedes and Tristan. This... Sir Mordred incites King Mark to kill Tristan, presumably over this... quarrel... about Iseult? The murder weapon is Palamedes' spear. I then... take that to mean he is the guilty party, and kill Palamedes?"
"A-Aye? What about it?"
Gawain pinched his brow, suffering from his own massive headache.
"How can that be possible when King Mark is dead, Lancelot? My grandfather put both him and Iseult to the executioner's axe for their refusal to participate in the feud years ago. To say nothing of this Mordred churl. We know nothing about him, either."
Said Mordred in question huddled with Kay in the smithy's far corner, alternating between perusing Lancelot's written tales and consoling the man for his apparent abandonment of his sister during her direst hour. Why the traitor lived - how she lived - Lancelot did not know.
But he meant to find out.
"Duke Gorlois is... not meant to be alive," he grunted. "Everything has... changed, in some way. Gods, my head!"
The claim stilled Gawain. Lancelot filled the space left by the man's lack of a response with another question.
"What is thy mother's name, Gawain?"
He chewed his lip, huffed. "Morgause, Queen of Orkney. My father is King Lot. 'Tis the same for my siblings. Why? Does that matter in some way?"
...
"Lancelot?"
They played a game of chance. All of them. Bereft of an answer, Lancelot could do no more than look upon his parchments full of notes and dreadful memories, and pray to whoever forgave him enough to listen. For they, this oddball collection of amnesiac knights, were either supremely lucky... or doomed to cataclysm.
And it all depended on the answer.
Where in the world—
"I... I do not know, Gawain."
—was Morgan le Fay?
To that end, how could it be possible that Saber's Master was Kay's sister, yet Kay's sister was Arthur 'Emiya'? He understood the king's reasons for using a pseudonym, given the disastrous situation, but he saw no logic in the target of Cornwall's ire intentionally infiltrating Cornwall's army. Especially seeing as Saber was not there to protect her. Nor did it make sense for her to masquerade as a man when everything pointed to her being known as a woman in this Britain.
Sabotage was possible - she did lead them directly to her Servant - but she claimed Saber indeed guarded a so-called 'heir', implied to be a third person. Per Kay's own words his sister was not the heir, and did not want to be the heir, and she and Saber were going so far as to hunt down the true target, so they might free themselves of Gorlois' rage. Why, then, would Saber protect the heir?
None of it made sense. If 'Emiya' was Saber's Master - as Lancelot's recovered memories stated she was, given her identity as Kay's sister, Artoria Pendragon - and if Saber had the heir, they would have explained the situation and handed the man over for his lashes. Kay furthermore stated the heir to be a man, a twin brother of Artoria's. That also made no sense, because Artoria did not have a twin brother. And Kay made a point of revealing her true gender. He would not call Artoria a man.
But Saber, who placed his suit in the smithy, would not lie about the situation. Would he? An otherworldly being with such knowledge, with the power to annihilate an army of thousands in nary five minutes, had no need for subterfuge or tomfoolery. It was beneath him, it served no purpose. Lying in this situation would directly harm his ward's safety and well-being, and every rotten scrap of information Lancelot had on the man told him Saber was the very definition of hyper-protective. Palamedes claimed Gawain would be dead had the Servant heard his pejorative. The man incinerated an army the moment his Master's life was threatened. No words, no pleas. He lifted his hand and summoned a dome of hellfire.
And above all else, if Saber planned to betray Artoria, he would not have told Lancelot any of this. Saber chose him specifically. He could have used Gawain's armor, or Kay's, or Palamedes', or Bedivere's. Why him? Why—
"Truly? Who is it?"
"My best friend. I have not seen him in years."
...
Wait.
"If you know him personally, is he...?"
"I do not know. 'Tis possible, though I surely hope not."
His quill dropped to the table, forgotten. An unholy, earth-shattering chill ascended Lancelot's spine.
"What is his name?"
"There are two," he breathed. "She's the one in the memories. Which means—"
"His name... is Shirou."
Two Artorias. They sought a man. The king-turned-mercenary was helping them.
"Kay!" he called.
The man lifted his head without a word. Lancelot swallowed the icy fear that threatened to still his racing heart.
"The heir Saber mentioned - what is his name?"
This was his punishment. His penance for all his crimes and all his follies. He slept with Guinevere, abandoned his king and his son, fractured the unity of Camelot forever. He gave the traitor an opening. His actions gave Agravain the blackmail. He killed Gaheris and Gareth. His petrifying guilt doomed the king and all her knights upon the hill of Camlann.
