The Avengers Compound, 2023
In a war torn landscape, with creatures from an alien army fighting the mightiest heroes of Earth, there stood a large figure with purple skin, and golden armour adorned upon him. In front of the creature, was another armoured being, though he looked human unlike the other one.
The purple one, known as The Mad Titan Thanos, raised his hand which was covered with a golden gauntlet. "I am inevitable" And he snaps his fingers. A cold silence rang the entire battlefield, as the heroes waited for them to become ashes along the wind.
Yet nothing happened.
"Impossible" Thanos says, turning his fist around, and his eyes open wide as he sees that nothing sits where the infinity stones should be.
All eyes turned to the battered Tony Stark, yet the genius inventor was just as confused as them. "I tried to take them from him, but they were already gone." Stark whispers to himself.
And that was when every eye noticed a man they had never seen before. He stood with a crimson trench coat, with silver engravings around it. Beneath was mostly all black, and seemed to be a form of armour. He was clearly East Asian, though he seemed to be heavily tanned, and his hair was whiter than snow.
Multicoloured lightning seems to be sparking around him, as he holds the infinity stones in his hands. Sweat pours from his forehead, yet he still stands steady. He grits his teeth, and thinks to himself, "Damn. Even though I'm a counter guardian, I'm still struggling to hold these odd stones." Alaya, the entity which represents humanity's determination and will, had only given the bare bones of information about this universe. Yes, he'd been to many odd ones, but this world was still very different. All he had been told about the stones was that they had enough power to destroy the universe with a simple thought from the wielder. But that was enough for the Counter Guardian.
"This might be pretty easy" The man once known as Shirou thought to himself, looking down at the stones with a creeping pain. The Counter Guardian looks to the Mad Titan, who was still shocked, and simply willed for the Mad Titan to be killed along with his army. "But to think, a world of heroes. The younger version of me would've thrived here. But no, even here the path of hero is full of terror and futility."
"No! MY MISSION WON'T END LIKE THIS!" The purple titan bellows as half his body turns to dust, and despite attempting to move towards the Counter Guardian, the warlord dissappeared. And quickly enough, the entire alien army followed suit.
The battle for the universe had been ended by a stranger.
"I guess I'm done here" Emiya thinks, still holding the infinity stones, "Now to wait for Alaya to take me out and then put me through more damned missions. At least I didn't directly kill anyone here." The Faker sighs, "I should've killed the younger me when I had the chance."
Suddenly, orange sparks begin to shoot out next to Archer, and turning his head, the counter guardian sees a man stepping out of a circle formed by the sparks. The man had tidy hair, a neat brown beard, and a large billowing cape behind him. Somehow Emiya knew that this man wasn't an enemy, yet he continued to be on guard, ready to create his blades at a moment's notice.
"My name is Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme," The man introduces himself, floating slightly above the ground, a detail Emiya noticed, "And… Who exactly are you?"
The man once known as Shirou thought for a minute, "I'm no one." He wasn't Shirou anymore, and he wouldn't let his identity to solely be as a servant of the Counterforce.
Tony Stark, who walked towards Emiya, still hurt and battered, chimed in with a raised eyebrow, "Really? Great, another edgelord. Look, can you at least tell me why you're able to hold the stones for so long. Not even our own radiation filled jolly green giant over there," He tilts his head towards the battlefield, where a huge 7ft tall man with green skin and a burnt out arm waved, "could handle the sheer feedback from those damn rocks."
Emiya stared at the man in broken vibrant armour. Somewhere, deep down, the counter guardian knew that this man was meant to die today. It was as if something in the universe had become unbalanced because this man continued to take breath.
"Well, I'm not fully human." Archer reluctantly explained. He was going to disappear anyway, "And soon enough, I will disappear."
"Now that just raises a whole lot more questions" Dr Strange sighs, "Are you even from this universe? Why did you even help us?" The Sorcerer Supreme wasn't feeling too supreme at the moment. He sacrificed half the universe, gave up the lives of his allies, and all for a plan which would end up rendered futile because an extra-terrestrial of some sort. A stranger who decided to show up.
"Well- AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Archer fell to the ground, screaming in pain, the multicoloured light of the infinity stones going manic and sparks franticly around Emiya. Archer looked to his arm, trying to make a projection yet nothing was happening, "I need to make Avalon!" Yet nothing happened but sheer pain. Emiya had never felt such pain before. Not even when he suffered from the prolonged usage of his magic.
"It's the infinity stones, they're killing him" Stephen says, before creating orange mandala's with his hands, "I might be able to reduce the effects, but the stones are too powerful for me to stop." Archer felt the pain to reduce slightly, but he could still feel his body being torn from the inside.
"What if we just took the stones?" Another man questioned. He wore a dark red jacket and trousers, and he had green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. He was Starlord, the leader of the Guardians. He reached for the stones in Archer's hands, but suddenly the lightning around Archer lashed out on Starlord, and Peter was shot by some energy bolt from the stone and knocked several yards away into a pile of rubble. "I'm Fine!" He yells.
After screaming once more, Archer struggles out, "C-can't… let… g-go!" Suddenly all the stones begin glowing brighter and brighter.
"The stones are doing something!" Stephen proclaims, more mandalas being created around him.
