Sorry, I had a bit of writer's block and the Fate Grand Order's Summer Event kept me busy. Had to do some revisions to the plot, flesh out some characters, do research on abilities, and deal with life. Sorry for being late.
Check List Item 9: Cooperate with Your New Coworkers
Singularity F, Fuyuki, 2004
Ritsuka stared. He had-
-no idea what just happened.
It was all a blur of shadow whips colliding against Mash like violent waves against a rock until the last bit when Mash had smashed against a pillar. Then he had lost track of what had happened until Mash was in the air and slammed down her shield onto the dark woman.
This was not what he had signed up for when he had talked to the recruiter. In fact, the recruiter didn't inform him that he would be risking his life in saving the world until after he had signed up and needed him to sign a bunch of paperwork.
Figures that that guy had still been holding back information. There probably was a clause in that mass of paperwork that sold away his soul too.
But he guessed that it was what he had agreed to. He had signed on to help protect humanity and now it included watching fights that wouldn't be out of place in a superhero movie.
The clack of heels on the ground turned his head to see Olga get out from behind the pillar she had been hiding behind and, with a flip of her hair, calmly walk over the rubble and scattered rocks towards Mash and the dissolving enemy.
Feeling lost, Ritsuka followed her.
Mash was leaning against the broken streetlight, panting for breath. As the director approached, Mash looked up and attempted to stand up straight.
"Okay—okay—we won…" Mash panted out, eyes wide in stunned amazement. "I was sure I didn't stand a chance, but we actually won—"
Olga nodded once, a smile on her face.
But before she or Ritsuka could speak up, the beep of a communicator sounded from both the Director's and Ritsuka's communicators as they spat out a hologram of Roman at Chaldea, looking a tad harried.
"…Sorry, there's no time to rest Mash," Roman said before another person's voice muttered some words to Roman from off-screen. "'A similar signal as before' is heading that way. I don't have to tell you what you need to do, right?"
Ritsuka was alarmed but not as much as Mash and Olga were.
"What—Same signal? No way—" Mash nearly panicked at the thought of fighting another Servant like that one.
Olga on the other hand trembled once and then broke out in a run. "Retreat! Mash! Ritsuka! Hurry up! We have got to get out of here now!"
"Come on, Master!" Mash grabbed him by the hand as she started running. "We have to get moving!"
Ritsuka blinked at the hand that Mash was holding onto before he belatedly realized that he needed to run on his own.
"Right!" before he took off, shaking his arm free of Mash's.
Olga thought that she and her subordinates managed a surprisingly fast pace. Of course, that opinion excluded Mash, who was now an amazing Demi-Servant that could probably lap the two of them while carrying double their combined weight in shield and armor.
Olga chastened her thoughts. No wondering on the changes that becoming a Demi-Servant did to Mash until after the mission was over. Chaldea could examine the differences in strength, endurance, mana, agility, and luck after humanity's future was assured once more.
Returning her focus to running, Olga failed to notice that she had already made a misstep.
Olga felt her foot bend and slide as she stepped into a pothole in the street. She cried as she windmilled her arms, trying to keep herself from falling flat on her face.
She failed and she splayed out on the pavement before she gritted her teeth and got back up, breathing heavily all the while.
She was not a failure. She would not die here. She would prove it!
But the commoner had already stopped next to her, panting as he tried to catch his breath.
That idiot! They needed to make it back to the Tohsaka manor. She had a defensive rune placed there and they could use the Leyline Terminal to help establish a defense. But only if they made it there!
"Get moving! We can't stay here," she yelled.
The boy nodded and started to run again. She took off as well, seeing the bridge come into sight.
"Roman! What is happening? Why are Servants here?" She snapped. Roman had SHEBA and LAPLACE, he should be able to get some sort of readings. Even Roman should be able to do that.
Roman spoke only over the audio, "I see… We had assumed that this was after the Holy Grail War, but it might be that the Holy Grail War is still going on. But something has gone terribly wrong. The mana measurements are way too high, high enough for a Servant to keep itself going just from the atmosphere and the Holy Grail."
Olga would have gritted her teeth at that but her lungs needed the oxygen coming in from her mouth. Her sides were hurting but the idea of being targeted by another Servant was enough to inspire her to ignore it, even as they ran through the large intersection that was in front of the bridge.
She hadn't needed to run like this since… never. Not even when she was one of the Master Candidates before Father had died and they did physical training had she ran this hard for so long.
And she had hated it back then and didn't hate it any less now. But she was not going to give up and be killed now! She was an Animusphere!
"If that's the case then if the Masters died in whatever event caused this, then it would be natural for the Servants to become Masterless. In that case, it is not surprising that they are trying to target other Servants," Roman continued.
Mash overheard from in front of the two human runners. "Then as long as I'm here, we'll be targeted by other Servants?"
Unethical. Illogical. Olga was upset at the injustice being committed.
"But Mash has nothing to do with the Grail! That's just a wandering phantom gone mad!" She yelled out, angered at the dangerous, unjustified, and illogical actions of these odd Servants. They had no reason to act like that in this sort of place!
"I don't know!" Roman cried back. "I never have heard of anything like this before! I think they just want to kill other Servants until the Grail is filled."
"Then do something useful and get that technician up there! He should at least be able to tell us who the Servants are!" Olga ordered.
They needed to know. Mash was barely able to defeat the last Servant and without a Noble Phantasm or a competent Master, they needed any advantage they could get.
And the only one they could get right now was knowledge of the enemy Servants. Their True Names, their weaknesses, their class and everything else. Preferably before they even had to fight them.
The trio of runners stepped onto the bridge and four daggers flew from the shade of a bridge pillar behind them.
