Golden Hero

"Are you sure about this?"

Long white hair whipped as the woman kneeling on the floor turned to look at Jaune, mercury dripping from the vial in her hand. Eyes like shards of ice glared at the blond boy, his hand tightening around the xiphos he carried, narrowing to slits as she stood to her full, if not particularly impressive, height. Whatever she lacked in stature, she more than made up for with the intensity of her gaze, leering like a hawk at the nervous young man standing outside the sigil.

Winter raised a thin brow as her arms folded over her chest, weight shifting onto one hip. "What did I tell you when you wanted to use reinforcement on your legs to make you run faster?"

"… that I didn't have enough mana to maintain it for over a minute."

"And how did that work out for you?" she asked, continuing in the same breath before Jaune could even think of answering. "You collapsed before you made it halfway around the track. And let's not forget the vomiting as your body tried to compensate for the sudden heat exhaustion and dehydration."

Jaune winced from the reminder. How could he forget? Especially after the bout of nausea had earned him the moniker 'Vomit Boy' among some of his less understanding classmates.

"Or should we talk about the time you wanted to summon a familiar on your own, or try fire magic for the first time, or confessing to-"

"You made your point."

"I don't think I have." Winter sighed, slipping into the patient tone of someone dealing with a particularly foolish child. "Jaune, your grandfather made this deal with my family for a reason. You know, as well as I do, that neither you nor anyone in your family has the power to complete a summoning. Of all your siblings, you're the only one with any magic at all, and you barely have enough to light a candle without passing out. It's unfortunate, but this is simply something that you will never be able to do. If this is going to get done, it will have to be done my way. Understood?"

Jaune felt his teeth grinding. He wanted to speak up, to remind her that his family had been just as lauded as hers. That it wasn't fair for her to treat him like this, like a complete incompetent, like he didn't have any magical knowledge or ability. He almost did … but for the quiet voice in his head, reminding him that she was actually right. Any time he'd tried to magic on his own, it had ended in humiliation or disaster. If the Arc family was to have any hope of remaining a strong house within the Mages' Association … they needed this.

They needed her, as much as it pained him to admit.

"Understood."

"Good. Now, could you pass me the knife please? We left this too late as it is."

Jaune gingerly reached for the little dagger resting on the table, holding it out hilt-first for Winter to take. Nodding a measure of thanks, the young woman's fingers closed around the polished hilt, only for her other hand to whip out, grabbing Jaune by the wrist. Jaune tried to jerk away in surprise, only to find himself trapped by Winter's iron grip. Not even bothering to look at him, she held him in place as she sliced the blade clean across his palm.

The blond hissed at the pain, finally able to flinch away as the white-haired woman released his hand.

"Stop squirming. No wonder she thinks you're pathetic." Just as quickly as she had grabbed him, Winter stepped back to the circle and dumped the blood-covered knife on the table with a clatter.

"I am doing all the work here. The least you can do is give me a little blood." Her nose already in one of her tomes, she pointed to one of the basins placed around the diagram. "Squeeze. You need to fill all five of them."

Teeth clenched against the pain, Jaune followed her orders, squeezing his aching hand until blood dripped into each bowl in turn. Seeing the outstretched hand, he passed Winter the xiphos, briefly entertaining the idea of handing it to her blade-first and seeing how she liked getting her hand cut open. Instead, he dutifully took up his position at the circle's edge as she laid the artifact down in the sigil's center. They had needed the blood after all.

Moving to his side, Winter took his hand in hers, her voice raised in the starting lines of the incantation. Taking a breath, Jaune's voice joined hers, lifting and falling, the magic easing him into a steady rhythm with the woman at his side. In an instant, the two were in perfect harmony, power flowing down his arm into Winter, adding his mana to hers as she called on the spirit of their pact. Each word built upon the power in that room, pounding into a rising beat that drummed against his ears. He felt light-headed, and made sure to steady himself against the table. It always happened like this, the strain of the magic taking a larger toll on him than it should, requiring more and more until he'd collapse, the spell almost always unfinished. The only reason it hadn't happened already was Winter, rude and caustic and eternally insufferable, far more powerful than he could ever hope to be and made worse by the fact that she was almost always right.