"No shit Sherlock" Tony says, rolling his eyes. He had a machine in his hand, pointed at Archer, beeping.
"I mean to his soul" Dr Strange explains, "If I understand correctly, each of the stones are doing something to him that seems to be changing his universal identity. The reality stone along with the soul stone are making him part of our universe, the mind stone is creating some sort of barrier around his soul, the time and space stone is trying to send his soul somewhere else, and the power stone seems to be an energy source which the other stones are feeding off of."
Archer's body begins to glow, and another scream is let loose. "Mr Stark, we gotta do something!" A teen wearing a red and black metallic suit shouts. Archer's entire body becomes consumed by the light of the infinity stones, and the last thing that the Counter Guardian hears is somebody shouting to get back.
And Archer knew no more.
In a place between universes, where contradictions both exist and do not exist, a foreign entity enters.
"TRIBUNAL! DEATH! HOW DARE YOU SLIGHT ME!" Bellows the entity, a female body made entirely of energy. It was one half of the Counterforce, Alaya, the collective unconsciousness of mankind and the drive for its survival as a whole.
Two other entities come in. One has three heads, the other is a skeletal woman, but both radiate sheer power, they are The Living Tribunal and Lady Death respectively.
"Be wary of how you speak Alaya. You are within our territory" Lady Death warns with a cold voice. If there were any flowers nearby, they would've wilted. The fabric of her black cloak seems to show faces of the damned, as if interwoven with a thread of pain.
"You took one of my Guardians!" Alaya accuses, with a far calmer tone. One might say she was fearful
"Hm?"One of the heads of the Living Tribunal ponders, before another answers, "Ah yes, the one who entered Universe 610. I don't see why you blame us. It was the idiocy and foolishness of your guardian that resulted in his separation from you"
"And why exactly did you see fit to send one of your warriors into our territory?" Death questioned, almost smugly. "You do remember that there was a treaty, unless you consider yourself beyond it."
Alaya seemed taken aback for a bit, and almost a little nervous, as if she were deciding whether or not to tell them. "I… don't really know. I have always sensed a great desire to live from many worlds in your territory when that Mad Titan of yours decides to commit a universal genocide. Yet I never send out a guardian due to the treaty. However, this time was different. I felt a compulsion to do it. Even Gaia tried to stop me, yet I still did it."
All of The Living Tribunal's faces simultaneously gave a troubled expression, "That does not sound good. If someone can control a being on the same level as us, then…"
"Regardless, give me back my guardian" Alaya says, with a determined look. However Lady Death shook her head in denial.
"No. His existence has already been tethered to Universe 610. Giving him back to you could create a multiversal incursion like we've never seen before" Lady Death explained, "And anyway, don't you over 15 of the same guardian? A bit over the top if I must say, Alaya. Perhaps you have a fondness for the Shirou Emiya's of the multiverse. How human of you."
"...They're efficient soldiers," Alaya admitted with a sigh, "I will get going I guess. I must find a suitable replacement. I apologise for my earlier behaviour" And with that, Alaya returns to her territory, commonly known to those beyond the 4th Wall as the Nasuverse.
Lady Death nods to the Living Tribunal before disappearing to the Wakandan afterlife, one of her most favourite afterlives amongst all the others.
The Living Tribunal remains, watching as different timelines end and start. "Father, I assume you heard that conversation?" Out of seemingly nowhere, an average-looking man, dwarfed by the sheer size of the Living Tribunal, walks. He wears a blue sleeveless v-neck sweater and a white shirt beneath it. Along with that are a pair of sunglasses, which surprisingly compliments his greying hair. "Do you still insist on that form?"
The man chuckles, "It's quite comfortable, Tribunal. Now, what a curious situation we have here. A cosmic level entity being influenced to do something so stupid, it's so very interesting." The man squats down and seemingly sits on the air like it's a park bench. Out of nowhere, he pulls out a comic book and begins reading it.
"...Was it you?" The Living Tribunal sighs.
"Oh no!" The man laughs, not looking up from his comic, "How ever will Spider-Man escape this debacle?"
"I'll be going" The Living Tribunal fades away with one final sigh, leaving only the seemingly old man by himself.
"My, what clever usage of that web of his. Even he didn't know they could do that!" The man chuckles in amusement, before his gaze turns to you, "Really shows how there's more to meet the eye"
New York CIty, 1995
In a dark alley, murky and wet, lying in a dirty puddle is a boy wearing a dark blue baseball tee, and deep blue jeans. He rises from the puddle, distraught and confused.
"What on earth happened?" He asks himself, "This… was not the place I was at before. Normally, Alaya doesn't immediately send me to another mission. Wait, why does my voice sound different?" He looks down to the puddle and sees a young boy, now older than 7 years old. The boy has short red hair, and familiar pale skin.
It was an exact reflection of his younger self.
"Oh no." Archer whispers, and the severity of the situation was set upon him.
He was fucked.
Author's Notes: And done! The first chapter is done! Just some forewarning, some of the fate 'lore' here will be utter bullshit, since I've only watched the anime, and this video which describes the fate franchise in 30 minutes. So if I get something wrong, let's just assume it's canon to this story. Also Archer will have access to more weapons than listed in the wiki, because otherwise it'll be way too boring of a story.
Anyway, I hope you follow and review, and most of all I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter!