Fate/Keleid Liner Prisma Taylor

"It's quite rude to interrupt someone's bath."

When the kaleidoscopic explosion cleared, I was in some kind of forest. I was suddenly very low on mana, but at the same time, it felt like I was drawing in more from Taylor and the ambient environment so I was at least stable. Not for the first time since I'd been summoned I wished that I still had access to my Parahuman powers instead of just an approximation. This forest must be crawling with bugs I could use to get my bearings but I can't access them and the Skittering Swarm I could call on on my own cost mana to maintain.

So I spent the next few hours trying to navigate around the forest... And occasionally putting bullets in the heads of walking corpses, until I stumbled across a clearing lined with tall standing torches. Within the clearing was some sort of bath house and a blonde boy of maybe eleven years of age sitting at the edge of some kind of hot spring.

And glaring at me.

"...You know there are zombies wandering around out here, right?"

"Yes, I am most aware," the boy in a tone thick with irritation. "The Torches, a minor treasure meant to ward off unwanted spirits, were doing wonders to keep me from being disturbed but they don't seem to work on servants. Now, trespasser, you may leave... Or, should you be craving conversation that badly, you may join me. The water is the perfect temperature."

"...You're asking me to bathe with you?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course I would expect you to wash up first, to avoid polluting the spring," he said with a gesture to the bathhouse. "The spring is for relaxation, not ablution. Or you could leave, which would also be acceptable, but I feel that I am the first thinking being you've encountered since you arrived here. If you want answers or advice..."

I rolled my eyes and marched to the bathhouse. He had a point and besides, shame was a human concept that didn't apply to me anymore.

Once I'd settled into the warm waters opposite the boy, he spoke up again, "so, why don't you tell me who you are?"

"I am Khepri," I introduced myself.

"No, I don't think you are," the boy dismissed plainly. "Your skin is too fair to be an Egyptian God, and your face looks more like a daughter of Europe than a dung beetle..."

"My Master calls me Kelly," I answered with gritted teeth.

"No, that's not right either," the boy said playfully. "Are you sure that your name isn't... Taylor?"

I narrowed my eyes. "Who are you?"

"I am Gilgamesh."

"I think you're a little too white to be a Babylonian King, kiddo," I deadpanned back.

"And yet this changes nothing, I am who I am," the hypocrite insisted.

"Okay then, say I believe you 'Gilgamesh,' how do you know so much about me?"

"How does anyone know so much about anyone, Taylor?" the boy replied smugly

"Don't call me that," I insisted. "I'm not Taylor. I am Khepri."

"You look like Taylor," he replied as if he was the adult and I was the child. "You sound like Taylor, you have the legend of Taylor—"

"No! Taylor got better. Taylor learned to be okay. I can't. So I can't be Taylor. I am Khepri."

The boy laughed. "The True Gilgamesh who lived and died still rests in the Throne of Heroes, but I am still Gilgamesh. I was summoned through the contents of Pandora's Box, corrupted and lessened by All the Worlds Evils, but I am still Gilgamesh. I was torn in half by the touch of a girl with the power of miracles woven into her flesh and blood and yet I am still Gilgamesh." He looked me in the eyes. "I dare say that you, as a properly summoned Servant, have a greater claim to being Taylor than I Gilgamesh, so if I am still Gilgamesh, what does that mean for you, Taylor?"

I stood up, prepared to inflict violence on this child, when he himself stood from the water and pulled clothes from golden ripples in thin air.

"You're angry, Taylor," he said as he got dressed. "You're seething with rage. You want to hurt me?" More ripples appeared in the air around us, the tips of swords sliding out. "Well, Goddess of Chiten and Silk, Mistress of Spiders and Ants, Conquerer of the Underworld, Black Roach who destroys the Gluttonous Worm, Queen of Escalation..." He drew a long chain from yet another portal. "Show me you're made of. Test your might against the King of Heroes!"

I smiled.

F/KLPT

So, after breaking up Opal and Ruby's fight, we all transformed and took off because apparently Gilgamesh being ticked off was a major emergency that required the dropping of any pretenses of secrecy. "So... Is this the Gilgamesh or..."

"Yes," Chloe, dangling from her sister's foot because she couldn't fly on her own, "He's a servant, well, kinda. He came from a Class Card but then Illya accidentally separated him from his card and it's really complicated."

"Is there anything specific I should know about? Like, if we have to fight him?"

"The advice for fighting him is don't fight him," Illya replied. "I beat him once, but it was a close thing, and channeling that much power was very rough on my body. Gil-Kun's not that strong anymore, but..."

"...Gil-Kun?"

"It's an honorific, a term of endearment," Miyu explained. "We have a somewhat complicated and tumultuous relationship with him but he respects Illya and could be argued to be friends with her." I got the feeling that Miyu didn't approve of that.

"But mostly he just seems to think we're amusing," Chloe finished. "He tends to stick to himself but every so often he shows up to cause and/or solve problems."

"Anything else I should know?" I asked.

"He's clairvoyant," Miyu began, "He just... Knows things he never should have had a chance to learn. And he's superhumanly charismatic. He can take what he's learned about you and use it to make you do things that are in his interest." There was some history there, it seemed. Her tone of voice gave away just the barest hint of emotion.

Suddenly from the distance, a figure came zooming through the sky toward us. The others took defensive positions but as the figure approached I recognized her and waved for them to relax.

Glory Girl came to a stop just in front of us. "Oh, thank god. Princess, where the hell are we? We were in the cafeteria and then the riot broke out and the next thing I know I'm laying in the middle of the road and all the street signs are in Japanese. I took to the air and then saw you flying and..." It was then that she realized that I wasn't alone. she looked over to the other three girls. "Oh, crap, there's more of you. And the one dressed like a stripper is checking me out."

I turned and... Yeah, Chloe was in fact giving Vicky the eye. "What?" She said incredulously.

"Cut it out, I'm not into girls," Vicky asserted.

The dawning look of confusion on Chloe's face was almost comical. "Like... At all?"

"Can we please continue to our destination?" Miyu interrupted. "Before Gilgamesh burns down the forest? For all that we know he could have been confronted by the Dead Apostle responsible for the recent infestation of the undead."

I looked to Opal "Dead Apostle?"

"Vampire."

"Okay, uh, Vicky I'll explain what's going on on the way, okay?"

So we continued off in the direction of the explosion while I explained to Vicky about being stranded in another world.

Finally, we came to what clearly used to be a clearing. Trees had been knocked over, some looked like they'd had dozens of swords embedded in them and then removed, and Kelly was strung up in a web of chains that were coming out of golden ripples in the air. Her prosthetic arm was missing and she was trying, and failing, to reach out and throttle a young blonde boy with red eyes.

"Gil-Kun? What's going on?" Illya asked.

"Oh, nothing you need to concern yourself with," the boy said haughtily, "I was merely testing the mettle of a fellow Hero. She is... Acceptable."

The chains holding Kelly up dropped her and retracted into their portals. "Compose yourself, Taylor. Your master is here... Speaking of which..."

The boy walked up to me and gazed over me with an examining eye. "What to call you? I can't call you Taylor, it would be confusing... And I already know a Princess from Another World." Miyu bristled. "So I guess, until I can come up with a better name, you'll be The Other One."

It took all of my self-control to resist decking him in the face.

Crisis averted, we got ready to head back to Miyu's house to figure out how to find the rest of my friends, but first Vicky had to speak up.

"Okay, if no one else is gonna ask it, I will: Uh... Older Taylor? Why are you naked?"