"Get the fuck off me," Cú Alter growled at Fergus who had stumbled into the Berserker due to being blinded on one side due to the wound taken from Artoria's sword. Although Elizabeth's sword had caught him, too, the fact her chisel-point had to smash though the armor that came from his Noble Phantasm meant that it wasn't nearly as bad as all the shattered bone fragments might have implied at a casual glance.
"I think Medb thinks she needs to bail us out," Cú Chulainn mumbled to no one in particular, after spotting the approaching chariot Noble Phantasm. While the Chaldeans might assume it would come smashing into their lines, the Lancer knew that after travelling from the fleet to their melee, the magical energy of the 'attack' would be largely dissipated. Essentially, one could not charge at that speed over that distance and still have energy left over to assault Servants with.
"Damn it," Sétanta grumbled, although the experience of being grazed by Elizabeth's dragon breath was a bit too fresh in his mind to simply brush off - he eyed the gauge in the landscape it had created in between the Chaldean and Celtic and Chaldean groups. "What should we do?"
"She either wants to go all-in, or quickly leave," Fergus wiped the blood off his face. The Saber was quite familiar with Medb's chariot of course. As well as her Noble Phantasm. "Either way, we should wait for her reinforcements to arrive. We've struck a good blow already."
Cú Alter cursed something under his breath but didn't feel up to contradicting Fergus as the Celts closed their formation, this time with Cú Chulainn taking their center.
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"Is she just going to run us over with that?" Marie eyed Medb's approach warily. Unlike the Chaldean Rider's Noble Phantasm, the Celt's one clearly had an additional two passengers, who were doubtless Servants as well.
"Hey, are you alright?" Nearby, Jeanne quickly moved to support a sagging Artoria. Although it was hard to make out against the dark blue of the Saber's dress, the Ruler could nevertheless tell there was blood coming out from the lower edge of her breastplate. And the obvious hole where (Gáe Bolg) had punched through.
"Jeanne, I need you to focus on that right now," Gudao redirected her attention. "Marie, please." The Rider quickly understood the situation and took over her friend's care.
"... alright, I'm going. Use the time to try and gain distance," Sasaku spoke up abruptly.
"Um, you know what Medb's Noble Phantasm does, right?" Jeanne had by now gotten the gist of it from her (True Name Discernment).
"It would be bad news to get caught by that," Ruby added glibly, as it shared Sasaku's Grail-based knowledge from the Ruler's related Skill. "Like the 'instant loss' trope type of bad, what with all those hearty warrior Celts."
"Um, be quiet. I don't plan on running into her directly, but it would be good if she thought so."
"Since the enemies at hand appear to be waiting on her, we should be clear to move inland more," Gudako concluded, having an idea of what was developing. "Medb's main advantages are against men, so I don't think you'd instantly be taken out for just approaching her, but be careful."
"Yeah, I don't think could qualifies as being careful as is, but anyway..." Sasaku eyed the approaching queen Rider and her entourage, shifting her stance to a lower one that Elizabeth recognized as a two-handed style for using heavy weapons. "Ok Ruby, let's try Zanber Form."
"Ooh, I gotta get one of those," Elizabeth murmured appreciatively as Ruby brought forth a massive blade of roiling magical energy that was even larger than her own impressive (size-wise) Eighteen.
"That's not really going to work," Gudako by contrast eyed it skeptically, knowing that while Ruby could certainly bring out a large amount of raw energy due to using the Second Magic, harnessing it productively was another matter.
"Hmm... I think Medb wouldn't know that though," Gudao commented as the Chaldeans started slowly pulling away. "Without certainty, she needs to treat it as a serious threat even if we know the level is quite far below a Noble Phantasm."
"I really hope you know what you're doing," Ruby remarked as Sasaku started running off towards the shore at an angle to Medb's charge.
"Makes two of us," the Ruler replied. "They're watching us, right?"
"More than that, I'd say Medb is turning into us," the wand responded, using its ability to track magical energy signatures like a radar.
"Yeah, I really don't want to get caught by that, so the timing needs to be perfect. I'll need your help with that, the plan is -"
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((Chariot My Love), the Noble Phantasm)
"What the hell is that?" the Caster Cú Chulainn kept an uneasy footing on top of Medb's massive summoned chariot. "That energy signature is no joke !"
The Rider sitting a little below him, who was driving, didn't need to be told about the gout of light that was coming from the Chaldeans straight into her eyes. "Is that Artoria again?"
