Day 6: True Rider — The Wolf-Rider
In the darkness of the early morning, still hours before dawn, True Rider Medusa crouched on the roof of Homurahara high school. Using one of the nail-like daggers she carried as weapons, Medusa carved a mystic rune into the roof. Then, placing one hand over the rune, she drew on her prana. There was an unpleasant squirming sensation within her body as the Crest Worms beneath her skin writhed with the exertion, but Medusa ignored it and focused on her magecraft. The rune began to pulse with red light as it synchronized with all the other runes marking out the nexuses of the web-like bounded field entangling the school.
"Well, Rider?" her Master, Shinji, demanded. "Will the Bloodfort be ready for activation by the time school starts today?"
The Command Spell preventing Medusa from speaking to Shinji was still in effect, so Medusa answered the question with a silent nod. Shinji sneered with petulant malice.
"Those idiots think they can take me lightly." he ranted. "Well, I'll show them! That dumbass Emiya, and that frigid bitch Tohsaka — I'll take them both out in one blow! As for all the other students, they're just cattle waiting to be slaughtered. Once you've eaten their souls, you'll be strong enough to take revenge on all those other insects who've looked down on me — that Einzbern doll-girl with her Berserker, and that butch bitch with the Lancer, too!"
Had Medusa been capable of speech, she might have informed Shinji of a few flaws in his plan. Though her Noble Phantasm Bloodfort Andromeda generated a bounded field potent enough to melt the flesh of any human trapped within, mages like Tohsaka and Emiya would be partially shielded from its effects by the prana circulating in their own magic circuits. They might succumb eventually, but would have plenty of time to summon their own Servants. The Servants, in turn, would be unaffected by the Bloodfort, and would be able to carry their Masters to safety, unless Medusa were to engage them in a disadvantageous two-on-one battle.
Of course, even if she had been capable of telling Shinji so, he wasn't likely in any mood to listen to her. Shinji had been in a particularly foul humor as of late, as his grandfather had made it clear that he could not continue operating out of the Matou house and needed to establish a base of operations at a different location. Though this had seemed perfectly reasonable to Medusa, whose natural instincts as a Rider made her want to stay constantly on the move, Shinji had reacted like a kicked dog. Though he'd obediently slunk out and rented a room at a hotel to live in for the time being, he had complained incessantly about the situation to Medusa, alternating between pitiful whining and frothing rage. Medusa endured his abusive tirades and physical depredations in silence, as he ordered, but had begun to take a spiteful satisfaction in the fact that she was almost certainly going to lose the Grail War. It didn't matter how many high school students Shinji had her massacre and devour; having seen Berserker Heracles in action, she was convinced that no amount of prana would allow her to prevail against that monster.
Not that she wouldn't try her best, if it came to that. As darkly satisfying as it would be to intentionally throw a fight and thereby doom Shinji to elimination, she did still have her pride as a Heroic Spirit. She had vowed to herself that no matter what degradation Shinji put her through, she would not allow him to take that last scrap of honor. No matter how foul her orders or her Master, let no one say that Rider Medusa did not perform to the utmost of her ability and fight with pride and dignity in the Fifth Heaven's Feel.
Medusa suddenly tensed. Though her vision was sealed by the Breaker Gorgon mystic-eye killer which she wore as a mask to avoid inadvertently petrifying anyone she gazed upon, her other senses as a Servant were all quite acute — particularly her magic perception , one the ways she could feel rather than see the environment around her. With her magic perception, she had just sensed the approach of a powerful concentration of prana. Though it seemed weak for a Servant, Medusa was certain that the approaching being was one: the concentration prana she detected might be low for a Servant, but it was still far too great to be coming from even an exceptionally skilled mortal magus.
Medusa readied her nail-like daggers and dropped into a defensive crouch between Shinji and the direction of the unknown Servant's approach. It didn't feel like any Servant she had yet encountered during this War, but the battle royale nature of the War made it almost certain that the newcomer would prove an enemy.
