Chapter 11: The Gang Plans Primeval Patricide

As the words passed Adam's lips, a wave of emerald light surged forth from where his feet touched the ground and raced across the land in all directions. As this light passed over Avicebron, who had barely begun to rise to his feet, his body began to change. His very existence began to peel away, leaving behind a man-shaped hole in the world which very quickly began to fill with soil, rocks, and foliage, seemingly conjured from the nether.

The faceless thing which had been Avicebron made no attempts to move from where it stood, merely standing in place. Were it not for the fact that its chest rose and fell, it could've been a statue.

Eden's encroachment upon the land spread rapidly, swiftly approaching both the site of Karna's battle with Achilles as well as the walls of Castle Yggdmillennia.

-x-x-x-

Within the castle, Vlad Tepes III gripped the arms of his throne with white knuckles that stood out even against his wax-pale skin. "The work of a traitor and a heretic who would set himself above God... This will not stand! Not within my kingdom!" He never raised his voice, but his sheer intensity was enough to make even Astolfo, who had been called to the throne room with his Master, stand quiet and still.

The Prince of Wallachia rose to his feet and slammed his ornate spear into the stone floor. "Kazikli Bey!" he declared, drawing in more and more mana as he deployed his Noble Phantasm.

Outside the castle, stake after stake rose from the ground all along the walls, each one succumbing to Eden's grasp and crumbling to soil even as a new stake rose to take its place. For the moment, Eden could not pass Lancer's Noble Phantasm, not when it was used in the ultimate seat of his power, to defend his kingdom from malign invasion.

Vlad turned to regard Gordes, who had also been called to the throne room by Darnic. Notably, Saber of Black was not with him, having already been deployed to the edge of the forest to intercept the intruders. "What news, Master of Saber?"

The rotund man wiped at his brow with a handkerchief as he stood at attention, paling slightly under Vlad's scrutiny. "Yes, well…"

-x-x-x-

The gleaming silver blade of Balmung clashed with the burning gold of the Son of Surya's spear. "Now!" Siegfried shouted over his shoulder.

"Already on it!" Achilles barked back, raising his shield. "Akhilleus Kosmos!"

At that moment, the shield in his hands glowed as it unleashed its hidden power. A world of verdant marble flowed outward and against Eden, creating an ephemeral clash. An entire Grecian world poured out and up against the field that Adam was pushing, creating a war of the worlds as Eden eroded what came into contact with it.

The shield's ability created a schism between the three worlds as it essentially safeguarded Earth from the spread of the false paradise.

Achilles turned his head to the Maiden of Orleans and hollered, "Ruler! I'm holding it here for the moment, so if you're gonna do something, now's the time!"

Jeanne clasped her hands before her as the Command Seals on her back began to glow, visible even through her armor.

"Masters of Black, Masters of White, hear me! I, Jeanne D'Arc, Ruler-Class Servant of this Great Holy Grail War, call to you for aid! The Ruler Class Servant of the Third Fuyuki Grail War, Shirou Tokisada Amakusa, has unleashed the primordial man unto the world. Eden encroaches even now, warping the world into a corrupted paradise. We are able to hold it in place for now, but we cannot hold it forever!"

-x-x-x-

Across Trifas, in their little crypt, where they'd been playing Uno, the various members of the White team all looked around. Some of them were confused, some of them were afraid.

Trent, meanwhile, looked at Johan and declared, "I thought we were trying to stop this, why the fuck is this happening if Atalante was supposed to kill Avicebron?"

Johan sighed. "Hell if I know. It's probably Amakusa's fault, though."

"Well, yes, clearly. The Kindling said as much, but my main issue is just fucking what happened while we weren't looking," the blond replied as he stood up and cracked his back. "Alright, so… we gotta kill Golem Keter Malkuth and destroy Eden. Any ideas?"

Johan rubbed his chin. "Well, since Ruler mentioned 'holding it in place', I think it's safe to say that it's gotten big enough that we'll need some serious firepower to kill it." He looked over to Mordred pointedly. "Hyde may be an incredibly powerful fighter, but he can't match the power of sword-beam."