The white-haired woman said that last lines of their pact, finishing the contract that would bind the heroic spirit to their will. Golden light washed from the spell circle, as warm as the sun and twice as bright, blinding Jaune as the magic rushed from him, blasting out across the room. Spell ingredients and tomes rustled in its wake, pages flipping in the sudden wind. Jaune staggered and hunched over the table as the magic drained out of him. He felt like he'd just run a marathon while the other runners beat him like a piñata. His head throbbing abominably, his vision swam and his stomach churned. At least he hadn't thrown up – he'd made it a personal rule not to eat before performing magic after the track incident.

Putting most of his weight on the table, the young man looked up, eyes widening as the light faded, revealing a woman kneeling within the bounds of their sigil. Even on her knees, she looked tall, at least Jaune's height, and clad head-to-toe in gleaming bronze, scarlet hair spilling out from beneath her helm and cascading down her back. She held both spear and shield in her hands, with a sword not unlike the one they'd used to summon her belted at her waist.

"Are you my master?" she asked, her voice soft and mild, gentle emerald eyes reminding him of endless, rolling hills.

"I … we … uh-" Jaune stammered, his thoughts derailed by the gorgeous woman looking up at him.

"We are," Winter said, not bothering to look at her partner as she spoke. "This is Jaune, of the Arc family of magi. I'm Winter Schnee. Your name?"

"Rider," the servant answered, managing to make something that would sound sarcastic from anyone else seem genuinely helpful. "In my former life I was Achilleía, child of Thetis and Peleus, Commander of the Myrmidons, Slayer of-"

"That's enough titles." The more senior mage blinked, her brow furrowing. "I expected Achilles to be a man."

"So did Odysseus when first we met." A smile flashed across the redhead's face at the memory, a soft laugh coming under her breath. "Not that it stopped him from recruiting me for Agamemnon's war."

"Wait," Jaune rubbed at his temple, still light-headed from the ritual. "You're Achilles?"

"I was, yes."

"The Achilles? Greatest warrior in Greek history? Undefeated on the battlefield and only slain by a coward's lucky arrow?"

The redhead let out a short laugh, one that was way too cute for someone who'd dragged a man's body behind her chariot in a fit of fury. "Everyone has it in for Paris. To his credit, it was a pretty difficult shot."

Jaune felt his mouth go dry as she rose to her feet, slipping off her helmet before meeting his gaze. Loose red hair tumbled down "I didn't know I had a fan."

"… I loved the Iliad."

"Moving on," Winter growled, one hand already rubbing at the bridge of her nose. "To specify the terms of our contract: both Jaune and myself will serve as your sources of mana throughout the Grail war. I bear the command seals, but Jaune will serve as your master and support in the field."

Green eyes glanced briefly between the two mages. "I have no objections."

"Good. I'll let the two of you figure out your battle plans." Dusting her hands, Winter strode towards the exit to the workshop, catching Jaune's shoulder as she passed.

"Jaune, a word of advice?"

"Yeah?"

"Let her do most of the planning."

"You don't know your own name?"

Blake felt her fingers tightening on the tabletop. Taking a breath, she forced her hands to relax on the dark-grained wood. Ignoring the twinge in her arm where Assassin had slashed it, she looked over at the blonde seated on the opposite side of the low table, currently trying to find a comfortable position atop the cushions.

"It's not that I don't know." Berserker said, trying once more to fold her legs into a passable copy of Blake's posture. She winced as her legs complained, unaccustomed to the kneeling position. With a growl, she grabbed an extra pillow from atop the tatami mat and flopped down on her side, head propped up on one arm. "I've had several, and I'm just not sure which one I am right now."

Blake let out a long breath before rubbing at the bridge of her nose. To be fair, many of the old heroes carried more than one name. It was possible that Berserker among those whose story had migrated, the name changing here and there and being added to over time. It wasn't uncommon. Plenty of mythic figures picked up new names in new lands, or had their stories rolled into others. Heracles changed to Hercules, Sigurd to Siegfried, and Gwalchmei to Gawain. The stories weren't always the same, but parts of the original tale remained at the core of the new one.

Not that it made Berserker's confusion any less worrying. Any Servant carried with them the marks of their legend, distilled down into their Noble Phantasms, artifacts or abilities that represented their power. A hero with a strong connection to a particular sword might have that blade as their Phantasm, or a knight with a legendary horse might have the ability to summon their steed.