"Master! Director!" Mash cried out even as she speedily reversed her course to get between them and the Servant ambushing them, her shield clanging as the daggers bounced off it.
"Another Servant's signal has been confirmed, it's an Assassin-class Servant!" Roman announced unnecessarily.
"A bit late for that Roman!" Olga snarled as she took cover behind the shield. She didn't feel like she could run another step. Her legs burned, her throat was dry, and the ache in her side had grown into actual pain.
And the Servant was already here. The Servant, like the last, was made of a shiny solidified shadow and black clouds of mist were leaking from his skin, covering the body
The Assassin ominously laughed, a creepy sound like that of a raspy voice trying to cough up a lung.
"-I found it," the Assassin rasped. "New prey. The Grail shall be mine!"
Olga shivered. The voice was like a pronouncement of doom. Doom upon her head.
"I can fight!" Mash loyally cried. She might be able to win. This was Assassin, the weakest of Servants. Surely Mash could win. She beat the other Servant after all. "Senpai, please give me your orders!"
But the Assassin had already jumped up into the air and was hanging like a large, evil monkey from one of the pillars connecting up to the arch of the bridge.
Olga noted that the right arm that was wrapped around the pillar was weird. Like it was too long to be a human arm.
But she didn't know which Assassin it was! Not that it probably would have helped. Assassin Servants were notorious for their reputed legends to be quite secretive about their direct combat abilities. Any Assassin's legend was more focused on how they secretly killed their victim than how strong they were.
Several more daggers flew down from above them and Mash raised her shield to block.
But by the time Mash lowered her shield again to let Olga see what Assassin would do next, Assassin was gone.
Mash blinked, horror dawning on her face.
She had beaten the last Servant by the skin of her teeth but then the terrain had favored her. Here, the terrain favored Assassin. He had probably driven them here on purpose!
Her eyes flickered among the pillars, looking for where Assassin was hiding. Not there, not there, not there, wait!
Assassin's black mist and cloak helped to hide him among the smoke-filled sky but the flickering flames from the burning city illuminated him to her eyes.
Mash eyed him warily. Assassin had an advantage here. He could throw daggers down from the pillars above her but she couldn't go after him. She couldn't climb the pillars—
But she might be able to kick off of the pillars in order to reach the heights Assassin was hanging at.
Mash eyed the pillars. They were thick and wide, long round cylinders made of steel. Only one foot would be able to land on it but she would not make the same mistake of trying to land with both feet like she had with the last pillar. If she kicked off with only one foot, then she could jump to a second pillar and kick off that one with her other foot.
It was the only option she had.
Mash took a step towards Assassin.
The dark black colored Servant threw a couple of daggers towards her and jumped off to the other side of the bridge, the side closer to her and her Master. He caught himself on another pillar, about half a dozen meters above her, slung himself 180 degrees around it and threw a couple more daggers towards Ritsuka.
Mash blocked the first set of daggers with her shield and then sprinted over to deflect the daggers.
"Master, I can pursue after him. Just give the order and I will do it," Mash requested of her Senpai.
"Uh, sure," Ritsuka sounded taken back by her request. "Go for it."
"No, don't do that!" Olga cried. Mash hesitated even as she started to take her first few steps towards the enemy. "You idiot! Can't you figure out that as soon as you get up to him, he'll just come down and kill us both! You have to protect me and your Master!"
Mash's eyes widened in shame as she realized what Assassin had been doing. He had been trying to bait her. Trying to bait her into leaving her Master undefended. And then he would kill him.
Images of a room filled with bodies assaulted her. Then her imagination twisted her memories into imaging Ritsuka there, just one of many failures, killed by their Heroic Spirit. Olga Marie, her body right next to him, with a dagger in her throat.
"Understood!" she yelled.
Some more daggers flew down from Assassin. Each was aimed at a different target. Mash rotated her shield and hoisted it into the air so that two extensions would block the daggers aimed at Ritsuka and Olga. She dodged the dagger aimed at her body.
After that, it settled down into a pattern. Assassin would jump between pillars, hurling daggers at multiple angles, trying to get past her shield. Mash would block and keep on moving so that she was always interposed between the enemy and her charges.
But Mash couldn't block them all. When possible, she tried to make it so that whatever dagger she couldn't block with her shield, hit against her armored body, twisting her body around so that it would not strike the gap over her stomach.
But Assassin was better than her and he had three targets to choose from.
So this is the power of a real Heroic Spirit. Mash thought as two daggers clashed in midair, altering their trajectory.
Olga gasped in shock as Mash casually kicked her in the back of the knee, causing her to fall to the ground even as Mash used her shield to block the daggers aimed at Ritsuka. A few daggers flew over the director's head, where her head had been a moment ago but one was lower than the others.
It sliced a thin gash across Olga's cheek.
Olga raised one hand to her cheek. She shakily drew it away, looking at her blood covering her fingers in pure shock.
"Sorry!" Mash cried out. She hadn't been able to stop that one. That dagger had been the one that Assassin had hit in mid-air so that it could come at her from a third angle that she couldn't stop while blocking the others.
"Ha ha ha ha!" The Servant laughed. Mash repressed her shiver in order to block some more flying daggers. His laugh sounded like dying bugs. "I forgot to poison that one. Oh well, weak little Servant. I'll just have to poison the next one that makes it through!"
She was losing. Mash realized. No, worse. The Assassin was playing with them.
The weakest Servant Class in the Grail War was beating her.
Her victory over the other Servant was a fluke.
This Servant would kill her.
But only after he had killed her defenseless Senpai and Director behind her.
Ritsuka didn't like the looks of this.
Mash was handicapped by having to protect both him and Olga and the assassin was making sure to stay out of range of Mash's shield. As Olga had pointed out, Mash couldn't go chase him or else he and Olga Animusphere would be killed.
