Caster

Somewhere within the Fuyuki city, a servant for the Fifth Holy Grail War was summoned. He was a man of maybe thirty years of age with short dark hair and dark eyes. His face would have been rather handsome if he wasn't so concentrated on something. He was wearing blue suit which was a common for all modern-era astronauts, though, a stripe with his name that should have been on the right side of his chest was missing. On the left sleeve of his suit, there was an emblem of some space expedition, apparently named 'Discovery I'.

"I'm servant Caster." The man introduced himself simply in an even and emotionless voice that somehow sounded actually like an artificial one. "And, are you my master?"

~/ *** \~

Saber stared at her opponent. While he did introduce himself as a Caster, he didn't look like someone who had any knowledge about arcane arts. If anything, the man looked like someone who ran away from that NASA organization from half across the globe. Still, the female King of Knights knew better than to underestimate her opponents simply because they didn't look dangerous, but not knowing what this man was capable of, she could do nothing but let him make the first move.

Caster didn't waste this opportunity and made a move with his hand, as if he was lifting something from. And, indeed, a moment later a parallelepiped rose from the ground. It was crystalline-black and very polished, yet, instead of being reflected from the surfaces of this construct, the light seemed to be absorbed by it. And with how well-proportioned this strange thing was, Saber had no doubts that it was an artificial construct, even if something beyond what humans could have created...

Meanwhile, Caster somehow levitated this strange parallelepiped – which had the proportions of one to four to nine – into the air, turning it till it had one of its largest faces looking at the ground. Arturia wasn't really any good with magic, but normally she could at least feel the more powerful spells being cast; here, it was almost like the black box was following the Caster's commands without him using his prana... This was most unsettling, especially since now the mysterious man was using the parallelepiped as his flying mount to lift himself high above the ground.

But Saber wasn't one of the greatest fighters for nothing and such obstacle wasn't something she couldn't overcome: using prana burst to augment herself, she jumped high into the air, aiming to strike Caster with her sword. He saw her coming, though, and created a ball of plasma in hi hand, before throwing it at her. She saw it, of course, but as she was in the mid-air, dodging this projectile was all but impossible, so Saber guarded herself with her sword.

And it was a good thing she did that: the heat explosion was very powerful, and had it happened any closer, she'd take some serious damage from it: for some reason it felt like her magic resistance did not work against such attacks... Even more concerning was the fact that Caster, who shower no hints of armor or magical resistance, managed to easily redirect the blast away from himself, before reforming into another fireball.

Gritting her teeth, the blond king rolled out of the blast zone, keeping both eyes trained on the strange man she was fighting. He was far more dangerous than he appeared to be, and Arturia had to admit that she had underestimated him, despite not intending to. She just couldn't have imagined that his 'spells' would be considered physical attacks and not magical... Plus she had yet to see what that strange crystalline parallelepiped could do. Not that she really wanted to: it was quite obviously a noble phantasm of some sort, and considering the powers that Caster had displayed so far, it'd be anything but weak. Better end this fight before she learned what else that man had up his sleeve...

Dodging two more fireballs, Saber dispelled the Invisible Air and took a stance that the survivors of the Fourth Grail War would undoubtedly recognize... The Caster, of course, didn't: while he was mesmerized by the beauty of Excalibur, he couldn't see it for what it really was – a clear mark that he wasn't a hero of the past times, but someone from the age when ancient lore was dying out.

Caster could see the light concentrating around his opponent's blade, and he could easily tell that whatever this attack will be, it will be very powerful and well beyond what he could absorb or redirect with his powers... Any further thoughts of his were drowned in Saber's cry of 'Excalibur!' as she swung her sword towards him.

The first hint that something didn't go as planned for Arturia was an unusual behavior of her noble phantasm: instead of stretching into the distance like it usually did, the beam of light produced by her Excalibur looked like it had ran into an unmovable wall right where Caster used to be. And when the light-show finally died down, Saber could see that her opponent had used that mysterious black monolith he previously stood on as a shield. And it worked quite well, as her anti-fortress noble phantasm didn't even scratch the polished surface of the cryptically parallelepiped. The blond knight, however, had no time to stare at this wonder as Caster was throwing those trice damned fireballs of his at her again...

~/ *** \~

Gilgamesh was angry. He was very very angry. The reason? Some mongrel who was Caster of the Fifth Holy Grail War had taken what was rightfully his and destroyed it! That bastard had killed his Saber! Something like this was absolutely unforgivable in the eyes of the King of Heroes. And, thus, Gilgamesh threw any ideas of keeping low profile right out of the window and marched outside, intent on destroying that Caster slowly and painfully.

Kotomine Kirei just sighed: this war had already gone to hell, so this would not change much about it. He just hoped that Gilgamesh wouldn't do anything that will force the Mage Association to completely wipe the city in order to preserve the secret of magic.

Finding Caster wasn't all that hard for the ruler of the Uruk city. And while the arrogant demigod would likely say that it was so because how awesome he was, in really it had more to do with Caster not even trying to hide than with anything else...

"Mongrel!" Gilgamesh hissed as he appeared in front of the mysterious servant. "You destroyed something that belonged to the King, you shall die!" The bastard's answer was summoning a black crystalline thing from under the ground. The thing – whatever it was – floated lazily next to it summoner, which only served to make the golden man angrier: to him it looked like Caster was mocking him with whatever weird powers he had...

So, reaching for his golden key, Gilgamesh opened his Gate of Babylon. Somehow, though, it felt a bit more taxing than usual. Maybe his kingly powers had dwindled after he was reincarnated into this world by the cursed Grail? 'No matter', the King thought as many unnamed swords, maces and spears emerged from the ripples of the Gate, ready to rain death upon the enemy of their owned.