"Arthur," the man replied. "Arthur Pendragon."
Lancelot damned every last one of them. The fault was his. Were it not for him, this second chance would have never been needed at all. Saber knew that. And now that man, with his strange, unknown ties to their story, trusted him enough to set things right.
They had one chance.
"—Gawain."
"A-Aye?"
"We need to kill your grandfather."
The various knights ceased their hushed, trepidatious conversations. All eyes focused on him.
"Surely if we allow Saber to put an end to things—!"
"Merlin shall never allow it."
Gawain's halfhearted pleas fell to the wayside, silenced by Lancelot's thousand-yard stare. The mercenary's horrified realizations were a pane of glass on his face, a window into a future filled with naught but ruin and trauma.
"The heir is too set in his purpose to allow himself to be a martyr before he has a chance to prove himself," he continued. "And Emiya has allied with Saber. We cannot stop them. You would not believe the things the armor showed me. None of you know what the Pendragons are capable of."
Slowly, the implications began to dawn. Acknowledgments of the lines scrawled in the sand by the powers that were. The sides. The looming conflict.
The absolute necessity of their actions.
"We are mortals, but they are gods."
Arthur against Artoria.
Merlin against Saber.
"If we do not end this feud, everything is going to burn."
Tick tock, tick tock.
She winced into the perpetual downpour, ignoring the way her bangs clung to her soaked forehead protector. Flashes of lightning highlighted the dozens of emerald Crystals that hung ominously within the dark clouds; out of due caution she lowered herself closer to the dragon, tightened her hold on his ashen scales, and swallowed away her misgivings.
Ground command suited her better. Fafnir was not a horse.
"I'm sorry about this, Sieg!"
"It's a battle worth fighting, Ruler. It's fine."
Jalter poked her head over Jeanne's shoulder. Her silvery eyebrow twitched.
"Helloooo?! I'm right here, idiots!"
A teasing smirk flitted across Jeanne's otherwise serene features.
"Little sis is just angry Shielder played the Counter Force like a fiddle~!"
"Sh-Shut it! And don't call me that, you worthless saintess!"
"Of course, little sis~!"
"You...!"
Sieg rolled his eyes, aware of his lack of options in a situation such as this. The act brought to his attention a hippogriff twisting in from the side. He nodded to Astolfo, who replied with a characteristic, emphatic wave. The androgynous man's cousin and fellow Paladin, Bradamante, regarded him with a courteous smile, before returning her watchful eyes to the stormy horizon. Spear at the ready, she'd positioned her ethereal shield to cover both rider and passenger.
"Maaaaaster! Ruuuuuler!"
Even during a multiverse-spanning apocalypse, some things never changed. Jeanne flashed him a brilliant grin.
"Rider! What news?"
"We're all set, Ruler! Everyone's ready to kick some shiny booty!"
Circumstances notwithstanding, Sieg couldn't help his rising spirits in the face of Astolfo's hopeless optimism. The addition of Fujimaru and Kyrielight to the Throne brought with it the sublimation of all they'd learned over the course of this conflict - namely, that True Ether alone harmed these Crystals.
True Ether: the Fifth True Theoretical Factor, rarest of the elements, the building block of the planet, the Divine Spirits, nature itself. It declined in tandem with the Age of Gods and the rise of the scientific method and its magical analog - standard thaumaturgy, magecraft. A construct purely Gaian, native to Earth and nowhere else.
The Grain their enemies used could be considered, in the loosest sense of the term, analogous to the regular ether utilized by Age of Man magi for the actualization of their magecraft - with some key differences. Mankind's ether was artificial. A lesser, inferior replacement of the natural True Ether lost to the ages, a byproduct of the World's logic obeying humanity's ignorance rather than the original Mystery. A fireball spell, for example, was the element of fire combined with the element of ether, given form by incantation or aria. But the Grain was natural; their enemies carried it from their own home, from outside Gaia's domain, outside its logic. To that end, their own ether and mana couldn't hope to challenge the energy of the Crystals. To beat natural, they needed natural, and that meant True Ether.