Which left all of them at their enemy's mercy. And judging by the Servant's laughter, any mercy he would give would be because it was entertaining to the psychopath.
Ritsuka figured that they would receive none. He seemed to be more interested in their suffering than anything else.
Even amidst his worry, Ritsuka had to admit that Mash was amazing.
Mash blocked another volley of daggers that Ritsuka couldn't even make out from the smoke choked clouds in the background of the sky. The dark throwing daggers weren't as shiny as he would have thought the metal daggers would be. Instead, they looked like a less shiny form of the same sort of material that the enemy Servants were made of.
Ritsuka shook his head, wondering at where his thoughts were wandering. He was about to be killed! What was he doing wondering about the enemy's knives?
Mash darted in front of him, surprising him again at just how fast the girl could move while hauling around the largest shield he has ever seen. The clangs of metal bouncing off the other side of Mash's shield declared what she had moved to protect him from.
He opened his mouth to say thanks- even now, being polite was a reflex for the Japanese man- but Mash dashed off to protect Olga from some more daggers before he could even say anything.
He somehow felt chastised by that. He was in the middle of a fight for his life, they didn't have time to be polite!
Trying to figure out some way to help them all survive, he looked skyward, trying to find the shadowy Servant. It took another couple of thrown daggers before he could even backtrack the daggers to the assassin hanging amidst the columns.
The black covered Servant was scary, just hanging there, one arm around the pillar he was hanging off of, the other pulling daggers out from somewhere in his cloak. He seemed like a scary attraction from a haunted house, that came to life and was now trying to kill him.
Ritsuka wondered what they could do. He didn't have anything he could throw at the guy to try to knock him down from there. Mash didn't have a still moment to go after him as the Assassin Servant kept up a constant stream of falling daggers.
Ritsuka's eyes widened. Assassin just jumped from one of the bridge's columns to another. He couldn't even see the figure move but the masked and cloaked figure had just left the pillar. Maybe he had fallen down so that Mash could—
No. Ritsuka found him a few seconds later. He had just moved to a new pillar so that he could throw from a new angle. It was hard to see him as the only movements he was making in his position was his arm throwing daggers. The rest of him was immobile, not moving.
Ritsuka's eyes widened as he realized something. Mash didn't have a still moment. She was running all over the place but the assassin was barely making any movements at all.
In a contest of endurance, Mash was going to lose.
What could they do? What could they do!?
"Director!" Ritsuka turned to the only one who knew what was going on. "We have to get the assassin down from there. If we don't, he'll just tire out Mash!"
"Well, what would you have us do then!" She shouted back. "That's a Servant! Even at its weakest, it'll still be at least 10 times stronger, faster, and more durable than you or me."
Ritsuka was taken back. What could they do? If the director didn't have an idea then…
"Well, can we tire him out somehow? If Mash tires out before him, we'll die but if we make him run or get off those columns, then maybe Mash can fight him." Ritsuka proposed.
Olga looked indignant before she paused. "Wait, if it is an Assassin, then it is the weakest Servant. Also, Assassins only class skill is presence concealment, it doesn't have magic resistance."
She smiled, a maliciously gleeful smile that Ritsuka wouldn't be surprised to find on a shark. "Which means that it is vulnerable to magecraft."
Olga raised both hands into the air, one shaped like a finger gun, the other supporting it from beneath. For a brief moment, Ritsuka wondered what that was supposed to do before he noticed that a reddish black ball was forming and growing at the fingertip.
Oh yeah, magic was a thing now. He kept on forgetting that.
Olga fired the magical ball at the assassin and Ritsuka's eyes eagerly followed as it flew through the air.
The ball went splat on the steel pillar, carving out a hole in the steel structure instead of the hanging Servant. The assassin had jumped through the air, easily dodging the magical projectile.
The assassin even threw a few more daggers while mid-air, causing Mash to have to interpose her shield between Olga and the assassin.
Ritsuka clucked his tongue. That wouldn't work. Their enemy would just dodge every spell that they could throw at him. Not quite good enough.
Olga sighed, maybe at the enemy's rather obvious solution of simply dodging any trick they could throw at him.
Ritsuka wondered what they could do. They couldn't let this go on, otherwise, Mash would wear out. But he didn't want to stand here while Olga used her magic, or magecraft he supposed that the recruiter had told him they called magic among the magic community, to knock Assassin down to Mash's level. Was there something he could do to help Mash or Olga Marie?
He couldn't think of anything. It had been years since he last had his childhood karate lesson and the assassin didn't look like it was going to come in close enough for him to use what little he still remembered.
What else could he do, he pondered while Mash ran around protecting them from the falling daggers and Olga tried to hit the Servant with her spells. He didn't know any magecraft and he didn't have any tools or weapons he could use, not that he would know how to use one if had one.
Yeah, he had been told that he had potential, which is why they were so adamant on recruiting him, but he didn't even have one spell that he could cast.
He didn't want to do nothing while Mash protected him from the enemy.
What to do, what to do?
The Assassin Servant was in the best environment he could have, able to throw or even drop daggers from the pillars while easily being able to use the bridge's columns to hide or protect himself from Olga Marie. It was like he had chosen the terrain beforehand to give himself the maximum advantage.
Ritsuka paused. The current environment helped the assassin. If they fought here, then he would probably win.
In that case, they should leave the bridge and fight Assassin elsewhere.
Ritsuka didn't pause to share his thoughts.
"Mash, director!" he yelled. "Let's take this somewhere else. If we fight here, then he will just hang above us until we drop from exhaustion."
"That's obvious, you moron!" Olga snarled. "This is obviously a trap. What you should be focusing on is how we can beat it without dying!"