"Last chance, mongrel." The golden king of Uruk said mightily. "Beg for forgiveness and I shall make your death relatively quick." Again, he received no reply. Brandishing his hand towards Caster, Gilgamesh willed his Gate of Babylon to start firing. The air immediately got filled with dust, but the golden ex-servant could feel that the mongrels presence was just as strong as it was right before their fight began. And this made the King a bit curious about the defenses that the bastard possessed.

Pausing his assault, Gilgamesh waited for the dust to settle. And he was greeted with the sight of that crystalline black parallelepiped floating right in front of the Caster, acting as his shield. And despite the multitude of unnamed noble phantasms that had been laughed at it, the thing didn't have even a single scratch on its polished surface. Now, that was some fine craft, and if he could have thought of some good use to this strange parallelepiped, Gilgamesh would have likely claimed it as one of his treasures... But since he could see nothing great, it's apparent indestructibility aside, about this thing Caster had summoned, the golden ex-servant had no desire to add it to his limitless collection.

Still, he needed to utterly destroy this mongrel. And as much as he loathed the fact that some unknown bastard forced him to use his most prized possession, the king of Uruk summon his trusty 'sword', Ea, from the Gate of Babylon.

"Enuma Elish!" He announced loudly as the sections of the 'sword' started spinning increasingly fast. Aiming his weapon at Caster, Gilgamesh spoke his order: "Wake up!" At that very moment a rip in time and space appeared at the tip of the 'sword', before being rocketed forward at a great speed, grinding at very laws of creation as it moved.

What happened next, the golden ex-servant didn't understand right away: the side of the parallelepiped that had been summoned by the Caster vanished, revealing the insides of the strange construct. Only, there were no insides – only a hole leading into the cold and endless depths of universe. And the dimensional rip created by Enuma Elish went into this wormhole, quickly disappearing towards the distant stars.

Then, Gilgamesh became aware of another thing: whatever this hole in space was, it was sucking everything in front of it into itself, and this included him too. Even stabbing Ea into the ground did not help much as the ground itself too was being sucked into this miniature black hole... Quickly summoning his second-greatest treasure, the chains named after his only friend, Enkidu, the King of Heroes used them to bind himself to anything that looked like it was unmovable in his vicinity.

While these chains indeed allowed Gilgamesh to anchor himself to several century-old trees and a boulder that weighted a good hundred tons, in the end, this proved to be futile as those too were sucked into the window towards the endless desolation of universe, along with the reincarnated King of Uruk...

Once he could see that the golden ex-servant was no more, Caster willed the monolith to close and surveyed the damage his most recent fight did to Earth. Most obvious was a huge area of torn ground that was created by the gates to the stars. It was a scar on the face of the planet, but Caster didn't really feel bad about making it: an abomination that he had destroyed was much worse as it did break the very laws of universe to continue existing away from its proper time.

Shaking his head, Caster allowed the monolith to sink back into the earth. Then he turned around and began walking towards the temple on the edge of the city. He could feel that underneath it there was a thing that had the potential to ruin the entire planet. And, as the guardian of life in the Solar system, it was his duty to end the existence of such things before they fell into the wrong hands...

Caster

True identity: Dr. David Bowman
Series: Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odysseys"
Age: unknown, ~30
Sex: Male

Alignment: Lawful Neutral.
Strength: D - strength of a homunculus body David is forced into by the Grail. See (*) for details.
Endurance: D+ - endurance of a homunculus body David is forced into by the Grail. See (*) for details.
Agility: C - agility of a homunculus body David is forced into by the Grail. See (*) for details.
Mana: Ex - David Bowman can freely convert almost any forms of energy around himself into useable prana.
Luck: D+
Independent action: Ex - Dr. Bowman does not require an external prana source to exist in this world indefinitely.
Magic resistance: B+ - David can freely convert magic of up to B rank into raw prana for his own use.
Territory Creation: E-
Alien Dialogue: Ex - David Bowman can freely communicate with any intelligent creatures.
Eye of the Mind (true): B - as was demonstrated on-board of 'Discovery I'.
Pioneer of the Stars: Ex - "Oh My God!-it's full of stars!" David Bowman was the first human to complete an interstellar travel. Even if neither voluntary nor via human technology...

Noble Phantasms:
New Seed: a Star Child (*): A (downgraded from Ex+ by the Grail), support, permanently active.
Star Child is an immortal being without true physical body – it's but a conscious stored in the folds of higher dimensions. Yet, such being is capable of limited interaction with the physical world, mostly in the form of controlling various forms of energy. To make such opponent even theoretically defeatable, Grail imposed a homunculus-like body upon David Bowman. If this body receives a fatal damage, Dr. Bowman will be considered killed and will be removed from the war.

Monolith: a Firstborns' Artifact: A++, item: support, defensive, anti-unit, anti-army, anti-fortress.
A monolith is a pure-black crystalline parallelepiped with unnaturally-perfect proportions of 1:4:9 that seems to be even absorbing light. Such monoliths are a creation of an unknown alien race, Firstborns, that existed long before humans even began evolving. Monoliths are impervious to any known forms of direct damage and can't be scanned with human technology, but are known to be capable of analyzing the world around itself and sending data across the galaxy to other similar monoliths. Dr. David Bowman, as a Star Child, has limited control over such monoliths and uses the so-dubbed TMA-0, the only monolith on the Earth, as his shield and 'sword'. For some reason, the powers of TMA-0 greatly increase when Tycho crater of the Moon is illuminated by the Sun...