The Servant had the form of a slender young girl, wearing a dress and a white fur cloak. She gripped a wooden spear, and her face was covered by a large red mask. Disconcertingly, the Servant seemed to twist and waver in Medusa's magical perception. The distortion was centered on the Servant's mask, which seemed to be some type of Noble Phantasm that obscured the user's identity and abilities. The Holy Grail had imparted Medusa with the knowledge that some Noble Phantasms had this effect, such as Lancelot's For Someone's Glory and Mordred's Secret Of Pedigree, but she couldn't tell which one this might be — only to be expected, she supposed, as the Noble Phantasm would be useless if it didn't also prevent enemies from identifying it and then easily determining the Servant's identity from extrapolation. More troubling, she couldn't get any sense of the Servant's capabilities — her parameters, her abilities, and even her Class were concealed in a blurry haze. Because the Servant's only visible weapon was the spear she held, Medusa provisionally classified her as a Lancer.
"What is that thing?" Shinji asked. "Another enemy Servant?"
"I am not an enemy." the Servant said. "I have come to ask you to be my Master."
"What do you mean by that?" Shinji asked.
"I was summoned to this world without a proper connection to my Master, and thus no supply of the prana I would require to participate in the War." the Servant said. "I attempted to seek her out, only to learn that she had surrendered her Command Spells and abandoned the War entirely, allowing a different Master to fill her place. I searched for a long time for this Master, hoping he would accept my service; and with each passing day my hope grew dimmer. But now, even as I am reaching the very edge of my limits, I have managed to find you. So I ask you, enter a pact with me: give me your prana to sustain my body, and I shall grant you my strength to achieve victory in this Heaven's Feel."
It was an interesting proposition, Medusa thought. Having two Servants at his command would allow Shinji to employ new tactics that had thus far been unavailable to him because of the refusal of other Masters to collaborate with him. He might even be able to employ his plan to lure Berserker Heracles away from the Einzbern Master and then assassinate her. Of course, what the other Servant likely didn't realize was that Shinji's lack of magic circuits made him incapable of supplying prana through the Master-Servant bond established by the contract. If she wanted to remain in the world, the masked Servant would have to submit to infestation by Zouken's Crest Worms. Learning that might make her reconsider whether her wish for the Holy Grail was truly worth what she would have to endure to win it. Medusa looked over at Shinji to see his reaction.
At first, Shinji simply looked puzzled, unsure of what to make of this strange masked Servant abruptly appearing and offering to contract with him. Then he began inspecting her more closely, his eyes sliding up and down her body. She appeared to be younger than Medusa, shorter and more slender, but obviously fit with well-toned muscle. Shinji's face twisted into a lustful leer, a repulsive expression that Medusa knew all too well.
"You want to be my Servant, do you?" Shinji asked. "Well, I can think of a few ways you can serve me."
A shiver of anxiety ran down Medusa's spine as she realized that Shinji was looking at the Servant not as a heroic warrior, but as an attractive young woman — and she had never known him to speak to women with anything but transparent desire or scornful derision. Bound by his Command Spell, forbidden to speak, there was nothing she could do to stop him from antagonizing this Servant of unknown capability.
"I'm not sure how good a scrawny little thing like you would be in battle, but at the very least you could do a thing or two for me in bed." Shinji continued. "You may not have as much going on in the chest department as Sakura or Rider, but a little variety might make for a nice change of pace. If I find your performance satisfactory, I'll talk to grandfather and see about getting you a stable source of prana. In fact, depending on your attitude, I might even be willing to share the Holy Grail with you at the end of the War — it's not like the frigid bitch of a Servant I have right now has done anything to earn it so far. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, don't you think?"
For a few seconds after Shinji stopped speaking, the other Servant stood perfectly still, frozen like a statue. Then Medusa felt killing intent begin radiating from the small figure like heat from a blast furnace. Her fury was so intense that even Shinji could sense it, and he took a few involuntary steps backwards. Medusa instantly moved forwards and interposed herself between Shinji and the enemy. This situation was entirely his own fault, as he had once again managed to convert a potential ally into a sworn enemy through highly inadvisable words and the sheer odiousness of his personality; but he was still her Master, and she had a sworn duty to defend him from harm. No matter how well-deserved that harm might be.