"No," Bazette quickly informed her. "It's that Ruler girl they have, using a Kaleidostick... I can take her."
"Should I drop you off, or?"
"Just try and run her over. An attack like that is just waiting for me to parry with (Fragarach). And then the Chaldeans will be totally exposed, I can already see them trying to withdraw."
"Ok." Medb accepted her friend's advice easily. "Cú, signal the others to follow us in. I can't just ram the Chaldean formation all at once."
Stepping up easily with a Servant's agility, Bazette ran up the driving shaft of the chariot to the yoke, just between the heads of Medb's two bulls. It seemed most likely to the Alter-Ego that her opponent would try and hug the ground, striking at the animals' hooves rather than risk bring gored or encountering herself. That meant she in turn would need to essentially jump or swing down right in front of the attack in order to be properly placed for the counter.
It wasn't a particularly hard matter to keep one hand on the bulls' yoke, drop into position, counter the blow, then pull herself back up after. Of course, the ground clearance of the chariot meant that at worse, she would fall in between the bulls and pass under the chariot, or perhaps she would be pulled off the ground and into it anyway. It was more a question of potential embarrassment rather than danger since the Noble Phantasm didn't exactly friendly fire.
"Hey, Caster is signaling us to follow their lead," Sétanta relayed to his comrades.
"The Chaldeans are clearly using that girl to shield themselves from Medb's line of charge," Cú Chulainn thought aloud. "If she thinks it's straightforward to break though, then I guess we should aim to reach their main body at the same time she does to support her."
"We'll have to settle for that then," Cú Alter agreed begrudgingly. From his perspective both sides had lost one Servant each, but since Medb had made her move it would be foolish to just try and close directly with the Chaldeans again without her.
"Isn't that girl just making another distraction play?" Sétanta had his doubts about her intentions from their earlier 'encounter'.
"We don't need Medb's forces to beat the Chaldeans face-to-face," Fergus estimated. "Well, they do have those Command Spells, come to think of it."
"Ergh," someone grunted.
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"By the way, I'm pretty sure that getting hit by those animals counts as being hit by the Noble Phantasm," Ruby commented.
"I was planning to avoid them as well," Sasaku replied, adjusting her movement to account for the dragging of the wand's oversized energy blade.
"By the way, I'd appreciate it if you didn't rip off other magical girls for your attack names. Even if they aren't even Skills, we Kaleidosticks have our pride about such things.
"But you understood me perfectly."
"..."
Ruby said nothing as the pair transitioned from on-foot movement to flying close to horizontal with the blade trailing out to Sasaku's right. For her part though, the magical girl was eyeing Bazette who was purposefully taking up a position all the way up front. Jeanne might have immediately identified the small sphere floating at the ready nearby, but all the smaller Ruler had to go on was her suspicious and a vivid recollection of Elizabeth's surprise reversal of Cú Alter's attack under a minute ago.
"... wait, I recognize that woman," Ruby said suddenly.
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"Don't think just because you're a girl that I won't enjoy getting my hands on you," Medb mumbled while the two parties neared one another with, if anything, increasing speed.
"The others are starting towards the Chaldeans," the Caster on board reported but was ignored amidst the ongoing bustle of combat.
"You need to track her closely," Bazette spoke up from her place in the very front. Of course, as Phantasmals, Medb's bulls didn't care at all about her intrusion into their workspace.
"Leave that to me, keep on her yourself," Medb replied shortly.
As the distance continued to close, Bazette found herself wondering how exactly Ruby, as she could confidently identify it by the color scheme, had ended up with the Chaldeans since it shouldn't have been around when the Incineration occurred. Nevertheless there would be an opportunity to question the Kaleidostick at length afterwards.
The chariot rattled softly as Medb adjusted course in response to their target doing so. At this point, it was clear they would have to swing wide around in order to join the ground force, rather than simply driving straight ahead. So that's her plan, the druid Cú thought to himself, but several things occurred in short succession right as they were about to make impact.
The magical energy signature that, from the chariot's perspective was heading towards them at a relatively direct course from their left, abruptly dropped significantly in strength.
A large cloud of sand was thrown up as Sasaku flipped around and kicked her feet into the ground to abruptly reverse her left-to-right motion, meaning that instead of passing in front of Medb's chariot as initially planned, she instead stopped short of crossing their expected line of motion and would not make contact.