Ritsuka blinked. "I just figured that if we slowly retreated off the bridge with Mash covering us, then we could leave the bridge and Assassin would have to come down to fight us."
"Understood, Master," Mash huffed. She was evidently already beginning to tire. "Ready to cover our retreat."
"Then let's go," Ritsuka said as he took a step back toward the road they had gotten onto the bridge from.
Olga eyed the Assassin Servant above them before grudgingly retreating with him. Mash followed the two, using her hearing to tell her when and where the other two were taking steps, all the while blocking and dodging the assassin's daggers.
Then disaster struck.
"Aah!" Mash cried as a dagger penetrated her defense.
One of the daggers that she had blocked from going through Ritsuka's head bounced off her raised shield and flew into her thigh, slicing nearly parallel to the bone.
Mash stumbled and caught herself on her shield, which she quickly planted onto the ground.
"MASH!" Olga and Ritsuka both shouted.
Mash gritted her teeth and let out a yell as she stubbornly lifted her shield to block a flurry of daggers aimed for her weak points and a pair aimed at the two behind her.
Mash couldn't let those two die. She couldn't! And if it meant fighting with a dagger stuck in her thigh and she would have count on her endurance to keep her fighting through the pain, then so be it!
"Are you okay, Mash?" Ritsuka asked, the concern in his voice touching her heart. Was this how normal humans felt about each other?
Ritsuka stared wide eyed at the black dagger sticking out of Mash's leg.
How? How could Mash have been hit? She was super-human, a Servant! She moved faster than he could see, she was as strong as a super-hero! She was amazing and friendly, if a bit awkward at first impression.
Was she alright? The dagger had to have hurt! Was this going to kill her!?
Panic and fear rolled across his thoughts.
"Are you okay, Mash?" He asked, barely making out that he had said the words while his emotions rolled tempestuously.
"I am still able to fight but I won't be as mobile. Please consider that while issuing your orders, Senpai," Mash replied, unable to keep a note of pain from leaking out from her response.
Orders?
What was she talking about? She was the one with the experience here! She was the one who could actually fight! She-
She depended on him.
Mash's words from before they had met up with Olga rang through his head.
A Servant depends on their Master.
If that was really the case, then he had to help her! She depended on him!
But –
How?
The enemy Servant interrupted his racing yet circular thoughts, in a deep rumble, rife in disapproval and disappointment. "This is a waste of time. I could have handled this on my own."
What does that mean? Ritsuka thought, unaware that he had just spoken his thoughts. What was he talking about? On his own? But there was nobody else around…
Roman suddenly chimed out from the communicators, not activating the display.
"Ritsuka, they've caught up! There's one more, that's their main force!" he announced from Chaldea's Command Center.
Ritsuka wheeled around, facing towards the road leading to the bridge.
Sure enough, Roman was right. There was another enemy Servant, trailing clouds of black mist from his giant body. On his back lay half a dozen different weapons and in his hands was what looked to be a naginata, if the shape he caught through the dark cloud was right.
But more importantly, he was standing straight in their path of retreat.
"No way," Olga gasped. "we're losing to one already, and now there's one more on the way?"
Mash stared at the new arrival. "Ah-"
The Servant over their head insidiously whispered. "Let's finish this, Lancer. I don't know what kind of Heroic Spirit that is, but I will have her head!"
The other Servant, Lancer if Ritsuka recalled how the assassin addressed him, started to laugh, a demented laugh of one gone insane. It seemed to make his tongue curl as if it had tasted some horrendous fiery sludge. "Ha ha ha!"
What made it worse was that the one above their heads soon joined in, laughing like a murderous duo of crazies who were glad that the world was about to end. Olga Marie's mouth hung open as her rushed breathes came in panicked and Mash trembled in fear.
It was official. This was all a dream. Nothing but a lucid nightmare could feel like this. The murderous certainty of death hanging over their heads, the taste of something foul, the laughter like a demented pair of birds, and the smell and lights of a burning city, all could only come from the depths of the worst nightmare in his life.
"Director, Mash, hang in there!" Roman tried to cajole the two women of the group. "You got to keep moving!"
"Fou!" Fou chimed in as well, jumping at Mash's legs from the ground, trying to shake Mash from her fear. "Fou!"
Neither of their encouragements worked. The laughter of the two specters cloaked in black mist reverberated around the group, keeping Mash and the Olga Marie paralyzed in their fear.
Roman seemed to realize this as he cursed before continuing. "They let fear get to them—Give them some orders, Ritsuka!"
Ritsuka jumped. He didn't know that Roman could speak like that. He seemed like such a friendly, laid-back guy. Who knew that he could speak with the voice of command.
"You're the only calm one now!" Roman explained.
Ritsuka didn't know about that. He wasn't paralyzed with fear like the other two but he figured that was because he had gone through enough fear in the last few hours that he barreled through paralyzing fear straight into a state of feeling like he was in a straight up nightmare and was hoping to wake up soon.
But he supposed that he should at least do something in this dream. It would be a lame dream if he just stood here and did nothing while the enemies laughed at him.
Fight or run?
He glanced aside to look at his companions. Olga was still in the midst of a panic attack and Mash was letting her shield droop and she still had the dagger in her leg. Ritsuka let his eyes linger on the black dagger without a crossguard and then he looked Mash straight in the eye.
"Mash," he calmly stated. He felt sort of numb actually. "we have no choice but to fight."
Mash blinked once and then twice. She straightened her back and set her shield firmly on the ground. The determination reflected in her new stance shone as a contrast to her already defeated attitude of just a few moments ago.
"Understood, there's no other option!" Mash repeated.
"Ha!" Above her, the Assassin Servant cackled again before proclaiming his judgement. "Futile! Fight, then you die. Run, and you still die."
