The abomination, naked save for the bandages that had once kept it together, roamed the wilderness, on the hunt for its creator. It had tracked the scientist who had dared to play God from London to Switzerland through a link they would share until the end of time- for He was a magus and it was His creation.

The abomination had almost no intelligence, for intelligence was taught, not inherited, but memories of what it was like to be human still remained in the brain that wasn't theirs. It had almost no intelligence, but it still wondered:

'Can I be human?'

Its heart was the most powerful heart on the planet and coursed with electricity, but it still wondered:

'Can this heart be used to love?'

Its hands were human hands, and it was the most perfect human, or at least it was supposed to be. Still, it wondered:

'Can these hands bring me happiness?'

It encountered a wolf and her young tearing into a rabbit's den. It barely knew what a wolf or a rabbit was, but it understood that this was the natural order of the world. The weak were eaten by the strong.

'Am I weak, or am I strong?'

The wolf reacted to her presence and let out a low growl. It was winter, and she needed good meat for her children to survive. It could understand. She knew instinctively that a mother's love for her young was the strongest force of 'good.' That was why, when the wolf clamped down on her leg with its powerful jaw, she didn't resist.

'This is good. They will grow up healthy and strong. I can do this at the very least for this world. This mother will provide the love for her children that He couldn't give his own.'

However, the wolf didn't draw blood. The abomination, for all of its faults, was physically perfect. How could a mere beast of the land hope to harm it?

The abomination was disappointing. It looked towards the pack of cubs. There were five of them, and they didn't flee when she approached. One was bigger than all the others.

'These cubs will not go unfed.'

It picked it up, caressed it gently, and then put it down. It wasn't moving anymore. The abomination knelt next to it, eyeing it curiously. An eternity passed and the remaining cubs fled and the abomination felt something thud against its back. It turned, and a crowd of [people] were there, brandishing pitchforks and torches. They wore the colours of the town it had previously moved through, the town that had cursed her and thrown things as she walked through.

One man, who had previously looked at it with pity and clothed it with the cloak it had lost to the cold winds, now stood as part of the mob. It still had to thank him, for it now knew that humans thanked each other, and it wanted to be human.

It shambled towards the mob, which seemed to be paralyzed with fear, and it singled the man out, drawing him into an embrace. Tightly. Tighter and tighter until bones popped and ruptured, and blood trickled out of his crushed body like an overripe fruit. It didn't know that, though. At least, it didn't know that wasn't what he would have wanted. It only wanted to become human, expressing gratitude was part of being human.

It understood this part of being human now, so why were they cursing it even more loudly? Why were they attempting to stab it?

'They don't understand.'

Eventually, it put the man down, and he didn't get up.

'I hugged him. I have become more human.'

It was satisfied, and so it left, ignoring the crowd that had to retreat lest they freeze to death. There, it would find its creator. There, it would become fully human.

Charles woke with a start. "Saber!"

He did call for her, but he didn't expect her to manifest looming over his bed, statue-still.

"Good morning, Master," Saber greeted. "Are… you ok?"

The magus forced himself to relax. It was just a dream, nothing more. A remnant from the memories he had of reading Mary Shelley's account of the monster of Victor Frankenstein.

"No, it's nothing. I… just had a bad dream. I'm okay now. How did you sleep?"

"Sleep?" Saber asked, tilting her head confusedly.

"Oh. You just… Huh. Okay, fair enough."

Charles yawned and rolled out of bed. "Saber, you wouldn't know how to cook, would you?"

Saber shook her head earnestly. "You would die."

He sighed. "Yeah, fair enough. I'll make us something for breakfast. Hmmm… Pancakes, maybe?"

"I don't-"

"Need to eat, so it'd be a waste, I get it," Charles interjected. "For the sake of my mental health, I don't like having breakfast alone. Humor me, okay?"

Saber stayed silent after that.

"Saber! Tag in!"

"Yes, Master!"'

The Master and Servant pair had been whaling on the shoddy-looking prototype of a sword for ten minutes at this point- Saber, with her superhuman punches, and Charles, with his Mystic Code and any sort of corrosive element he could think of.

The bounded field that Charles had set up around his apartment didn't only alert him when unfriendly souls entered its perimeter - one of the spells embedded in the maid golem Calpurnia allowed him to minorly warp the dimensions of the space within its limits. It wasn't all powerful - he could roughly double the floor space of the small apartment to give him more room to work, but no further than that. Stretching the dimensions any further would put him at risk of "falling out of the world," according to the maid golem's warning, and even she didn't know what that exactly meant.

Charles wiped the sweat off his forehead. "I think that's about as close to a stress test as we can get."

"Stress… test…?"

"Yeah. We both hit it with everything we had and my tools haven't detected a scratch. That's as good as I can do. All that's left now is to sync it with your Saint Graph. It's quite easy, really. Plug-and-play. I hope."

"Master, have you done this before?" Saber asked.

Charles shrugged. "Sure. Well, no. I've studied it… over the last… day. On the three hours on the plane here. I'll be fine." he shrugged again, trying to downplay the difficulty of the trial ahead..

"It should work, in theory. In the 1978 Holy Grail War, one of the participating Masters attempted to replace his own heart with the Spiritual Core of the Servant he summoned. It worked.. Technically, in that his Servant's power manifested in him. But..."

"But?" Saber pressed.

"It would've killed him immediately if a curse that his Servant had inherited from life hadn't already turned him into a horrible monster. The only time Ruler has been summoned, to date. Can you believe that?"