Noble Phantasms utilizing True Ether, however, were limited to Divine Constructs of specifically Gaian origin, and not all Divine Constructs were made equal. The more degrees of separation from the World, the more diluted and 'tainted' the True Ether. A terminal of the planet - a God, for example - forging a weapon by its own will could not compete in purity against one crafted by the very planet itself. A Divine Construct regularly wielded and unleashed by mortal or demigod hands would likewise see its Mystery and True Ether degraded over time, until it became a withered husk and nothing more.
And that said nothing of the difference in power between a recorded Divine Construct summoned by Alaya's Throne and the original, physical object. Nor was it worth mentioning the fact that these Crystals were of extraterrestrial origin, and that their existential concepts were, by their very nature, at odds with - or impervious to - the often Earth- or human-based concepts imposed by Divine Constructs.
They had few at their disposal; most were lost to time. Vasavi Shakti and Pashupata. Ig-Alima, Sul-sagana. Photon Ray and Poseidon's Blessing. All could scratch, none could kill.
Guided by its wielders, Rhongomyniad's might held the Crystals at bay. But the Tower was never meant to be a weapon, and the power it spared their army was further hampered by its assigned duty of safeguarding what remained.
For this battle, for this war, nothing matched Excalibur. The World designed the Last Phantasm for this conflict, this singular purpose: the absolute defense of the planet against alien antagonism. A weapon of singular intent in power, concept, and design.
And the Heroic Spirit of its one known wielder was locked away by the Throne, bound by just as many seals as the Sword of Promised Victory. The Counter Force gave them Lancers when, in truth, they needed that legendary Saber. For all their powers, for all their outlandish abilities, when faced with the eldritch horrors at the Reality Marble's doorstep, Alaya's greatest champions found themselves reduced, once again, to mere mortals.
All they could do was stall.
Jeanne relayed Astolfo's words to the Guardian coordinator, the one chosen by the Counter Force to lead the defensive effort.
"The airborne troops are in position, Master. We await your command."
Technically, he was their Master no longer. He held no command seals; he and his partner sat among them in the Throne. They were all equals now. But their organization had thrown a wide net, and by this point a sizable majority of Heroic Spirits knew them on a first name basis.
"Understood, Jeanne. Begin the maneuver."
Old habits, as they say, died hard.
"By your will!"
At Jeanne's nod, Astolfo sounded his hunting horn, La Luna Black. Hundreds of mounted warriors, their steeds magical and technological, ascended into the skies. A motley army theirs was, as unique and diverse as the myriad stars hidden beyond the black clouds. One of them formed up on Sieg's opposite side. A man of peerless ability, he whipped at the reigns attached to his chariot, Troias Tragōidia.
"My shield stands ready, Ruler! Let us prove ourselves this day, eh?"
Jeanne nodded her approval, but paused upon seeing the unfamiliar Lancer at his side. The stranger wielded Achilles' armaments, the Meteor Spear and Akhilleus Kosmos. His grip was comfortable and assured, and the saintess noted with humor the ease with which the two men kept the other's company. Lifelong companions, it seemed, if not brothers or something more.
"We shall, Achilles! Who is your companion?"
The fellow inclined his head respectfully.
"Patroclus, saintess. I am honored to meet your acquaintance. Achilles has told many stories."
She chuckled. "Well met! Let us add one more, then, shall we?"
"Aye."
With those words, Sieg drove power to his wings and surge on ahead. Jalter glanced over her shoulder as they departed, licking her lips.
"Mmm, he's kinda cute. Nice and broody."
"He doesn't swing that way."
"Wh—?!"
He felt the Alter's glare on his scales.
"How do you know that, homunculus?"
Jeanne shot her a withering glare, but Sieg just snorted in humor. A blue-white ember flared from his nostrils.
"How do you not? They're famous. A real power couple."
A low, childish whine bubbled in Jalter's throat. Her hands wrung La Grondement Du Haine.
"Why are the good ones always taken?! It's not fair!"
Jeanne couldn't help her grin. "There's always Blackbea—ow! Ouch! Okay, okay!"
They emerged from the clouds. The night sky's brilliance greeted them, framed against the ugliness of the Crimson Moon. Jalter hissed against the blood red glare.
"So that's the source of all our problems, eh? Tch. Doesn't look so tough."
"Don't jinx it."
"Yeah, yeah."
Two more crimson blurs drew their attention; friends, this time. The coordinator and his omnipresent bodyguard. Thick cloaks billowed down to their ankles and little skin was visible, but they would recognize the two anywhere.
Besides, the shield gave them away.
"Jeanne, Jalter, Sieg. Emergency orders."