His statement hit home on Ritsuka's expectation for the next several minutes. Great, now his subconscious too thought he had no chance.
He didn't disagree with it though.
"The demise of the futile, oh so miserable." He continued to mock before breaking into cackling laughter again.
Now, Lancer spoke, a pleasant bass in comparison to his companion, even though it still had the sound of the deranged. "Go ahead and struggle," he mocked. "Miserable people are so entertaining."
Now Olga broke out of her fear induced immobility. "F-Fight!" she exclaimed incredulously as she gestured towards Lancer. "Are you serious? We don't stand a chance against something like that, right!?"
Mash and Ritsuka were silent for a few moments. They really didn't stand a chance against either of them. But what other option did they have?
"Even so, we must fight," Mash said in a subdued tone that hardened into determination as she continued to speak. "I will find a way for us to get out of this alive!"
Both of the enemy Servants laughed at that.
"Ha!" the Assassin Servant taunted. "You've just killed yourself, girl!"
Mash almost seemed to waver at the taunt. Either that or a gust of smoke had drifted between Ritsuka and Mash.
"I thought you were just some girl but it looks like you've got some fight in you." A man's voice suddenly rang out from the air around them. Ritsuka glanced about, fearing that yet a third opponent had appeared to attack them but he didn't see anyone. "Then I can't leave you like this."
Then a fireball appeared from behind Lancer and flashed forward. Lancer barely managed to dodge to the side, his laugher vanishing even as the fireball flew past Ritsuka and his companions.
Tracking back to the origin of the fireball, Ritsuka's jaw dropped as a blue haired man with a staff appeared out of thin air, garbed in an odd looking blue and white outfit that looked like it was made of the finest fur for the hood and some strange fabrics. The man was like no one Ritsuka had ever seen before. Not only was he a tall foreigner, but Ritsuka had never imagined a guy wearing a dress and a see-through shirt before.
The guy was ripped though. Must be a bodybuilder. But he was also the first human the three of them had met in this nightmare town of fire and the dead.
"Ugh!" a guttural cry came from above the trio. Ritsuka started in surprise about forgetting about the Assassin Servant and glanced up to see the enemy hiss towards the new arrival. "Who are you?"
The enemy, still clothed in his dark mist, had thrown off the cloak that helped to cover his form. The cloak that was burning merily, even as it flew off the bridge and into the river below.
"Impressive," Olga Marie whispered. "To cast multiple fireballs such that Assassin had to get hit. And at such a speed and without an aria to boot. He has to be a Caster Servant."
Ritsuka glanced aside at her. Had he missed something while he watched the low-flying fireball streak by?
"What do you mean?" the new arrival said, leaning on his staff a little, waving a finger at the hanging Servant, appearing to mock the creep of all things. "Can't you tell? Don't tell me that the mud got in your eyes too?"
If he expected a response, it didn't come from the assassin.
"Curse you Caster," the one referred to as Lancer retorted with bile in his words, sounding like if he could, he would carry out the cursing right then and there. "Why are you siding with a Wanderer?"
"Huh?" the blue haired Caster retorted, like he was answering a stupid question. "Because it is better than siding with you guys!"
He wheeled off his staff, fingers flashing and bright lights appearing before vanishing in split second.
More fireballs streaked towards both of the Servants cloaked in a shadowy mist, forcing them to dodge. But the new Caster didn't stop there. His fingers continued to fly, spreading symbols made of light like it wasn't in defiance of natural law for people to finger-paint on thin air.
"And hey, I don't mind brats with some potential," he continued before winking at Mash with a big roguish grin. "Young lady, be ready for a good fight."
Ritsuka knew that doubts were showing on his face. As good as this new arrival was, Assassin alone had been about to overpower them. Could they really win, even with help?
Some of those doubts must have shown on Mash's face as well as the blue guy offered some encouragement. "Don't worry, you're good. You can turn this around if you can just pay attention."
Mash glanced down at the dagger still in her leg before looking towards Ritsuka and Olga. She visibly squared her shoulders and gave her best reply. "R-Right, I'll do my best."
Caster spared her another grin before his face dropped into seriousness and turned towards Ritsuka. "Hey boy, are you her Master?"
Ritsuka hesitantly nodded.
"Then I'll leave the starting orders to you. I'm a Caster class Servant. They don't really like me right now. Not like the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but for now, you can trust me. In honor of the brave lady there, I'll form a temporary contract with you and fight as your Servant!"
Ritsuka just nodded again.
He had no idea what was going on right now. Enemy of my enemy is not my friend? Temporary Servant? Who was this guy anyway? And why was he still alive when everyone else was dead or a weird, fog covered Servant?
But he reckoned that everyone was waiting for him to tell them to start. And now that they had a new ally, one apparently good enough to put both enemies on the back foot, they probably should start. Maybe by focusing on Lancer as he was between them and Caster.
"Mash, Caster!" He called out, pretending to be more confident than he actually was. He took another breath before starting the fighting again, now that the Lancer and Assassin Servants had finished dodging the last of the fireballs. "Crush Lancer, and then the assassin!"
It may not have been fair to gang up two on one, but they started it first!
Regardless of how unfair it appeared to be, Caster grinned wide like he was enjoying himself and let the glowing symbols explode forwards.
"Understood!" Mash started to run forwards, ignoring the dagger in her leg. Ritsuka grabbed Olga at the forearm and pulled her forward to stay near Mash.
"Come on," he said to his boss. "We have to stay near either Mash or Caster, otherwise that assassin guy will kill us."
Regardless of his dishonorable action of telling his newest friend and a complete stranger to gang up on a guy like a pair of bullies, he didn't want to die!
