Rider
At the moment Zouken Matou was highly annoyed. After all, his plan for yet another Holy Grail War wasn't proceeding as intended – somehow, he just couldn't prove it, somehow Sakura managed to inherit Kariya's incompetence, despite not being related to the man in any way. After all, how else one could explain the results of the ritual to summon a Servant the girl had just performed?
The summoned hero wasn't even a human. And not just that, it also wasn't some sort of a menacing beast or a mighty demon lord. No, the Servant Sakura had summoned was a ...cute three-feet-tall anthropomorphic fox with two tails. It also didn't have any sort of a weapon anywhere on its... person. From the looks of it, this anthropomorphic fox wasn't capable of any meaningful offensive magic either. And even though it did introduce itself as 'Rider', Zouken couldn't bring himself to believe that the critter could have anything up its proverbial sleeve that might let it win the war.
Standing next to his grandfather, Shinji Matou was equally shocked and disappointed by the servant the failure of his adopted sister had summoned. And even though it had been planned that he will be in charge of the summoned Heroic Spirit, the arrogant boy had no desire to be seen around something as ridiculous as this furry little thing. His chances to acquire the Holy Grail be damned, he'd never be the Master for this.. for this... thing!
"You stupid wench!" Shinji shouted angrily. "How dare you summon thing thing, you, useless girl! I shall-... !" He was about to kick Sakura painfully, but before his foot could connect with his adoptive sister's stomach, it was stopped by a strong orange tail with white tip wrapping around it. The next thing Shinji knew, he was slammed his back first into the concrete floor of the basement they all were in at the moment.
"You shall not harm my Master!" Rider hissed as he pressed a screwdriver to the arrogant brat's neck. Despite his small body and fluffy cheerful appearance, the anthropomorphic Servant still somehow managed to appear intimidating for the boy. After keeping Shinji on the floor for almost a minute, Rider finally decided to let him go. "Get lost from here!" Now quite ensured that the furry little thing could handle him quite alright, the not-magus from the Matou clan hurried away from the basement, wishing to nurse his bruised back.
"This was ...and unexpected development for the summoning." Zouken finally spoke. "Yet, even though our original plan might be in ruins, I still expect you to bring me the Grail, Sakura." And after receiving a positive response from the girl, he too left the basement.
"I don't like that man." Rider said quietly. Sakura said nothing in response.
~/ *** \~
Since Sakura was more than capable of supporting her Servant with prana on her own, there was no need for the Rider to do some ...bad things. And since they both were quite pacifistic, neither sought out a conflict, so no one but that creepy priest, who was the moderator for the war, knew that they indeed were participating... And it suited both Sakura and Rider quite fine.
That, though, didn't mean that they were completely passive either. Every night, Rider would patrol high above the city in one of his 'mounts' – a red vintage biplane. While not sneakiest machine in the world, it neither looked too out of place to attract more than a passing glance to itself, nor it was flying close enough to the ground for other Servant to be able to sense Rider in it... And, sometimes, Sakura would join her two-tailed Herioc Spirit on these patrols: the first time he gave her the ride on 'Tornado', the purple-haired girls found out that she absolutely loved flying!
And tonight the two of them were flying high above Fuyuki again... Sakura herself wasn't even paying attention to anything happening on the ground, but her Servant was keeping an eye on everything that was happening around them. And, suddenly, he noticed two people leaving the Kotomine's church and joining up with the third one.
"Look, Sakura-sama." The blue-eyed fox said, attracting his Master's attention to that trio... Being rather bright herself, the purple-haired girl could almost instantly say that at least one person in that group was a Master of this Grail War – there was other reason one would be visiting the church at this hour. As Rider steered 'Tornado' closer towards the group on the ground (while doing his best not to attract their attention), Sakura could identify two people from the trio. They were Toshaka Rin and Emiya Shirou-kun. Their companion was not someone the purple-haired girl could identify, though. Mostly because almost all of her features were hidden under a thick plastic raincoat.
Now, Rin was a Master almost certainly: Toshaka family always had a representative in the war, and Rin was the last of her family. But given that she was accompanying Emiya-kun, it was almost a given that he was a Master too – there was no other reason for those two to go visit Kotomine together... And given that those two were specifically hiding their 'friend's' features, the girl under the raincoat likely was some abnormal Servant, incapable of astralyzing: while that indeed was not normal, there was a precedent in the pasts.
"Can we follow them, Rider?" Sakura asked.
"Sure thing." Was her Servant's response.
After maybe half an hour of tailing the trio as they were walking back towards Shirou's residence, Sakura noticed a new player entering the proverbial stage: a petite girl with all the characteristics of an Einzbern homunculus. And, what's more, this girl was accompanied by an astralyzed Heroic Spirit, a very powerful one at that.
The girl then spoke to Shirou and Rin, though being up there in an airplane, the purple-haired mistress of Rider could not hear what words had been exchanged between them. Then, a gray-skinned mountain of muscles materialized next to the Einzbern homunculus girl, while the girl-in-a-raincoat dropped it in favor of a blue armored dress. Another Servant, a white-haired man in red and black, appeared next to Rin, but it didn't look like he planned to do anything more than protecting his own Master here.
"They are going to fight..." Sakura whispered under her breath. Indeed, the gray-skinned Servant, that undoubtedly was the Berserker of this war, attacked. It moved surprisingly fast for something of that size, and its brute strength was quite enough to push the warrior-girl back. And since she appeared to be Shirou's Servant... "We s-should help senpai! But... But I don't want him to know about us..."
"Don't worry." Rider replied. "Tornado should be up for this task."
Things weren't going well for Shirou tonight. First, he had been almost killed by a spear-wielding psycho, and not once but twice. Then a blond girl somehow appeared in his shed. What was worse, no matter what said to her, this girl insisted on being his Servant and on calling him 'Master'. Then he learned that he was now a participant of a bloody tournament named the Holy Grail War of all things...
And now there was a petite white-haired girl whom he hadn't seen until today that called him 'onii-chan' and was hell-bent on killing him. Oh, and this girl was another master of the Grail War, and she commanded a mountain of muscles that was the servant Berserker. And right now, this Berserker was pushing Saber around like she was a little kid...
Suddenly there was a sound of gunfire and Berserker's body gained a number of new holes in it. Then, the colossus collapsed onto his back, apparently dead. A moment later red vintage biplane flew above Shirou's head, but the teen could not see who was piloting the machine. And a moment later this biplane disappeared into the dark sky.
"That... That was a Servant... Rider!" Illyasviel hissed, more annoyed by someone interrupting her 'fun', that angry about her Servant being killed. "No matter, Berserker, stand up and fight!" And much to Shirou's, Rin's and Saber's horror, the gray-skinned giant of a man that was Einzbern's Servant groaned and then stood up, the wounds on his body already completely healed. "Squash these little pests, Berserker!" 'Ilya' ordered, and her Servant let out an affirmative roar, before attacking the teens once again.
"That... didn't work?" Sakura asked in shock. "Berserker didn't go down."
"Nope." Her own Servant confirmed as he made the airplane turn around. "It seems that one of his Noble Phantasms allows him to revive himself."
"What should we do then, Rider?" The purple-haired girl asked, her eyes not leaving the fight on the ground even for a moment.
"Well..." The anthropomorphic Servant replied. "I doubt this Berserker can revive himself endlessly. If we take enough of his lives, he will feel threatened and will withdraw." He reasoned.
"O-Okay." Then they attacked the mad Servant again. But, much their shock, this time bullets harmlessly ricocheted off his skin, doing him absolutely no damage.
