Chapter 7: The Gang Tries To Lead A Catholic Schoolgirl Through Metamorphosis

As the suddenly manifested flag swung at Trent's head, he brought his hands up and shouted, "You can't actually attack me! It would be seen as you breaking your impartiality!"

Jeanne paused, standard in hand as she eyed the blond suspiciously, ready to continue in her pursuit of justice.

Johan raised his head from his hands to flatly interject, "As long as you don't do any lasting damage, I didn't see a thing."

The saint offered him a wan smile, but shook her head. "Sadly, the Master of Black has already made too good an argument for me to actually go through with my original plan. Even though he really does deserve some sort of punishment for his sins."

"My sins are few, and all of them minor, I'm sure even Midas would agree that it's the Fields of Asphodel for me," Trent retorted, finger up as he tried to protect his dignity.

"If words were knives, you'd be the most notorious mass murderer in history," Johan deadpanned. He then looked over to Jeanne. "Ruler. Setting aside my...associate's lack of tact for the moment, was there something we could help you with?"

"I can't believe that Karna's my Lancer compatibility summon…" the associate in question muttered, his brow creased.

Jeanne cleared her throat as she looked to the albino and answered, "My aims here were simply to find the one responsible for the uproar in town in regards to the clearly magical bird war. Suffice to say that I'm most cross with them, as they caused a huge panic."

"The only reason it happened was because Semiramis escalated the conflict, my feather familiars were only to deal with hers. Besides, I never intended for it to spiral out of control as it did," Trent tried to defend himself, expression twisting in annoyance. "I'm innocent."

The Maiden of Orleans sighed, "While I'd very much like to deliver divine punishment upon you for how you endangered the secrecy of the war, you were lucky enough to have not actually tipped anyone off."

Johan snorted. "Lucky, huh? I guess you're right, even if our plans never seem to go as intended. We're not dead yet, so I guess it evens out, kinda."

"I just wish that the last one hadn't gone so awry, I'm gonna feel like scum for days because of that hostage situation I did," the blond muttered as he scratched at his chin. It was gonna be hell dealing with that one, but at least no one had gotten hurt.

Johan sighed. "You're not the only one who feels that way, dude. I'm glad Amakusa didn't call our bluff, though. That's a mess I'm not ready to deal with."

"If he'd called our bluff, I'm fairly sure that he would have been the one to kill everyone in the church, given that he'd essentially have been calling up either Karna, Achilles, or just letting loose himself," Trent remarked, thinking on just what would have happened had the Apocryphal Saint decided to fight them.

"Yes," Johan replied, "Everyone in the church. Especially us. Forgive me if I don't want to get incinerated, impaled, riddled with arrows, or squeezed into spaghetti by that man's magic blackhole fap hands."

Jeanne looked between them, exasperation clear on her features as she asked, "I'm certainly glad that things didn't come to that, as I'd like for this Grail War to proceed in a proper manner."

Johan glanced at Trent. "Since you're already in the doghouse, care to break the bad news, the worse news, and the "Why Do You Hurt Me In This Way" news?"

"How dare you, you coward," said the man already in the doghouse, receiving a snort in return. "So, from the top: this Grail War's been fucked from day one; the two of us along with some others are planning to form our own faction while saying 'fuck you' to our current ones; and finally, the leader of the Red Faction is in fact the incarnated Shirou Amakusa Tokisada, who plans to use the Grail to eliminate all evil from humanity's souls and thus Lostbelt the entire timeline."

"...You know what?" Johan said, "That's fair enough; that's about what I asked for." He tented his hands and rested his elbows on a coffin. "Aside from that, there's the not-so-little problem of the bodysnatching Nazi who could genuinely take over a Servant's Saint Graph, given the chance, and who is currently in possession of the Greater Grail. Add to that the numerous top-tier Servants that both the Ruler of the Third War and Darnic Prestone Yggdmillenia have in their corners, and this is gonna be a right shitshow."

"I figured that I'd just go for the main stuff, but I can see that you wanted to give her a full suffering sundae," Trent remarked candidly, eyeing the saint who was torn between confusion and mounting horror.

Johan shrugged. "Forewarned is forearmed, and whatever personal feelings you might have about Ruler, you can't deny that she's a better choice to confide in than the lich and the zealot."

The blond nodded at his friends words. "This is true, and I've no personal feelings about Ruler beyond bland disinterest—"

"Then why did you call her a dumb bitch, Trent?" Johan interrupted, a vein pulsing on his forehead in a most unhealthy manner.

The blond shrugged, "The opportunity presented itself, and she also can't do basic high school math, so…"

"I'm pretty sure she was a bit busy fighting a war and then getting betrayed by her country for useless shit like algebra," Johan shot back with a long-suffering sigh, before resting his chin on his arms and turning dead eyes to Jeanne.

Trent chuckled at his friend's antics. "Oh, my dear friend, you know that I'm exactly the sort of person to take any opportunity to insult someone. What do you expect me to do with a literally uneducated peasant?"

"Maybe...not immediately and brutally antagonize the person who has admin controls on this Grail War and may well prove to be a key factor in making sure humanity doesn't undergo a mass lobotomy of the soul?" Johan replied immediately. "Or at least not open fire with the full Death Star arsenal on the initial greeting. I know and accept this part of you, who casts Vicious Mockery as easily as he breathes, but there's this little thing called a 'filter' that you're choosing not to engage…"

"Johan, this is a woman who took Gilles de Rais at his base while understanding just what sort of shit he'd get up to without anyone there to anchor him. My genuine words are nothing in comparison to that," Blackmore laughed, his expression twisting in wry amusement as Jeanne gave a small shrug at the remark.

Johan blanched at the reminder of the bug-eyed, Shoggoth-conjuring paedophile. "...I can't argue that dealing with that loon must've been a trial and a half. But if I'm gonna have to be the one to diplomatize, let me know now."

"I figured that'd be the case from the get-go, my dude," Trent retorted, his smile undiminished. "Hell, you volunteered to be the one to lure the Forvedges over to us."

"Oh, sure. Make the introvert who's made maybe ten real friends in his life handle interpersonal interaction." Johan threw up his hands. "I'm sure that's not going to end in fire and tears."

The blond nodded resolutely at his friend, "Johan, you do remember that I tend to start my relationships with Vicious Mockery, and then keep the survivors around? Why would you leave the diplomancing to me?"

Johan raised a finger, considered, then lowered the finger. "I can't find fault in your reasoning, and that makes me angry."

"You see, my good albino, I can make every word hurt. It doesn't need to just be mockery. I'd be unstoppable if there was some rhetoric based super power." Trent chortled gleefully, having torn the rug out from beneath Johan's feet.

"Right up until someone cuts your tongue out," Johan snarked, rolling his eyes. "Anyways, maybe we ought to properly explain the situation to Miss D'Arc, rather than spew implication and innuendo back and forth?"

"Well of course we should," Trent said as he looked to the saint who was trying to get the whole situation together in her head. "But then I started having fun, and you know how I am."

"Do I ever," Johan sighed.

Looking between the two, Jeanne couldn't help but sigh. "While I'm sure that you'd eventually get your message across to me, is there anyone of actual sense that I can talk to?"

Johan made a face. "I'd protest that assertion, but we haven't exactly left the best first impression, now have we?"

"It was better than that of Gilles's friend, Francois, but it certainly wasn't the best," the saint agreed candidly.

Trent blinked and then snapped his fingers. "That's what we should do, go and kill Prelati."

"He's still alive?" Jeanne asked curiously, absolutely baffled by the fact that Prelati was somehow still around.

The blond shrugged. "Prelati's been bodyhopping into relatives for years, somehow dodging the soul rot too. I'd be impressed if I didn't think that they kind of deserve to die. No matter how cute they are as Francesca."

"And then there's the whole risk of them bringing forth the Outer Gods that Raum managed to retcon into existence through the combined power of good ol' Howard Phillips' Self Insert and the Salem witch trials," Johan mentioned dryly. "But again, we're getting off track.

"If you want to talk to the most sensical member of our group, Miss D'Arc," Johan said, "You'll be wanting to talk to Berserker of Red."

"A Berserker, the most sensical? Surely you jest…" Jeanne said, blinking in confusion at his assertion.

Then, a feminine voice came from within the crypt, "Believe me, the two of them definitely make a good case for Berserker being the sanest one amongst us, given how they drive myself, Saber of Red, and Saber's Master up the wall." Strolling out of the gloom was Carmilla, clad in a new outfit of a pair of tight black jeans and a cream turtleneck sweater, looking at Trent and Johan like a pair of asylum escapees.

Johan shrugged. "She's not wrong. And for the record, Dr. Henry Jekyll isn't exactly a standard Berserker class Servant by any stretch of the imagination." At that very moment, the good Doctor himself emerged from the crypt as well, having been examining a sample of Semiramis' acid in the alchemical lab he'd established after being summoned.

Unlike Carmilla, Jekyll was content to remain in the clothing he'd been summoned in, though he'd removed his suit-jacket and gloves, as well as rolled up the sleeves of his button-up. He glanced at Ruler, then over to Johan.

'So, I suppose that the task of diplomacy falls to me once more, then?' At Johan's nod, Jekyll turned back towards Jeanne and offered a bow. "You are the Ruler of this war, Jeanne D'Arc, no? I am the Berserker of Red, Dr. Henry Jekyll. I do hope that my Master and his associate have shown you appropriate hospitality."

"I've hardly been here long enough for one of them to show anything short of mild disdain, but I'm sure if I'm here for longer, the Master of Assassin of Black will try to insult me more," the blonde returned with a small bow of her own, Command Seals flashing in the afternoon light as they were highlighted on her shoulders.

Berserker shot Trent a look, disappointment clear in his eyes. Trent returned it with raised eyebrows, and remarked, "You know how I am. This is how I make friends; they either weather the storm or get sunk by my vicious mockery."

Jekyll simply shook his head and returned his attention to Ruler. "I would offer my apologies for Mr. Blackmore's attitudes, but it is not my place to do so. Instead, I will simply request that you not allow your opinion of the rest of us to be coloured by his actions."

"Were I to be honest, this isn't enough to really colour my opinion of you, or even him. I was acquainted with some rather colourful characters during my time," Jeanne replied, her expression wry and speaking of long suffering. "I'll admit, it's almost cute in comparison to some of the things I dealt with."

A look of concerned bemusement crossed the good Doctor's face. "I suppose that shall have to suffice for now." He folded his arms. "Now, shall we move on to more serious matters? I presume that both my and Assassin's Masters have mentioned certain...issues with the current Grail War?"

"They have, and I fully intend to do my own inspections of the War to ascertain as to whether or not they've told me the truth. After doing that, I'll have to judge just what I'll do about any irregularities I find, but I'm sure that it won't be too much trouble to deal with in the long run," the Ruler answered with a firm nod, her expression set in determination.

Jekyll looked at her for a long moment, cupping his chin in consideration. After a moment, he nodded. "Your confidence is heartening."

At that moment, Johan interjected, "And of course, should you require assistance dealing with any anomalies, don't hesitate to ask us; the whole reason we formed this group was because we don't trust either side, after all."

"We'll have to see just whether or not that turns out to be necessary, but if it truly becomes necessary, then I shall do so. Thank you for your offer," Jeanne declared with a warm smile.

Before she could turn away, Kairi and Mordred walked out of the crypt, the Servant in her armour and the Master with a grim expression on his face. While his glasses hid his eyes, his gaze clearly lingered on Jeanne, before grumbling, "We've got action in the forests between Trifas and Castle Yggdmillenia. Nothing concrete beyond Rider of Black rushing for the woods, with the forces of Black following behind him. Red seems to be responding in kind, if the arrows raining down on the main body of Black's forces is any indication."

Johan sighed, and rose to his feet. "Well," he said, dusting bonemeal off of his pants and pulling his Grimoire out of his jacket, "I guess the White Faction ought to put in an appearance as well."

Trent nodded and rolled his shoulders, picking up the Mystic Code that had been passed down through the Blackmore line. "Caw caw, motherfuckers."