Mash ignored the pain of having the dagger shake with every step she took. She needed to leave it in until she got time for first aid treatment. Right now, the dagger kept her blood from flowing out through the wound.
It still hurt! But nowhere nearly as badly as when she had been stabbed or sliced up in the practice stimulated battles, now that she thought about it.
Maybe it was her Endurance parameter?
The thud of boots hitting the ground behind her told Mash that Ritsuka and Olga were right behind her, even as she raced forward to attack Lancer.
Lancer cursed as he noticed that the ambush had been reversed. Now he was between two enemies and Mash was trapped between him and Assassin.
But he didn't stop. All he had to do was team up with Assassin and overwhelm Mash and then they could defeat Caster.
It all came down to who could overpower the opponent in the middle first. And everyone knew it.
More balls of fire from Caster raced overhead to Assassin, who was throwing his dirks at everyone except Lancer. But now that Assassin had to dodge attacks, he wasn't sustaining the overwhelming rate of fire that he had been keeping up before, Mash reflected as she almost idly blocked the daggers aimed for her Master and Olga by holding her shield above their heads.
Six meters to Lancer. Mash mentally prepared herself to ram Lancer with her shield. It would mean that she would have to leave Olga and Ritsuka open to Assassin but she couldn't let them come within range of Lancer's spear.
"Be ready," she quietly muttered to Ritsuka and Olga. "I'll have to ram Lancer so please dodge Assassin while I do so."
"What?" loudly squawked Olga. "Dodge a-!"
Four meters to Lancer.
"Now!" she yelled as she withdrew her shield from overhead and held it up in front of her. She kicked off the ground with all her strength, dashing to Lancer as fast as she could.
Lancer was not surprised by her charge and he raced forward to meet her.
He raised his spear over his head, obviously intending to stab downwards once he could get over her shield. Mash felt a surge of fear as the distance between the two dropped rapidly.
But the adrenaline was kicking in and she felt a smile tempt her lips at the sheer rush of being alive.
One meter.
"Yaaaaaa!" Mash let a battle cry rip its way out of her throat.
"Nggh!" Lancer roared in response.
"Ansuz!" Caster called out.
BAM!
Mash dodged to the right behind her shield, while Lancer's spear thrust down towards where her left shoulder had been.
Less than half a second later, the world seemed to shake as Lancer's torso slammed into the shield and Mash found that her strength was inferior. Mash rocketed backwards, knocking into both Ritsuka and Olga and sending all three sprawling to the ground, her shield fortunately still in her hand.
But the collision had also stopped Lancer cold, dumping all his speed to nothing.
Which proved dangerous as Caster's largest fireball, a sphere of nothing but fire two and a half meters wide and two and a half meters tall exploded where they had collided, swallowing Lancer up in fire.
When the fire evaporated away, Lancer had no black mist left around him and wisps of smoke rose up from his front instead. His skin, once the color of pure black, now had brownish burn marks all over.
Mash couldn't see his back but she imagined he looked much worse where the fireball had hit.
"Ugh—" he seemed to groan before he said his final words as his beaten form started to vanish into the air, "Curse you Caster-!"
Mash rolled off the two people beneath her, struggling to get to her feet before Assassin could capitalize on her weakness-!
Only for Caster's staff to tap on the ground a few meters away and for the incoming daggers to shift their course mid-air to land inside the rune now glowing on the bridge.
"Good work little lady," the Caster grinned from beside the rune he had drawn with the butt of his staff. "Couldn't have caught him in that without you."
"Oh, um," Mash flubbed at the compliment for the mistake she had made. She had been planning on slamming into Lancer and knocking him back and away from her Master. She hadn't reckoned on Lancer being so much stronger than her that she was the one to be knocked back. "Thank you very much-"
"Save it for later," the Heroic Spirit interrupted as his staff whirled to intercept a dagger that would have hit him despite being pulled in by his rune. "We still have that overgrown chimp to take care of."
"Oh, right," Mash replied with a light blush of embarrassment. So embarrassing! To get distracted from one foe by an ally's compliment!
Mash turned to face Assassin, who was even now still hanging in the shadow of the pillars above. His free hand held several daggers which were now visible now that he didn't have a cloak.
"Mr. Caster," Mash wondered as she stepped up next to Caster. "How do you propose we get Assassin down from there?"
She probably should have asked her Master, but he probably had as much of an idea as she did. Besides, neither of them knew anything about Caster and what abilities he had other than he was skilled with Northern European Runes. Maybe he had some Noble Phantasm that could help?
If he didn't, then she would just go back to her first idea of kicking off of the pillars to get up to Assassin. With Caster here, she could count on him to defend the others.
"Skip the 'Mister'," Caster ordered with a smirk. "but yeah, I actually do."
The Servant lifted his staff from the rune, the rune fading before vanishing. He whirled his staff around a few times before flourishing it into the ground. A gigantic rune appeared, stretching across the ground from his staff to the pillars along the side of the bridge.
Mash steadied her footing waiting for something to happen.
…
Nothing happened. Mash blinked as she observed that the rune was still lit up. Didn't Caster have a plan?
"UGH!" Assassin grunted.
Mash tore her eyes back up towards Assassin. He was now using both hands to hold onto the pillar.
Mash's eyes lightened up as she realized what Caster had done. He was increasing gravity to pull Assassin down to the ground, where he couldn't use the pillars to stay above their head and out of range.
Mash readied her shield and waited. When Assassin falls, it would be her turn to defeat Assassin once he falls into her reach. Caster wouldn't be able to win in melee due to him lacking a weapon other than a staff.
And a staff used by Caster versus a dagger wielded by Assassin?
No contest.
But dagger range was where she could fight. She could win. Caster had given her a chance.