Medusa quickly seized initiative by breaking into a run, charging towards the masked Servant who was now their enemy. The enemy stood her ground, spear held at the ready. However, Medusa wasn't prepared to fully commit to a direct frontal assault when she wasn't fully aware of the enemy's capabilities. Though she appeared slender, looks could be deceiving; and with the mask obscuring her parameters, Medusa had no way of estimating how fast or strong the enemy might actually be. If she had indeed been without a Master for several days, she would doubtless be weak from prana exhaustion; but with Shinji as an ineffectual Master and her own prana coming to her secondhand from Zouken's worms, Medusa could hardly be said to be in peak condition either. She thus intended to test the enemy and probe her strength before deciding how best to engage her.
Just before coming within range of the enemy's spear, Medusa pivoted sharply and sent one of her nail-like daggers swinging out at the end of a chain like a kusari-gama. The enemy Servant reacted instantly, swinging her spear to deflect the nail harmlessly to the said. Medusa responded by swinging her other nail's chain, this time lower, sweeping at the enemy's feet. The enemy nimbly jumped over the chain, then thrust at Medusa with her spear. The attack was lightning-fast, but Medusa had been expecting it. She flipped backwards away from the thrust, retracting the chains to call her nails back to her hands as she did so.
The enemy Servant continued to advance, pressing the attack with a flurry of thrusts and sweeps. Unable to dodge them all, Medusa was forced to begin blocking with her nails. Despite her weapons' short length compared to the spear, Medusa found that she was able to repel the blows fairly easily; though the enemy might match or possibly even exceed her in terms of speed, it seemed Medusa had the edge in raw strength. There was a slim possibility that the enemy was deliberately feigning weakness, hoping to use the parameter-concealing effect of her mask to make Medusa underestimate her; but based on the visible difference between their stature and musculature, Medusa's assessment seemed to make sense.
After parrying a few more strikes, Medusa grew confident enough to test her hypothesis. When the next thrust came, Medusa dropped one of her nail in order to grab the spear shaft and pull it hard towards her. She didn't succeeded in pulling it out of the enemy's hands, but the enemy Servant was caught off-balance and stumbled forwards. Medusa moved forwards as well, into a range where her nails would be effective but the enemy wouldn't be able to bring her long spear to bear.
For a moment, Medusa thought she might pierce the enemy's heart and end the battle there. However, the enemy Servant quickly released the spear with one hand and drew a short-range weapon of her own, a dagger with which she blocked Medusa's stab at her chest. Pressed this close, Medusa could see the other Servant's eyes through the slits in her mask, and they burned with a fierce determination that Medusa couldn't help but find admirable. The Servant must have realized by now that Medusa outmatched her; yet she had resolved to fight to the end rather than surrender and submit to the indignity of Shinji's depredations. What might have been, had Medusa herself been strong enough to make that choice? But no, that choice had not truly been offered her; Sakura, her true and rightful original Master, had asked that Medusa become Shinji's Servant, and Medusa would not refuse that beautiful, tragic girl.
Medusa twisted her body to the side, twirling both herself and the masked Servant about. At the same time, she released her grip on the spear and retracted the chain of the nail she had dropped. She was aiming to strike the masked Servant in the back with the nail; however, the masked Servant sensed the weapon's approach and pulled out of the way. It seemed that, like Medusa's own Breaker Gorgon, the other Servant's mask did not diminish her ability to sense the surrounding environment through magical perception, however much it might appear to obstruct her vision.
This last maneuver had allowed the masked Servant to break free of Medusa and gain enough distance to put the spear back into play; and faced with a resumed assault, Medusa was forced to draw backwards out of range. Still, on the basis of their engagement thus far, Medusa was confident that she was more than a match for the masked Servant in terms of parameters and abilities. That left only Noble Phantasms as potential means she might have of turning the tide of battle. But Medusa suspected that a Noble Phantasm would be an attack of last resort for this Servant; running low on prana and without a Master to provide backup, attempting to use a Noble Phantasm could likely consume the last of her reserves and make her disappear. It would mean giving up on winning the War just to try taking down Medusa with her.
But perhaps the masked Servant had already given up on the War in the moment she had chosen to attack Shinji rather than sacrifice her body and dignity for a chance at victory. Maybe she would accept death if it gave her the opportunity to strike a fatal blow, knowing that the only dying act of vengeance she could make against Shinji would be to slay his Servant. But Medusa had no desire to die simply because her Master insisted on acting like a loathsome pile of scum towards everyone he ever met. She would not allow the masked Servant the chance to use the Noble Phantasm ability of her spear. She would grant a mercifully swift death to this noble adversary; quite merciful indeed, considering what Shinji was likely to do to the Servant if Medusa merely captured rather than eliminated her.