Ruler… The mediating Class, a Servant of the highest degree of power that supposedly always took the form of a Saint of some kind. The Ruler class, on top of possessing Command Seals of their own, only appeared when a massive breach in the rules had occurred in a Grail War. Charles hoped he wouldn't have to deal with such a Servant, given that he was about to massively breach the rules.

"Anyway. The same principle more or less applies. You Servants are 'higher existences', you typically invade foreign bodies and not the other way around. This would kill a human immediately, but if you were to do it to an inanimate object.."

"A Noble Phantasm," Saber finished.

Charles nodded. "Yeah. Maybe. I can't mass produce these, so we have to get it right the first time. I trust you to follow my instructions to the letter, okay?"

Saber nodded, taking his hand in hers. "Trust me, Master."

The young Master grinned. "Attagirl, Saber. Open your wrist for me, would you?"

Saber's brow furrowed, and a small patch of her upper wrist disappeared, exposing a socket underneath. The shape was irregular, so Charles had to bridge the difference with a bit of liquid metal.

"You will… use your own energy too?"

Charles shrugged. "Yeah, I'll dip into my reserves a bit. That, and.. The city's power grid."

"Eh?"

He waved her off again. "Only for a little bit. Plus, I'll pay the bill.. After we win," Charles said, ducking into a pile of cables while he fished out the right ones.

"Alright.. And if that goes there... And that goes here... Saber, are you ready?"

"Yes, Master!"

"Alright. Here goes nothing!" Charles jammed the cable connecting the model sword into Saber's wrist port, to be instantly knocked back by a wave of green electricity. The fins on Saber's head started to spin as her Galvanism converted the electricity into pure Ether. Whatever excess that she couldn't hold was discharged into the air around them, to be re-absorbed later.

There wouldn't be a single drop of magical energy wasted.

They needed every last one of it.

"Ababababbaababbabababbababababba~" she stuttered, her eyes glowing green.

"Saber!" Charles yelled over the lightning. 'I ask you again, do you vow to take up the sword of the lionhearted?"

"Master?"

"Answer the question!" Despite being maintained by good, old fashioned fossil fuels, Charles' own mana reserves were still dropping, though he held steadfast.

"I- Yes!"

"Thee, seven heavens clad in three words of power, show me your true power, O Keeper of the Balance! In accordance with my resolve to secure the Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then accept thine armament!"

The Mystic Code Volumen Hydragyrum automatically pooled around Saber's feet, forming a complex Magical Circle. It crackled with Saber's green-tinged energy, starting to spiderweb its way up her feet and along her body. It stopped at her wrists, refusing to touch the sword.

"I'm rejecting the sword, Master! Please, your Command Seal!" Saber pleaded through the electricity storm.

"Tch! Fine! Saber, the House of Yarenes commands you! Fi-"

Suddenly, all the air left his lungs, his mouth forming empty words. Electricity stayed suspended in the air, and- Ah. He wasn't paralyzed. Everything was frozen, Charles realised.

Saber was frozen in place as well, her knuckles white around the sword.

'I just need to.. Move my mouth.. Just a few more words..' he thought.

The rest of his Mystic Code, poised to defend him from the blast, melted and reformed in front of him, taking human form, but it wasn't the maid he was used to. Calpurnia looked... Regal.

"You really don't take no for an answer, do you, boy? Honestly, I thought I would be able to sleep through this boorish affair of a War and then return to wherever I came from, but here I am, my services asked for again. Tell me, do you seriously think you're worthy to wield my power? Are you even worthy enough to wield that girl's power?"

Charles tried to respond, but his mouth wouldn't make the words.

'Who… are…'

His mouth made no sound, but she still heard his

"Who am I? Why, you called on me, did you not? But... I shall allow you to figure that out on your own. For now, I will grant the girl my favour, since I have a feeling that watching you struggle to claw your way to victory will be amusing. Well? What will the payment be, young Master?"

Charles concentrated, making the effort to convert his Od reserves as quickly and efficiently as I can.

"You think this is the payment I want? No, no, no, Master, this simply won't do! Oh, well. I suppose I'll just take it, if it weren't obvious enough already."

Charles' lips contorted in a silent scream as he felt the unnamed presence interfere with the Magic Circuits in his back - little by little, the leftmost segment of his Command Seals was stripped from his body, leaving his muscles aching and his Magic Circuits burning.

Even when the process was over, his back still ached - Charles figured that if his legs weren't frozen for him, they would've given in already.

The silver queen melted back into the floor and the rest of the liquid mercury surged upwards, covering Saber from head to toe. It surged past her wrists, coating the sword. It exploded out from under her bridal dress, and Charles had just enough time to see Saber's frightened expression before it covered her face and swallowed her whole, leaving a gleaming statue where his Servant was standing just seconds ago.

"I reluctantly accept your summons," came the same voice, now metallic and hollow as it spoke through the Mystic Code.

"Girl forsaken by fate, by family and by time, do you swear to not tarnish the name of the Lion?"

Saber's voice was faint from within Volumen Hydragyrum, but it didn't waver.

"I… I swear!"

"Then take my sword! Take my entire being and grow merry! This is a blessing only I can grant!"

Cold air turned warm and the world returned to normal, just in time for Charles to witness the green light ballooned around Saber and crash over her like a wave. The last of Charles' mana reserves left him and just as his world fell into blackness, he heard his Servant's metal shell starting to crack.