"Except for the fact that there's no guarantee that a sword-beam would even be able to penetrate Eden properly," the Canuck pointed out as he crossed his arms, his eyes then shifting over to Fran. "Hell, we need to consider the fact that Golem Keter Malkuth can't even be properly killed while it's in Eden, so we literally need something to corrode Eden enough to kill it."

It was at this point that Dr. Jekyll exclaimed, "Eve!" When everyone turned to look at him, he blushed, coughed into a fist, and then raised a finger.

"This Golem Keter Malkuth: it's a facsimile of Adam, yes?" At Johan and Trent's nod, he continued, looking at Fran, who stood right beside him. "When Victor made Fran...he wanted to recreate Eve." Fran growled at his words, but didn't shy away, and Jekyll continued. "If I can modify my Dangerous Game's recipe to draw out a specific trait or concept, rather than merely expunging the concept of 'evil' from the drinker…"

"Then we'd be able to bring out the conceptual idea planted within Fran," Trent finished with a nod, his own eyes travelling to the Berserker. After a moment, he frowned. "The issue then, is that we need a delivery system, as Eden basically eats whatever enters it."

Johan nodded. "While it's possible that a conceptual Eve could survive Eden, there's no way to guarantee it."

"Actually…" The blond scratched at his chin, his brow furrowing as he looked at the good doctor. "Hyde's transformation allows him to heal almost instantaneously, right?"

Jekyll nodded. "His Restructuring skill allows him such potent shapeshifting that he can make it so that wounds don't even exist anymore, but I'm not sure that it would work the same way against something conceptual and powerful like Eden."

"…Well, what if he rapidly shucked off the conceptually changed parts as he went?" Trent suggested, only really throwing it out there because it was one of the few options they had. "Because, as it stands, Carmy and I can do jack and squat against it, and from what I know most of our team is in the same boat."

Kairi took a puff of a cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and snuffed it out with his heel. "Before we start running around like chickens with our heads cut off, maybe you should send a familiar to check the sitch? You'll be able to see what's going down, and if anyone would know how well your plan would go, it'd be Ruler, right?"

"…Yeah, that's fair," the blond answered as he flicked out a few feathers, quickly folding them into a familiar and tossing it towards the entrance to the crypt. As it took wing, he took over its sight and guided it out to the field between the forest and Castle Yggdmillenia.

Upon taking in the sight of what was occurring, he bit back a scream.

With a deep sigh, he put his face into his hands and groaned, "Johan, it's not Golem Keter Malkuth."

Johan squinted at him, then replied, "...Elaborate?"

"Eden's expanding, with Achilles and Siegfried holding its expansion back, and at the centre of Eden is some nude douchebag wearing a fig leaf," the blond answered, still feeling rather annoyed by the sudden shift in enemy.

Johan blinked, raised a finger, then lowered it. "Well, shit. Is Jeanne nearby? Maybe she can shed light on just what the entire fuck happened."

"Fair enough," Trent murmured as he wheeled his familiar down to wear the Maiden of Orleans was overseeing the battle, consternation clear on her features.

-x-x-x-

As the familiar landed on her shoulder, it screeched, "SCRAW! What the actual fuck's happening here, you uneducated peasant?!"

Ruler glanced at the false bird with an aggrieved expression on her face. "Ah, Blackmore. Did my message not clarify what happened sufficiently? As you can plainly see, Amakusa has unleashed a false Eden upon this land."

She gestured to Achilles, who was maintaining his Noble Phantasm even as Seigfried warded off attempts by Karna to disrupt him doing so. As Trent looked on, though, he could see that neither the son of Peleus nor his shield were unscathed by the process; as Eden encroached upon the miniature world, so too did its grasp on the shield and its wielder grow. "We are holding it here, for now, but we cannot hold it back forever."

"Yeah, that's great and all, sugar tits, but this is fucking entirely outside of what Johan and I had been planning around! This is so completely out of left field that we're scrambling to prepare for this as it stands!" the familiar squawked in Trent's voice, flapping its wings wildly. "We'd been planning for other shit, not this pile of blasphemy!"