Medusa paused a moment and drew on her Monstrous Strength ability, calling on the essence of her nature as the monster Gorgon to enhance her Strength parameter. She then met the masked Servant's assault with a renewed onslaught of counterattacks, her monstrous strength now driving each blow to hit with greater and greater power. The masked Servant's defense grew shaky, then completely collapsed under Medusa's overwhelming force. Medusa tangled the head of the spear in the chain hanging from one of her nails and used it to pull the weapon out of defensive position, then stabbed inwards with her other nail. The nail penetrated the inside of the Servant's elbow, causing her to scream and release her grip on the spear. With a powerful yank on the other chain, Medusa pulled the spear from her grasp. Without her Noble Phantasm, the masked Servant would have no chance of defeating Medusa.
The masked Servant must have realized it as well. She let out a great shout — "Moro!" — that must have been the activation phrase for the Phantasm, then dove for the dropped weapon. Medusa hesitated: it might not be necessary for the Servant to actually be touching the spear in order for it to activate. There were plenty of stories about spears that would respond to their master's voice by returning to the hand when called. Medusa dropped into a defensive crouch as she kept eyes locked on the spear: depending on its nature as a Noble Phantasm, she might have only a single chance to block or evade an instant-death attack. However, something was odd: despite the masked Servant having called the name of her Noble Phantasm, she sensed no change in prana from the spear. Even as the enemy Servant picked it up and held it out as a weapon once more, it wasn't showing any signs of the power-buildup that accompanied even a low-Rank Noble Phantasm.
A chill ran down Medusa's spine, and she realized that she had made a basic but grievous error. She had assumed that the Servant facing her was of the Lancer Class, and that the spear she held was her Noble Phantasm. But the spear was not her Noble Phantasm, and she was not Lancer. Like Medusa herself, she was Rider. And if she was like Medusa in any other way, that meant that her Noble Phantasm was not a weapon she carried but a mount that she summoned.
And finally, Medusa felt the wave of prana flowing outwards from a powerful Noble Phantasm being activated — not from the Servant or spear in front of her, but from behind her, where her master was. And without even needing to turn her head, her magic senses told her what the False Rider had summoned. It was a Divine Beast, a wolf-god with two tails; and it was standing right behind her Master, preparing to deliver a killing blow.
==Interlude: Shinji Matou==
Shinji watched as his Rider stood motionless in a defensive crouch while the other Servant retrieved her spear.
"What are you waiting for, you dumb slut?" he shouted. "Finish her already!"
Even as the words left his mouth, he felt a gust of hot, warm air flow over his back, like a great exhalation of breath. Turning, he saw a massive beast towering over him: a shaggy white-furred wolf the size of a car, its mouth stretched wide in a hideous snarl. Strings of saliva dripped from dagger-like white fangs, and its eyes were toxic yellow. Before he even had a chance to process this sight, the beast's jaws snapped shut with a hideous crunch. If Shinji had not moved slightly as he turned to look at the wolf, it would have bitten his head off. As it was, the rending teeth caught his left arm between the elbow and shoulder and snapped the bone like chalk.
Shinji fell backwards, screaming, blood spraying from the stump of his severed arm. He instinctively raised his remaining arm in front of him in a warding gesture, for all the good it would do against this monstrosity. Then, in a moment of clarity, he realized that his right hand was still clasping his book — the Book of the False Attendant, the container for his Command Spells. With their power, he still had a chance to save himself.
The wolf was already thrusting its jaws at him once again, the teeth now stained with blood and shreds of gore. There was no time to think. Shinji closed his eyes and shouted at the top of his voice:
"Save me, Rideeerrrrrrrr!"
==Interlude Out==
As Medusa heard her Master cry out for her, a surge of power ran through her body like an electric shock. It was the Command Spell, providing her with the prana she would need to fulfill the order. A potent aura of energy began to build around her, causing strands of her long hair to whip about wildly like a nest of thrashing snakes. Almost of its own accord, once of her hands rose to point a nail-like dagger at the side of her throat. With unflinching resolve, Medusa thrust it all the way through, so that the point of the nail erupted from the other side. A jet of blood sprayed from her throat.