"… you can't just pick one?" Blake asked. With a Servant's name came the knowledge of their legend and, by proxy, at least a guess at what their Noble Phantasms might be. Granted, Berserkers rarely had complicated abilities – part of the trade-off for the power their berserk state could bring – but Blake had never heard of a Berserker with this weak a level of Mad Enhancement. Most Berserkers were unintelligible, their sanity sacrificed for the sake of power.

"Nope," said the blonde, grabbing another cushion and laying back on the tatami. "What if I got it wrong?"

"Could you give me a best guess?" At this point, Blake would settle for just about any clue. All she knew was that her Servant was partial to her shield. The armor was definitely European, but that still left several centuries and the mythologies of an entire continent to work from.

"If I had to?" Berserker stared up at the ceiling, brow furrowing. "Kara, maybe?"

The dark-haired Faunus blinked, racking her brain for some legend by the name of Kara. The name meant nothing to her, outside a South Korean pop group and a science-fiction fighter pilot. That in itself was worrying. The Berserker class might be able to compensate with a power boost for a second or third-tier hero, but still …

No. Adam had been the one to find the artifact, to choose this particular spirit to summon. He must have had his reasons, must have thought that Berserker would be capable of winning the Grail War.

Unless he just made a mistake and the artifact belonged to some two-bit country squire with a minor folktale.

"If it's that big a deal, you could always pick me a new one," Berserker said, her shrug sending waves down her brown leather surcoat and the scale mail beneath it.

"That doesn't solve the problem."

"Maybe. But it'll be fun." Pushing off the ground, she leaned forward, violet eyes flickering as she grinned. "Come on, Belladonna."

Sighing, Blake stood and walked over to the kitchen. Doubts about Berserker's strength aside, this wasn't the worst idea. Setting something up in case the servant was spotted wasn't a bad idea. Granted, it cost her the use of one pre-made identity, but it wasn't that costly.

Kneeling down on the tile floor, she pried open a loose corner of a vent, pulling until the entire metal grate came free. Reaching into the wall behind, she rummaged about in her hiding place – a 'slick,' as Adam had called it – until she pulled back, a thick manila envelope in her hand. Re-sealing the vent, she went back to the table, upending the package and watching as various laminated cards with holographic designs clattered onto the table.

"I assume you know what IDs are?"

"More or less," Berserker nodded. As part of the Grail system, Servants were summoned with a general understanding of modern society, which made them significantly The other major benefit was an understanding of the area's native tongue, and that of their Master – after all, the war would be next to impossible if your servant spoke an unintelligible dialect of Ancient Egyptian.

"Good. How about this one?" Blake asked, sliding over one of the cards at random.

"Kate?" Berserker asked, her disapproval clear. "How about something less overused? There's waaay too many Kates."

"… how would you know that?"

"There's always been too many Kates."

Rolling her eyes, Blake shuffled through the throwaway IDs.

"Here."

"Do I look like a Martha to you?"

"This one?"

"Esther? Really?" One blond brow raised as Berserker looked askance at the other woman. "You're not very good at this game."

"Just pick one yourself then."

Berserker grinned and leaned forward, sifting through the IDs like a child setting up a card game. Eyes closed, she swirled the cards on the table, before finally plucking one from the pile. Opening her eyes, she grinned. "Ooh, this one!"

Looking at the card, Blake sighed and rubbed her forehead.

"Of course," she said. "The Nordic blonde picks an ID with a Chinese name. That won't be hard to explain at all."

"I'll just say my dad got around." Berserker grinned, holding the little square of plastic out in front of her. "'Yang Xiao Long.' Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

Hey, two chapters in as many weeks. Feeling good about that. Well, there's Pyrrha for you, and a bit of a hint as to who Yang is.

Chapter 5 Preview:

The priest stood in the center of the room, blood dripping from his hand, falling down onto a circle etched into the floor. Long, archaic writing flowed around the circle's edge, criss-crossed by the lines forming a star in the center.

Moving as carefully as his corpulent body would let him, the priest reached into the crate. When his hand emerged, it was wrapped delicately around a length of rope. Holding it at arm's length like a serpent, he laid it in the center of the diagram, before stepping back and continuing his inane chanting.

So, not Orthodox then, Roman thought, and slipped a little further behind the wall.

Please review, if you have the time - the alerts on my phone make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.