Jeanne sent him a dead-eyed stare. "Do you not recall the saying 'the best laid plans of mice and men are oft to go awry'? Making plans for what may come is all well and good, but even with knowledge of what might come, there are no guarantees. Especially not in a Holy Grail War." She sighed. "But this is hardly the time for lectures; what we need is a way to stop Adam. Falsely incarnated or not, his Eden cannot be allowed to grow any further." She pointed off into the distance, at a figure standing stock-still near to Adam himself.

"Avicebron was closest to him when he touched down, and he was immediately turned into a being made of stone and earth, devoid of higher reasoning. It is probable that the same would happen to any other Servant or human who enters the field as well." She looked at the familiar. "Have you or your associates any ideas as to how we might defeat Adam? I...may have an option myself, but it would require the sacrifice of both myself and the innocent who is hosting my Saint Graph, and I am loathe to resort to that unless all else fails."

"Yeah, yeah, don't go firing off La Pucelle, we all know it's a gun with only one bullet." As the bird said that, its body twitched. "As it stands, we're working on our own preparations before joining you all there. While Assassin and I would be little more than eye candy, we've something of a plan thrown together to deal with… this. Actually, that reminds me, little miss of Arc! How well do you think ramming the embodiment of Eve wielding proof of humanity's triumph over the Age of the Gods would do against this thing?"

Jeanne opened her mouth, then gained a distant look in her eyes. After a few moments of silence, she seemed to snap back to the present, and replied, "Do it. It is our best chance."

"Well, if that's it then…buy us time, toots, we'll be there ASAP," the familiar declared before exploding in a shower of black feathers.

-x-x-x-

Trent shook his head as he blinked back into his body and continued, "Ruler says it's our best shot, so let's get the lead out, people! Kairi, your main job once we're done here'll be to hit Castle Yggdmillennia and put a bullet in Darnic's head as soon as Adam's dealt with!"

"You're pretty energetic, Blackmore," the grizzled magus remarked, even as he pulled out his weapon and started prepping it.

Ignoring that, Trent continued on, "Mordred, you're gonna be working double duty on keeping Karna distracted and pushing back Eden's encroachment!"

"When the hell'd you become the boss around here?" the petite blonde snarled, but was cut off by Kairi just patting her on the shoulder and shaking his head, telling her without words that there was no point in arguing.

Trent pointed over at the Mentor of Heroes. "Chiron, we're gonna need you to snipe some people when all's said and done, so keep an ear out!"

The incognito centaur glanced at his Master, and when she nodded, he replied with a calm, "Understood."

The Canuck turned his gaze over to the Forvedges and the centerpiece of their current plan. "Fiore, stay cute and stay safe!"

"E-eh?" replied the Master of Archer, but Trent had already moved on.

"Fran, we need you to get hype! Caules, try and keep calm, I was just telling your sister a fact!"

The Berserker let out a grunt as she pumped her fists, her Master caught between berating the Canadian and freaking out over their current plan. The blond just ignored them as he swivelled to the last three. "Jekyll, double time it on that elixir! Carmy, use Presence Concealment to sneak up on Karna and smear the butter down his front! Johan, don't launch your spaghetti just yet, because this war's almost done!"

"It was one time, goddamnit," Johan muttered, face red. Jekyll, for his part, was already walking towards his lab with decisive intent. He returned moments later with a vial of...something, a no-doubt noxious substance that hurt just to look at. He proffered the Blueneck Butter to Carmilla, who accepted it, secreting it within her sleeves.

The silver haired vampiress let out a hum as she considered the situation. "I'm honestly surprised Master, I'd have thought that you'd have taken the chance to waffle or insult someone in your instructions."

The blond snorted as he started shoving bird feathers into his pockets, making sure he had his ancestral Mystic Code as he all but shouted, "We ain't got no time for internal strife, Carmy! We gotta reenact the Original Sin!"