"Where do you need us, Master?"
"Drake spotted a Frankish vessel struggling for the Reality Marble. They're survivors of the Church. Odysseus and Napoleon are giving them covering fire, but they're far too slow - they won't make it before the Crystals capsize them. What's more, we've detected an atypical magical signature on board."
Jeanne fidgeted; being who she was, she had a vested interest in protecting members of the faith.
"Atypical?"
"It matches the chalice."
Her grip tightened around Luminosité Eternelle.
"I see. We shall handle it at once."
The Guardian nodded his thanks.
"Achilles has been given control of the airborne cavalry. They've already begun. Speed is of the essence, and I know Sieg's stature will draw attention, so I'll provide you with a guard to get you there in one piece."
He made for a strange agent of the Counter Force, to say the least, but they all knew that to be the point. Alaya did not want Ritsuka Fujimaru for his deeds, his magical abilities or physical skills. He had none; rather, Alaya wanted his mind. It needed a tactician. A strategist. Someone who could read a situation, identify the Servants perfect for the job, and execute.
Fujimaru snapped his fingers. The Throne complied immediately. A mountain of a man blurred into reality.
"—Servant, Archer. I am here upon the summons of the Counter Force. How may I assist, Master?"
"Thank you for coming, Heracles. Are you aware of the current situation?"
"I am."
"Excellent. Cover their approach to the vessel. Upon the safe execution of their objectives, remain on the Channel and assist the fleets in their battle against the Crystals."
The demigod nodded his approval. He alighted ever-so-gently on Sieg's neck, in front of Jeanne and Jalter. The Bow of Hydra came to his hand.
"A noble, honorable conflict. The son of Zeus will lend you his full might, Guardian Fujimaru. May our enemies know the Pantheon's justice."
The young woman at Fujimaru's side waved them off.
"Thanks, guys! Talk to you soon!"
Then the Guardians disappeared, leaving them to their mission. Sieg took a breath and twisted back down into the clouds. The wind howled, the air screamed. Heracles stood proud and mighty as they dove through the storm, black hair whipping, and he notched an arrow in preparation. Jeanne and Jalter moved to his sides.
"Luminosité Eternelle!"
"La Grondement Du Haine!"
The Holy Maiden's barrier covered his body. The Dragon Witch's flames enhanced his arrows. Sieg folded his wings; lightning and thunder marked their approach to chaos' doorstep. The echoes of churning explosions reached them, the telltale sign of magical conflict, and all at once they breached the cloud barrier to behold—
Heracles took a breath.
"This shall make fourteen."
—the Siege of the British Isles.
To their right: the golden dome.
To their left: the drones of the sleeping Aristotele.
And in the center: death.
Arrows and gunfire and magical beams twisted through the air. Crystalline javelins met them halfway; the resulting explosions would have reduced mortal men to fine mist. Chariots, steeds and futuristic weaponry charged this way and that, all with a purpose, all to buy the unknowing survivors inside the Reality Marble one more day of life. Down on the English Channel, the combined navies of Odysseus, Sir Francis Drake, and Napoleon Bonaparte blockaded safe passage to the last domain of the planet still under Gaia's protection.
In the middle of it all, struggling in the waves, was a sixth century Frankish fishing boat. It fought for every inch with oar and sail. The soft gleam of a Holy Shroud caught Sieg's draconian eye.
"I have them."
They dove, they dove, they dove. Into the madness, into that calamitous battle for survival. The Crystals marked their party a threat. Dozens of javelins threatened to skewer them alive.
"Nine Lives."
The activation of Heracles' divine prana released a micro-shockwave that momentarily tore the air from their lungs. His muscles coiled, his bowstring drew taut. The demigod leaped into the skies; a hundred fiery arrows followed in his wake. Each one found a target. He loosed the projectiles faster than they could blink, and followed them as they dove, bounding from Crystal or passing steed down through the chaos as easily as lesser men walked.
Sieg's immediate proximity was rendered unassailable. Jalter's billowing fire became a secondary layer of defense. The flames curled around Fafnir's bulk, and Jeanne's banner flapped in the wind, and down, down, down they streaked, a comet of scale and steel. The saintess urged him onward through every near miss and dodge.
"We can do this, Sieg! Just like before!"
"Right. Just like that time, we will..."