And Assassins were the weakest class. He wouldn't be able to throw strong enough that it could escape the gravity field, Caster could provide ranged support and she would press Assassin in melee.
We can win this! Mash thought as she felt the magical pressure from the rune increase again. Assassin responded by wrapping both his legs around the pillar he was hugging to keep himself up.
"Just get down here and die already!" Olga snarled as she fired her black ball against Assassin.
Assassin just cursed and let go as he started his rapid fall to the ground.
Good thing as the rune soon pulled Olga's magecraft to the ground.
What?
"You just used Ehwaz for PULL!" Olga screamed. "Why didn't you intensify gravity instead!"
"Heh heh," Caster chuckled. "I'll have to remember that."
But Mash was already leaping forward. Assassin was on the ground. She had to fight him before he tried to escape the rune.
The pull to the ground was way too strong, Mash felt. Her jump only got her about two meters in before she had to catch herself from stumbling to the ground.
And Assassin had already landed and was using his agility to dart forward towards her, daggers held in his unwrapped hand.
Mash gritted her teeth and charged forward, feeling like the increased weight was not affecting her as much now that the adrenaline for fighting Assassin was starting to pump.
Assassin started the new round of their fight by throwing a dagger towards her eye. Mash rotated her shield to block while tilting her head in order to look out from where the tallest spoke of her shield used to be. She couldn't let Assassin use her own shield to blind her again.
Assassin darted left, throwing another dagger which she easily blocked with her shield while she turned to meet his new direction.
"Hah!" Mash yelled as she thrust her shield out to try to hit Assassin.
Assassin easily dodged and swiveled to get around her shield.
Mash reversed her swing back towards where Assassin was trying to get inside the range of her shield.
Assassin stuck his heavily wrapped right arm out to intercept her shield.
Mash grunted as her shield was caught and held in Assassin's hand. With just his off hand, the Servant had stopped her shield.
This is bad, Mash thought as Assassin darted his left hand with the dagger in it forward towards her head.
She didn't have many options so she took the first one that came to mind.
"Nnh." Mash grunted as she took the dagger to the brachium of her right arm while intuitively releasing a burst of od, her body's internalized magical energy, to increase her durability there.
The dagger only went in about a centimeter before it stopped as it hit the humerus.
And Mash had a free hand.
She punched Assassin in the head.
It wasn't very strong as she just had her muscles in that arm cut but it was enough to stagger Assassin and force him to release her shield.
Mash took the momentary advantage to immediately step back, use her wounded right arm to grab the shield and to swing its long, bottom edge against Assassin.
Assassin bent backwards, ducking under the shield, and sprang up, another dagger already in hand.
Mash jumped backwards, raising one foot to kick Assassin if he followed.
Assassin dove to the left side, just as her shield came back to where he had been standing.
Mash continued her swing, hoping to finally lay a good blow against the Servant of murder.
Assassin's left arm lunged out towards her thigh, the interior of the thigh, her mind idly noted, the part where the veins and arteries were. If it hit, she would rapidly lose blood until she died.
Mash kicked out with her booted foot, narrowly missing Assassin's arm but she hit his torso.
Assassin went flying a few feet back as he rolled on the ground before coming up into a crouch.
Mash set her stance, oriented towards Assassin, and noticed that the glow of Caster's magecraft was beginning to fade.
Assassin, no longer burdened down by the pull of Caster's rune darted to the side, trying to keep Mash between him and Caster.
Mash lunged forward, eager to stop him before he could get back among the columns.
Once again, she and Assassin clashed, his dagger bouncing off her shield as she kept an eye on his arm to prevent a repeat of him grabbing it again.
Assassin, realizing that there wouldn't be a repeat of the last few seconds, fell back towards the pillars.
Mash pursued, shield angled in front of her.
They kept it up for a few seconds until Mash stumbled as Caster's hand suddenly landed on her shoulder and he threw himself into the air above her shield.
"And you'll just stay put!" he yelled with his staff extended out towards Assassin.
Assassin, no easy fool, ducked away from Caster's staff and sped off around Mash, his superior agility easily out pacing her effort to intercept him.
"Senpai!" Mash screamed out in renewed fear of Assassin killing both him and Olga.
The two stepped back as Assassin flourished his daggers, arm drawing back to throw them!
And then he froze still as he stepped onto a rune that immediately activated in a burst of blue light.
"Did I ever say that I would stop you here?" Caster asked rhetorically as he cockily leaned on his staff. "I knew how that a coward like you would dodge so I set up runes to trap you if you stepped on them."
"Young lady," he turned to address Mash. "Would you like the honor? You were the one who fought against him the longest."
Mash turned to her Master, tilting her head in question. "Master?"
Ritsuka looked at both her and Assassin before he swallowed and said, "Please get rid of him Mash."
Mash nodded and she walked towards the immobilized Servant.
"Curse you!" Assassin hissed as she walked closer. "Curse you, with the Holy Grail, before my eyes! And you Caster, do you think you can take it with the help of these Wanderers!"
"Yeah, I do actually," Caster honestly responded. "They are simply better than you. If Lancer hadn't intercepted, I would have expected the three of them to have defeated you easily."
"Hah!" Assassin barked out a laugh. "I was winning on my own. I almost killed them a dozen times already!"
"Yeah, you were" Caster agreed. "But the young lady was picking apart your fighting style and they were making to escape your ambush. You are only good for one fight and then any survivor could pick apart your fighting style. You just didn't have enough skill to kill them fast enough and the young lady could outlast you even on her worst day. Add to that that she had her Master working with her and a strong magus with them, they would have defeated you without a sweat in your next fight. You lost."
