The man in the skintight suit was absolutely relentless. Such is the Grail War that its participants would have no qualms about killing kids to realize their dream. Shirou wasn't thinking about any of that, though. The only thing on his mind was survival, and the only thing in his hand was a pipe. Sure, it had a bit of Reinforcement on it, but both parties knew exactly how much that was worth. And so the kid calculated that running was the better option. The followup kick he received certainly helped in that regard (with only the small cost of a large amount of damage).

Problem was, that kick sent him right into the shed. To his left and right, there were fences, to his front, there was a wall, and to his back, there was a blue guy trying to kill him. No way out, so the only option now was to fight.

Because like hell if he was just going to die here.


The kid had a lot of conviction, Lancer noted. Maybe, had things been different, he would go on to do something meaningful with his life. But, rules were rules, and Lancer's pride was Lancer's pride. He failed to kill him the first time, and he would not fail again. And so, he raised his spear and lunged-

-only to meet rock. What? He was sure that there was open air not even a second ago, but the chip he made in the newfound wall disagreed with that notion. Puzzled, he started to reassess his surroundings, and that's when he noticed something come up behind the wall.

It was a humanoid figure, as in it had two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head, but that's where the similarities stopped. You see, most people are made of hundreds of intricate components, but the new figure only had the aforementioned list of parts. Not only that, but they were all entirely rectangular. The armor, tools, and general appearance seemed to be made out of other small squares, too. (Shirou likened them to pixels, but Lancer did not get that information from the Grail.) From this, Lancer could only make one conclusion: did the kid just summon a Servant?


Kirei Kotomine did not know what to make of this new development. He was currently torn between excitement at the new development, and complete confusion at the new Servant. There was no rule stating that Servants had to be human, but if there were non-human heroic spirits, especially ones with such a striking appearance as this one, he'd expect that they would be well-known and instantly recognizable. As it stood now, Kirei had no idea who, or even what, he was looking at.

Kirei then noticed a gray box appear at the bottom of his vision with some text in it.

] hi, who are u? also why u tryna kill him


Rin Tohsaka and her Servant were both stunned into silence, their previous conversation forgotten at the behest of the new appearance. Then, the gray box increased in height, and some new text was added to the bottom.

] wait, hold on, i think im getting it now. jesus that's one hell of an infodump

] i think the locals call me steve, but apparently my new name is saber. hbu

] how about you

] just for the record, if u werent tryna kill him, i probably wouldntve been summoned

Rin now actually focused on what the first line had said. If this involves Servants, then that kid she saved probably was the main culprit. She instructed Archer to quicken their pace, and received a complementary sarcastic response.

] what, right here? i mean ok fine, whatever, but like whos gonna pay for the property damage


Lancer struck first, rushing Saber's location immediately. A green staff appeared in his hand, and Saber vanished, reappearing a couple of meters away from where he was standing. As Lancer readjusted, Saber pulled out a crossbow and fired a bolt that Lancer was barely able to dodge. Was he lying about being a Saber-class Servant? Lancer rushed Saber again, but this time, one thing was different. Saber started to fly. Lancer jumped up to meet the rectangular man, but he again teleported, this time firing off two shots in quick succession. While Lancer dodged one of them, the other narrowly grazed his left arm.

Games were over. This battle had to be ended now. He readied his lance. A bit more force, a lot more mana, and one phantasm. "Gae Bolg!" And the lance flew true.

Saber was ready for this. As Lancer threw the spear, he readied his staff, and once again jumped, preparing his attack again. He did not know that cause leading to effect became effect necessitating cause, and turned around one moment too late. And the lance struck true. A ping was heard, Saber's body flashed red, and he received a bit of knockback for his trouble.

] ow

The lance struck true through the heart, yet Saber lived. "How are you alive?"

] was that gay bulge thing supposed to kill me

"Do you have any..." Lancer paused to listen to his master's new command. "Nevermind, my master has instructed me to retreat for now. Follow me if you dare."

] k


Shirou's thoughts were a complete and jumbled mess. On the bright side, his body was still in (mostly) one piece. Aside from a few broken ribs, he would probably live through the night. Best place to start now was probably a basic conversation. "So, uh, Saber-"

] one sec, hostiles on minimap

"Wha-" Saber had vanished in an instant, followed up with the sound of swords clashing not a moment later. Shirou, naturally, gave chase.


What the hell is this? Is this Saber? Why is it using a crossbow? None of this makes any sense! Archer wanted to turn around and rush his master to safety, but Saber gave him no opportunity to do so. The shots were relentless, and the movements were unlike anything he'd ever seen. If he wasn't perfect in his counterattacks, then his master would be-

"Saber, stop!"

And so Saber stopped.

] ?

] why

As Saber turned towards his master, so did Archer towards his. And he saw a grin.

"So that's how it is, my good novice master? I will say, I'm surprised your Servant was able to survive a direct Gae Bolg encounter. It seems you have quite a bit of luck, Mr. Emiya."


So, I just had a thought here. I've been using console chat to talk so far, and somehow she knew that I was fighting that Lancer guy. Does that mean...

Oh.

] uh, sorry, didnt realize i was using all chat. gonna stop now


A/N (2/7/2021): Got 3 assignments due tomorrow, barely started any of them. Didn't proofread this either, and got no idea where to go from here. In other words, this here's got all the ingredients of success. Also fun fact, for some reason, you can't have greater-than or less-than symbols in FF's editor.

Also, this is based on modded Minecraft, cause I'm pretty sure that vanilla Steve would get destroyed, and also this gives me more freedom to do stuff later on down the road. (Also I don't really play vanilla.)