This act of self-mutilation was not without purpose. In her legend, when the hero Perseus had decapitated her with his magic sword Harpe, the winged horse Pegasus had been birthed from the blood that had spilled from her neck. By reenacting that bloodletting, Medusa could call the Pegasus herself. Already, the crimson life that she had sprayed from her neck was coalescing in the air, forming the lines and patterns of a magic summoning circle. All that remained was for her to invoke the Noble Phantasm's name. For a long time now, Medusa had been forbidden by Command to speak; but now that old order was overridden as the newly-issued Command required her to break her silence and complete the summoning. Her imposed silence finally shattered, Medusa vigorously howled the Noble Phantasm's name through her bleeding throat:
"Bellerophon!"
There was an explosion of white light, and Medusa's steed appeared beneath her. Reigns materialized in her hands — a cursed artifact that would drive the normally docile Pegasus into a mad battle-frenzy. Cracking the reigns, she ordered the enraged creature to charge the divine wolf looming over her Master.
The ritual to summon her Pegasus took time, and under normal circumstances the white wolf would have been able to tear Shinji apart at its leisure during the build-up to Medusa calling forth her Noble Phantasm. However, Shinji had used a Command Spell, and that had changed matters. The spells were capable of performing incredible magic; whatever was necessary to allow the Master's Order to be fulfilled, provided the order wasn't actually impossible. Thus, the support Medusa had received from the Command Spell had allowed her to summon her Pegasus instantaneously, as though time had been standing still for everyone else while she performed the ritual to form the magic circle. The white wolf god was still exactly where it had been when Shinji had called out his desperate order, still leaning over him with its mouth spread wide in anticipation of decapitating him in a single bite.
Mounted atop the Pegasus, Medusa barreled towards the wolf like a blast from a cannon. Her steed slammed into the wolf's side, knocking it aside so that its lunge missed Shinji. The wolf immediately scrambled to its feet and leapt at Medusa, but she pushed an extra burst of speed from Pegasus and the slashing claws fell just barely short. The wolf immediately spun as it landed, keeping Medusa in its sight. Medusa saw cunning intelligence behind those great yellow eyes. The wolf had initially underestimated her, because her Pegasus was a mere Phantasmal Beast while it was a greater Divine Beast. However, the Pegasus serving as her mount was an exceptional specimen who had been born in the Age of Gods and was many times more powerful than average. Having now seen its speed and power, the wolf would not underestimate it again; Medusa would not get any more free shots. What's more, despite having taken the charge head-on, the wolf did not seem severely injured: Medusa's Pegasus might be stronger than it had expected, but it was ultimately still inferior in ability. There was however one area in which it did hold superiority: it could truly fly, whereas the wolf could only leap. With proper tactics, this improved mobility could make up for the disparity in strength.
Then the wolf was leaping again, and there was no more time for thought: only for action. Medusa pulled hard on the cursed reigns, sending her mount into a steep dive, and became an arrow of light racing down to meet the oncoming god.
==Interlude: Shinji Matou==
Shinji slowly squirmed backwards across the roof, the stump of his left arm leaving a thick trail of blood. He kept the Book of the False Attendant clutched tightly in his remaining hand, holding it against his chest like a ward. From somewhere out of his view, he could hear the sounds of battle as his Rider and her Pegasus engaged the giant white wolf, but all of his attention was now focused on the masked Servant. She was slowly approaching him, spear held before her, walking down the line of his blood like it was a red carpet.
Impossible. There was no way this could be happening to him. He was Shinji Matou, heir to one of the Three Great Families which had constructed the Grail itself; there was no way he was going to be killed by this nobody, this wisp of a girl, this filthy, scrawny, savage bitch. Shinji forced himself to focus through the pain and hold the Book of the False Attendant aloft. The pages contained more than Command Spells for controlling his Servant; they also held a number of pre-constructed magecraft formulations prepared by his grandfather. Shinji could not use magecraft himself; but as the wielder of the tome, he could unleash the pent-up spells that Zouken had stored in it. He just needed to remember the words of activation. The hideous burning pain from his wound was making it hard to concentrate, and the phrases kept jumbling and getting mixed up in his mind, but he finally managed to latch on to one and spit it out.