Bazette, who was in the middle of swinging down into her expected intercept position, yelled in surprise as Medb, who had been driving on a slight right-ward turn to account for a sudden acceleration burst from their target, yanked her bulls sharply to the left. While the animals themselves were sure-footed and had no issue complying, the chariot abruptly started to topple over, throwing the riding Caster Cú off to the right.
(Fragrach) followed its wielder down and back up, unused, as the attack it had been prepared for simply never arrived.
Somewhat cheekily, as the swaying chariot passed by her, Sasaku took the chance to hastily turn Ruby's mana blade back on and take a swipe at its wheels which did no real damage to speak of, except perhaps to Medb's pride.
"Damn, I think Medb got played," Sétanta whistled while watching first the druid take a dive off her chariot, followed by Bazette jumping from the bulls up front into the chariot with Medb as it overturned almost in slow-motion.
"Should we keep going for the Chaldeans anyway?" Cú Chulainn asked. Off to the side, the druid had gotten to his feet, spitting sand all over as he engaged in a rune-vs-magic ball duel with the Chaldean girl who was spraying him and the rear of the downed chariot with shimmering pink energy.
"Alter-me, you're in charge so..." the lancer pressed him for a response as time was passing by.
"Argh-" his instincts told him they would win a straight-up brawl. But at the same time, he knew the Chaldeans, like Fergus had pointed out, could essentially reload their Noble Phantasms and blast them point-blank on the way in. Whereas they needed to resupply from the fleet's energy reserves. "We should go 'save' Medb."
None of the other three pointed out that three Servants hardly needed to be saved from a single magical girl, though probably all four were thinking that if anything, Medb would be the one protesting the loudest that she didn't need any help dealing with the situation later on.
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"They seem to be pulling off towards Medb," d'Eon reported to those with him.
"Excellent." Gudao looked at his hand as though able to see the Command Seals through the opaque gloves they used to keep them under wraps. "Let's pick up the pace."
Gudako thought over their prospects. Both sides would presumably resupply before the next clash, and while the Celts had lost one, Medb might have three to add to their force. Meanwhile the Chaldeans would stabilize Artoria and send her back to Chaldea, then summon in a replacement sixth Servant... that still meant the next battle might be much more in Medb's favor.
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Notes:
Regarding the uncertainty the different parties have about what Medb's attack can do, they all behave differently with respect to this as they each need to manage their own risk: Caster Cú can tell there's a large amount of magical energy, but not what it is for/does. Bazette recognizes a Kaleidostick so she knows that it wouldn't be Noble Phantasm strength. However, they also both know that Medb has used up a lot of her own Noble Phantasm to quickly travel land-side from the fleet. Medb herself definitely knows she couldn't just smash into the Chaldean formation in any case. The Chaldeans can guess Medb won't be reaching at full strength but they have to be careful because they would have to assume she could at least take out someone immediately.
Celts need to resupply from the fleet, but the Chaldeans do NOT have to use Command Spells to resupply under non-combat conditions because their setup with the Masters + Grail System mean they essentially resupply passively. This takes some time, but if they break contact then this isn't an issue if they aren't particularly time-constrained. Also, Chaldean Servants are a bit weaker in a direct sense but also more energy efficient (due to Masters primarily - Caster Cú is not a Master in this respect, and lacks Command Spells as well).
As in the case where Caster Cú was drawing directly from Medb's fleet's reserves, it is possible to bring a lot more magical energy at once - the issue is actually applying it. Which is why Artoria's first Caliburn and especially the later Command Spell for Excalibur could be considered 'wasted' as Medb's side didn't really lose anything significant, even opportunity-wise, to block it - unless you count not deploying Caster. (Here the Command Spells will only regenerate when back in Chaldea proper.)
The system is less of the standard FSN one (where something like single-target Gáe Bolg can be used several times due to being efficient) but more like FGO rules where one use empties your "NP bar". And in this story there'll hardly any straightforward "NP charge" Skills etc. By the way, Sasaku has actually never used a Noble Phantasm which kind of breaks FGO rules (where every Servant has something which should qualify) but she also as a Caster didn't have one in Another Aria either, so it isn't that she lost one.
Feel free to imagine Ruby's mana bullet attacks like FGO's Caster balls, Marie is essentially doing that too.
Also, that passing cut at the wheels bit is sort of like the scene in Matrix Reloaded, but this one did nothing to the vehicle - it tipping over was because of Medb's driving (I know, Rider, ironic, but then again she rides...)