When she thought about it, Mash had to agree with Caster. Assassin kept a constant distance of seven meters from her at all times. He also only employed killing blows that would tire out the opponent. He also enjoyed targeting the limbs, aiming for spots that would kill if left unattended like the veins and arteries.
And he never changed his strategy, even when they got into melee. Assassin didn't know any other way to fight and he appeared to abhor changing tactics.
Not that she was much better. She only knew how to fight from the inherited move sets that the Heroic Spirit that contracted with her had left her. But she knew that he or she knew at least half a dozen different styles in how to use the shield.
Mash was getting close to Assassin. Now that she was closer, she could see that he was twitching and tensing his muscles but couldn't move his body even a centimeter. As an Assassin, he didn't have the Magic Resistance skill. Once he got tagged by a Mystery, he was almost defenseless against it, even if it hadn't been created by a Caster.
Now with her shield in range of Assassin's head, Mash tightened her grip on her shield. She stared at the non-moving foe in front of her. He still seemed dangerous, with his shiny black body under his black cloud of smoke that rose out of his body but like this, he wasn't so dangerous.
Mash glanced down to the dagger still in her thigh and the hole in her arm from where the dirk had fallen out during their fast and furious fighting. Judging by the small bloodstain on her arm, her wound was bleeding out at a ridiculously tiny rate, not even a quarter as much as she would have though for such a wound. Maybe it was just an effect of her being a Demi-Servant?
She was thinking too much again. Just like in the simulations where it had lowered her score until she had learned to act faster.
Mash swung her shield, aiming for Assassin's head.
It crushed like an egg, if without the associated mess.
And Assassin started to vanish just like Lancer and the other Servant vanished, smoke and black sludge thinning out into the air.
Anarctica, Chaldea, 2017
Shirou raced through the deserted corridors.
He had just been contacted through his comm device down in the central powerplant while he had been trying to find out more about this demon.
Apparently, Fuyuki was not empty of Servants and they had just encountered one.
By the time Shirou had made it halfway to the command center (why was the central powerplant so far away from the command center!?), Roman had called him saying that the enemy Servant had been defeated so Shirou didn't need to rush.
Shirou hadn't been able to identify the Servant from the description Roman had provided at the time. A black servant? With clouds of smoke coming from her?
Caster?
Berserker?
But Roman said that she hadn't used any magecraft like Caster would have.
And no one would ever mistake Berserker for female.
Lancer didn't have long-range weapons like that, nor did Saber. Archer was male, but who knew what weapons he had as no one knew his True Name, except for maybe Rin, but she never shared it.
Perhaps Assassin, his hair was long enough to be mistaken for a girl. Or Rider who was female and used daggers with chains and wore black clothes.
But neither of them had clouds of smoke. Neither Medusa nor Sasaki Kojirou had the legend to allow them to disguise themselves.
So thinking it over, maybe it could have been Rider? Despite the inconsistencies, she was the closest person to the Servant Roman had described.
Only it couldn't have been. Rider did not have a Noble Phantasm that could do that. Nor was her skin black. It couldn't have been Rider.
Figuring out who a Servant was without seeing their weapon was inconvenient, Shirou concluded. Being a normal magus without the ability to almost intuitively read weapon history was more of a detriment than beneficial.
Maybe that was why Rin twitched so much when he said something obvious?
Only, it had just been a few seconds ago when Roman had called back. Now a second Servant was closing in on the three from Chaldea. They needed information and help and they needed it now. They weren't going to survive without some knowledge of their enemies.
So Shirou was running through the corridors, using his trained physique to keep up the run to the elevators so that he could get off near the command center.
Shirou tore around a corner, not even slowing down as he shifted his body weight to the right, forcing his body to turn without having to lose some speed by twisting his feet to the new corridor.
The elevators were just in sight now, a few dozen meters ahead of him.
And Shirou was lucky. Someone was there waiting for the elevator, which meant that he wouldn't have to wait as long-
Shirou's eyes widened as one door opened and the person, one of the surviving magus, if Shirou remembered correctly, strolled forward through the elevator door.
"Wait!" Shirou yelled. He was almost there! Just 4 more meters
The woman craned her head around to see who had called out to her.
Upon seeing Shirou, the person scowled, and slammed a hand onto the control panel.
That was nice of them, but the scowl was rude—
No wait! The doors were closing, not staying open!
Shirou put on another burst of speed, legs more leaping than running as he tried to make it through the door before it closed.
It's now or never!
Shirou made one final jump, twisting his body sideways to present a narrower profile to better squeeze through the thin opening that was left of the elevator door.
Shirou barely made it through, door closing shut right behind him.
Breathing hard on the floor, Shirou tried to catch his breath from his run followed by his all-out sprint and last-second acrobatics.
"Well, look who decided to enter where he was not wanted," the voice of the magus drawled, with a sneer almost audible in her tone. "The murderer."
Whew. Those rapid pace fights are finally over. things should calm down a little now.
As for the contract, while Ritsuka might have not sold his soul, he did agree to waive all consequences, including going to a court of law or seeking recompense, for any damage to his soul, destruction of the soul, mutilation, death, injury, cloning, mutation, having his clone assume his identity, being abandoned in the past, getting operated on, turning into a different person, losing his humanity, acquiring unrestrainable impulses, giving into his impulses, being possessed, getting deleted, turning into digital data, anything that happens while he is digital, getting mind-controlled, losing memories, and vanishing from history plus a whole bunch of other conditions.
All in all, he didn't quite sell his soul. He just doesn't have any legal means to own it or protect it while in Chaldea's employ.
Their lawyer department, which works elsewhere and whose only representative in Chaldea died in the explosion in the command center, would soon realize that oversight and include the selling of the soul in all future contracts. With a retroactive agreement to being cryofrozen.