"Umbra adhaerens!" Shinji shouted. "Die, bitch!"
Three spears of pitch-black shadow shot from the ground at his feet and began racing at the masked Servant. They shot across the ground like lines of black flame, converging on the Servant's feet. Shinji grinned manically; this was the power of Hollow, the Imaginary Number element, a unique elemental affinity passed down only to members of the Matou line. It was proof of his heritage, the power which was rightfully his by blood, and there was nothing that little girl could do against such venerable magecraft.
Then the Servant swung her spear in an arc, and the advancing shadows were scattered as harmlessly as rain from an umbrella.
Shinji's mouth fell open in terror and disbelief. He tried to raise the Book of the False Attendant again, but his fingers had gone numb, and the tome slipped from his treacherous hand. He couldn't feel his extremities anymore, and his vision was turning grey around the edges, and his blood was pooling all around him — so very much blood. The Servant had resumed her relentless advance and that hideous, demonic mask now filled Shinji's narrowing field of vision.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" he shouted, waving his numb hand desperately in front of him. "I'm sorry about all that stuff I said before! You came here because you want to be my Servant, right? You said you need me to supply you prana or you'd disappear. So obviously you can't kill me; that'd be the same as killing yourself, right? Just calm down and think about it for a moment, and you'll realize the only sensible thing to do is make a deal. Why don't you just—"
The Servant thrust the point of her spear into Shinji's gut. He'd though the pain from his arm had been bad, but it faded to nothing in comparison to the supernova of agony that exploded in his stomach.
"What are you—" Shinji gagged, blood spraying from his mouth. "You can't— you don't— you stupid bitch—!"
The pitiless features of the demonic mask stared into his face. Then the Servant twisted the spear, and Shinji's world faded to nothing.
==Interlude Out==
Medusa knew the moment Shinji died. She felt the Command Spells he had used to bind her to his will disappear, like shackles breaking open.
This result had been inevitable. She had realized it as soon as she'd seen that the False Rider and her white wold mount were capable of fighting independently of one another. Medusa's Pegasus obeyed her only so long as she held the cursed reigns; thus, they could not separately engage two enemies at the same time. Medusa had focused on holding off the more dangerous of the two, the Divine Beast; but there had never been any doubt that the Servant alone would be more than enough to finish Shinji off.
Unfortunate for him, she supposed, but he was no longer her concern. Her need to obey his orders had ended with his death, and she felt no desire to avenge him, so there was no point in continuing this battle against the False Rider any longer. Medusa pulled hard on the magic reigns, yanking the Pegasus out of its current divebombing attack against the white wolf god, then spurred it to accelerate to maximum speed and head out horizontally across the city, away from the school.
Medusa was confident that her Pegasus could outpace the wolf god when flying through open sky: the False Rider's mount could likely match and possibly even exceed it in swiftness on the ground, but the wolf could not soar through the air as she did. If it tried to pursue, it would have to either run around or jump over all of the buildings in its path; either method would result in it falling far behind.
Streaking through the city sky did have another problem, though: her Pegasus's divine white glow made her shine brighter than the moon in the pre-dawn darkness. There was no telling how many other Masters were watching the skies at that moment, but any that were could hardly fail to take notice of her; and some might have Servants capable of engaging her from a distance, such as Archer or Caster. Since she herself currently lacked a Master to fight on behalf of, she had no current interest in getting caught up in another battle for the Grail. Thus, as soon as she judged that she had gained sufficient distance from the False Rider, Medusa dismissed her Pegasus.
The beast instantly evaporated into mist, the bright light it had given off instantly winking out. Medusa dropped invisibly through the dark sky and landed on a roof with her limbs splayed about her, spider-like, to absorb the impact. Within moments, she had crawled down the side of the building and into a dark alley; a maneuver that not even the sharpest eye could have followed.
Medusa did not have any particular wish for the Grail, but that didn't mean she was ready to disappear from this world already. There was unfinished business she needed to attend to, and she was prepared to linger in this world a while longer if that was necessary to get it done. Now that she was without a Master, she was free to act on her own desires, and there was one which was first and foremost in her mind.
Medusa slunk off through the darkness, heading in the direction of the Matou family house.