Ever closer they soared. He caught sight of the vessel's passengers, with their terrified visages and chanting lips. The clergymen formed a protective human wall around their leader, their Executor, and the relic bundled in her trembling arms.
"...retrieve the Holy Grail."
{Welcome back, Archetype. We see you have acquired a new form. Has your journey borne fruit?}
Ah, home at last. How long had it been since she'd heard the whispers of her friends and family?
{It has! Met someone nice. Hung out for a bit. You know, the works. Small issue, though.}
{Oh? Due tell.}
The angelic girl stomped her feet.
{Moon-boy's being an idiot again! He's upset Gaia canceled their little agreement, and his temper tantrum hurt my friend!}
Sulfuric dust and ash took to the pale yellow skies. Her people coiled around her new appendages, their curiosity apparent. They rode the winds and whispered their consolations.
{The cleansing has been canceled, then? You do not need to go}
{Yeah, it's canceled. Gaia solved its issues with that rebellious kid, the one calling itself Alaya. But...}
{But?}
She groaned. Ugh, politics!
{The other representatives are all like, 'Oooh, Alaya hasn't proven itself yet! Ooooh, the Moon has a point!' It's so stupid! My friend is an Alayan! They can't talk about him like that, he's trying his best! It's rude! Now Pluto's going to see what's up, and you know that jerk won't give them a chance!}
{How awful. We think they're cute.}
{Aren't they? They're so squishy and innocent! One of their ghosts asked for my help, actually. It said it would find my friend for me if I stalled the others for a bit.}
{Hm? Can they survive that long, though, Archetype? They are still bound by mortality, are they not?}
She bounced about the wastes, clapping her hands.
{That's the thing, though! They recovered their ascension matrix! You know, the one we thought they'd lost after they accidentally offed their guide?}
{Truly? Goodness, that is a surprise! It's a matter of survival for them, then.}
{Yup! And it's a win for Gaia, too! If Alaya can get off-world everything changes, you know? Trust me, I've been testing out their blueprints! Their setup is, like, perfect for exploration. It's no wonder Moon-boy's so pissed! These bodies are so efficient! And Gaia revoked his early access rights!}
{...Wait, Archetype, are you saying...?}
If this worked, she and her roommate could uuuup-graaaaayd~! No more stuffy apartments!
{You know what I'm saying, guys! Gaia's offering us a deal! We help out the kid, it gives us an all-expenses-paid vacation to a paradise planet, and those blueprint privileges Moon-boy just lost! How about it? You wanna come with?!}
...
The acidic planet began to rumble.
The clouds descended, condensed, swirled and churned around the girl named V/V. Pale yellow darkened to brown, burned into gold, twisted into long ropes and hinting flashes of something... more.
Whispering winds took shape. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of wings sprouted from nothingness. Concentric points of sulfuric ash rotated on spawned axes. Their silent answers given, the impossible creatures flapped once, twice, thrice. Poisonous feathers filled the cloudy skies, their number uncountable.
Against the backdrop of one trillion chirping birds: they ascended.
The Venusians were going to war.
Confusion Corner
BEST SHIP ALERT
PATROCLUS STILL ISN'T IN FGO AND IT'S A FUCKING CRIME
JANNU
where my apocrypha boys at
don't you give me that look, he's pretty much acting as a counter guardian in fgo's main plot already
This chapter sees the return of Mash and Ritsuka as the Counter Force's newest lackeys; they'll be our main Guardians going forward, fulfilling their duties like the slaves they now are. And stuff. Due to his experiences in Chaldea, Ritsuka is acting as Alaya's wartime commander, and is tasked with coordinating the Servant and Guardian forces. He and Mash are on station for exactly as long as Alaya needs them, and they have no choice in the matter. The Servants who continue to call Ritsuka and Mash "Master" and "Shielder" respectively are doing so because they served with Chaldea while the two were still alive. They're all deployed directly from the Throne in defense of the reality marble encircling the British Isles, and as such have their memories. Consider it a term of endearment, I guess.
Ritsuka's Guardian powers can best be summed up as rigged gacha rolling. Imagine infinite Saint Quartz and no RNG banners - just pick and choose your Servant, and deploy them with all their stats already maxed out. But why tf is he even back in the story, you ask? Because the best use for faceless characters is as expositional vehicles. That's what FGO's protagonist has always been, and it's what he'll continue to be. As I stated in a previous Confusion Corner, he's our primary eyes and ears for anything outside the main Fateless timeline, and through him we can gain context and information we'd otherwise be denied. We won't be checking in with him and Mash nearly as much as we did in the lead-up to the Notes reveal, though, so if we do shift over to them, it'll be for something important.
okay no seriously could you explain that last scene please?