"Oh!" Rider exclaimed, not really believing his own eyes. Sakura too was shocked by the way the gray-skinned Servant underneath them suddenly gained immunity to Rider's plane's attacks... Suddenly a smirk appeared on the fox's face. "I think it's time we up it a little. Sit tight!" He said. Then 'Tornado' shimmered and disappeared. But before gravity could even take its hold over the airborne duo, a different airplane materialized around them. It was bigger and looked to be at very least modern, if not futuristic. "Welcome aboard of X-Tornado" Rider announced, before doing an Immelman turn as he directed the jet plane back at Berseker's position.
This airplane definitely either more powerful guns aboard, or even completely different in nature ones, as the volley fired once again managed to perforated the gray-skinned hulk that the mad Servant was.
Ilya was getting annoyed: she had planned to quickly deal with her onii-chan – Heracles the Berserker was the strongest Servant one could hope for, how could she lose – yet, her plans didn't survive the contact with reality. For one, her onii-chan could only be found in company of the Toshaka heiress, and while her Servant appeared to have no desire to join the battle, there were no guarantees that it will not change. And who know, what abilities that man possessed...
Regardless of that, onii-chan's Servant, Saber, proved to be fast on her feet and quite capable of keeping Berserker away from onii-chan, meaning that before this annoyance was dealt with, she couldn't have her onii-chan squashed under her Servant's feet. Damn.
And then another Servant had joined the fray. Rider, if that airplane was of any indication... Ilya wasn't sure, what Rider's goal was – downing her Berserker or merely protecting onii-chan from the aforementioned Servant – but he or she was doing a pretty decent job: Heracles had already lost of his lives, yet there was not a single chance where he or Ilya herself could counterattack. If the things continued like this, she might even find herself defeated. Drat and double drat.
"Berserker, we are withdrawing." The Einzbern homunculus commanded. Her Servant let out an annoyed roar, but still followed his mistress' order and astralyzed. "Kill you some other time, onii-chan." Ilya said, before turning around and retreating in a way that would preserve as much of her dignity as possible.
Up in the X-Tornado's cockpit, Sakura let out a sigh of relief: her beloved senpai was safe from that mad beast. At least for tonight.
Rider
True identity: Miles Prower aka "Tails"
Series: "Sonic" franchise
Age: 8
Sex: Male
Alignment: Lawful Good
Strength: D
Endurance: C+
Agility: A - To the point where he can use his tails for otherwise-unaided flight
Mana: E
Luck: B
Independent action: B
Magic resistance: E* - Due to being anatomically different from humans, some spells might not work on him; otherwise, he has no magic resistance to speak of.
Eye of the Mind (false): D
Tinkerer: A - Capable of creating complex machines (aircrafts and spacecrafts) from scratch and in short amounts of time, even without others aiding him.
Inhuman physiology: B - Tails is an anthropomorphic fox with two tails. Due to this nature of his, he has 'beast' attribute and, thus, takes extra damage from weapons or skills known to slay beasts.
Riding: C++ - Miles is a skilled pilot and can ride any flying vehicle; but he can't ride living mounts.
Noble Phantasms:
Tornado: C++ item, offensive, support. The original plane (owned by Sonic) that Tails often piloted. It's a red vintage-style biplane modeled after the Soviet I-153 plane from 1930-s. Despite being somewhat... outdated in its design, Tornado still can surpass most subsonic aircrafts. It is armed with a machine gun and a ring launcher. Depending on the task ahead, it can be equipped with a rocket engine or a number of rockets or bombs under the fuselage.
X-Tornado: A+, item, offensive, support. A custom-built jet plane that has no real analogues in the world. It is best recognizable by its unique X-shaped biplane wings and two cockpits. Designed to be powered up by a chaos emerald, X-Tornado is capable of things that go beyond the capabilities of any conventional aircrafts. Furthermore, it can transform into a mecha-like construct that can fight on land. Bigger and sturdier than the original Tornado, X-Tornado is also much better armed.