Believe it or not, it's not actually supposed to make much sense. It's Venus' Aristotele talking with other Venusians, and that's why she's referred to as "Archetype". Their logic doesn't match humanity's, they're "outside" our common sense, and so the topics of their conversation, things like the "ascension matrix" and "guide" and "representatives" are designed to sound like gibberish. The POV character here is V/V - the main "heroine" of Notes, and Gun God's love interest. She's also TYPE:Venus, because, uh, Gun God's tastes (as previously mentioned) are... exotic...
V/V herself is very much a Deus ex Machina plot device - she's operating by herself, on her own terms, for her own reasons; it just so happens that this time around, her motivations are conveniently aligned with Gaia and Alaya, so she'll be aiding them against Brunestud and the other TYPEs. We won't see much of her, as she's essentially my explanation for keeping all the TYPEs off-screen until things are good and ready. But to the three Venus simps reading this story: don't worry, she'll get her time to shine as well!
also btw just so we're all clear, v/v's motives begin and end with rescuing gun god and then shattering his pelvis from lots of—
the elephant is bright neon pink
So I've harped on and on about Arthurian this and Arthurian that, but I've yet to talk about this real conundrum Fateless has seemingly ignored:
If Gawain is Artoria's nephew, and if Artoria is eighteen, shouldn't he be, like, three?
There's a lot of fuckery going on here, so as usual we'll start by looking at canon. In Arthurian lore, there are, broadly speaking, four "generations":
1) Elders: Uther, Vortigern, Ector, etc.
2) Kings: Arthur, Pellinore, Lot, Ban, Bors the Elder, etc., as well as some of the senior knights like Kay and Bedivere
3) Knights: Most of Arthur's knights fall into this generation. It's here we get guys like Tristan, Gawain, Lancelot.
4) Galahad (and also sometimes Mordred)
Obviously, you can't really slot these characters into neat and tidy categories, but it works for the sake of the discussion. Fateless does away with all of this; instead of revolving around generations, everything revolves around select years.
Specifically: AD 481. Why is this seemingly random date important? Lmao, I ain't saying shit. But I will list out the ages of relevant characters. You'll see a bunch of names here that have yet to appear within the story proper, but rest assured that every last one of them has some measure of importance.
So, AD 481:
Childeric: 44
Uther: 31
Gorlois: 30
Igraine: 30
Pellinore: 30
Vortigern: 28
Theodoric: 27
Aurelianus: 26
Leondegrance: 25
L.T.: 21
Ector: 16
Claudas: 15
Urien: 14
Lot: 13
Morgause: 12
Lamorak: 11
You may notice that, based on the listed character ages, this occurs right in the middle of Uther's reign. 481 is a very important date, both IRL and in Fateless, for reasons yet to be disclosed; the year was chosen first, in fact, and AD 506, when Fateless starts, came after. Note Morgause's age in particular; she's the key here.
Now then, seven years later. AD 488, the year of Fateless!Artoria's birth:
Uther: 38
Gorlois: 37
Igraine: 37
Pellinore: 37
Vortigern: 35
Theodoric: 34
Aurelianus: 33
Leondegrance: 32
L.T.: 28
Ector: 23
Claudas: 22
Urien: 21
Lot: 20
Morgause: 19
Lamorak: 18
Percival: 4
Kay: 3
Bedivere: 3
Bors the Lesser: 2
Palamedes: 1
Gawain: 0
See what's happening here? Morgause, although on the young side, is at childbearing age, because Gorlois and Igraine conceived her when they were eighteen years old. Is that disgustingly young by modern standards? Yes, it is. Is it young by medieval nobility standards? It is, actually, but not by much. Female fertility rates for the time period average out at around 20 to 24 years old.
In 506, Gawain is 18, Agravain is 17, Gaheris and Gareth are both 16 - fraternal twins, like Artoria and Arthur. And I won't tell you what's going on with Lamorak - 488's a... dramatic year, let's say. Uther's lust affects more than just Gorlois and Igraine; they have a family too, remember.
Everything, needless to say, is walking a tightrope. Almost like it was, you know... planned.
Like someone
or some thing
was trying to get all these talented individuals to combat age as fast as possible
;)