Fate: Faker Festival
Summary: Every Master summons an alternate Shirou Emiya for their Servant, excepting of course Shirou himself. Chaos ensues.
Credit to the folks at the Nasuverse fanfic thread over at TvTropes for helping me with some of the Servants - thanks to IAmNotCreativeEnough in particular, for Berserker and an idea that evolved into Assassin.
To say that Ilyasviel von Einzbern was surprised would be a colossal understatement. She'd been expecting the nigh-invincible hero Hercules, and instead she'd gotten an abomination in the vague shape of a human.
Six feet tall, the humanoid monster seemed to be entirely made from metal. There were no soft edges to the form, only sharp ones, as if every atom in its body was a blade. Its fingers ended with wicked claws, and even the mane of red hair that went to its waist appeared to be ultra-sharp metal, each strand like a razor-sharp wire.
Its face, however, scared her. Ilya had, years ago, forgotten what fear was, and now the steel skull with empty eye sockets and red streaks coming from them had reminded her.
After three seconds of unmoving silence, the monster twitched, before it leaned back and tried to scream. Tried, because no sound came from its mouth save the screech of its metal jaws being wrenched open.
Before Ilya could blink, the thing was halfway across the room with its open hand shoved through an elder's chest, covered in blood, bits of flesh having caught on the barbs of its arm.
And then with the speed expected of a Servant, it continued its blind rampage - everything it touched was cut to ribbons. Ilya barely managed to engage the Mad Enhancement and bring it under control, its gore-stained claw hardly a centimeter from her eyes.
Ilya was the only living creature left in the room, purely by luck that it had noticed her last. Still shaken, she checked its stats, wondering just what in Hell she'd summoned.
Alignment - Chaotic Insane.
True name - Shirou Emiya.
"This, this thing... is my brother?!"
The Servant, still frozen, now seemed completely void of life, though it failed to give her any sense of comfort. Ilya decided to just leave it like that, and as she managed to back away and get to her feet, she promptly ran to her room and buried herself in the covers.
When her maids - who had been elsewhere in the castle - finally managed to calm her enough that she could sleep, Ilya's dreams were haunted by a beast made of swords that could not see; a monster that, in its loneliness, attempted to reach out to others, only to cut them apart with its slightest touch.
Luvia coughed, and excitedly wondered which Servant would emerge from the dust cloud. While she was definitely hoping for Saber, she would've been perfectly willing to accept Rider or one of the other Knight classes.
However, when the air was clear, she found only an empty room.
Have I... failed? Was I not worthy enough? Is there... is there not even one, who would answer my plea?
She frantically searched through the house, but no matter where she looked, she could not find the Servant. Just before she could begin to cry in embarassment, however, an arrow flew past her head and stuck to the wall, the head apparently being covered with bubblegum.
There was a paper wrapped around the shaft, so she removed and read it.
"Servant Assassin, Shiro Emiya. No crying 'til the end. :)"
At once confused and amused, Luvia gathered her composure and said, "Come where I can see you, Assassin. Let us introduce ourselves face-to-face. And why did you not present yourself to me?"
No sooner had she finished speaking than another arrow flew an inch in front of her face and stuck to the wall. A wry smile on her face, Luvia took the paper from that one too, and found herself laughing at the message on it.
"Don't wanna. XD"
A moment later, another arrow split open the first, bearing a new missive. "In order to perform at my best, I would like the following supplies -"
It went on to list a few dozen pounds of plastic explosives, a hundred feet of hemp rope, a map of the city, a map of the sewers, a map of the power grids, a phone book, nineteen cases of bubblegum, a walkman, and Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits.
Luvia, eyebrow raised, replied, "I'll see what I can do, but why do you need the last three?"
The next arrow's scroll explained, "Helps me focus. Back in five minutes. Going to earn a favor."
Zouken sneered at Sakura, wondering what Servant his tool would summon.
As the dust cleared, the summoning circle was empty - but the piano in the corner of the room was now occupied by a redheaded man in a blue longcoat. His shoulders and hair were damp, as if he'd just come in from the rain. The Servant took a moment to play a lightly melancholic melody.
The figure looked exceedingly familiar, but when he spoke, that clenched it.
"I am Shirou Emiya. Heroic Spirit of the Saber class. To whom do I owe the pleasure of this partnership?"
Sakura murmured, "S-senpai?"
The song came to an abrupt end as Saber froze. When he spoke again, the three Matou could practically hear Saber's expression. "In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that my Master would be my own beloved Sakura."
Spinning around on his seat, Saber gave Sakura a warm smile. "Honey... I'm home."
Sakura's reasoning mind told her that this had to be a dream - that nothing so wonderful could possibly happen to her in reality - but upon pinching herself, found that the Servant was still there.
Almost afraid of the answer, she asked, "Are... are you real?"
"As real as a Servant can be."
And then, to prove his existence, Saber stood up, confidently strode over to Sakura, and swept her off her feet. And when Saber kissed Sakura, she knew this was reality, because never in her life could she ever have imagined such loving warmth.
After about ten seconds, her mind overloaded from joy and she collapsed into a sleeping puddle of bliss.
Shinji and Zouken, at this time, were trying to reboot their own brains. Saber took this time to gently set Sakura on a nearby couch, before then appearing directly in front of Zouken. Throwing an arm around the old man's shoulders, Saber spoke with a concerned expression. "Grandfather, there's something that's been troubling me for many years, and although I have my suspicions, I need a second opinion."
Zouken, confused and distracted, rasped, "What do you need, my boy?"
Saber produced a white hankie, and asked, "This cloth, grandfather... does it smell like chloroform to you?"
As his senses were impaired due to age and worms, Zouken deeply sniffed the hankie... and passed out cold on the floor, audibly breaking his hip.
Saber incredulously looked at the Matou patriarch, muttering, "Wow, I did not think he'd actually fall for that."
Hardly a moment after, Zouken screamed, clawing at his chest in a panic as he caught fire and turned to dust from the inside out, a spent shell casing where his heart would've been.
Shinji took a not-so-discrete step back from Saber, eyeing the white rag as if it carried twelve alien death plagues.
Before Saber could comment, the basement window shattered as a crossbow bolt dug itself into the opposite wall. There was a scroll wrapped around it, and on the scroll was a message written with remarkable penmanship.
"You guys owe me a favor now. :P
Sincerely, Assassin"
Kirei Kotomine already had Gilgamesh as an ally, but chose to properly participate in the War with a new Servant. If worst came to worse, he and Gilgamesh could make 'official' their contract, though it wasn't needed.
After a moment, the summoning ritual was completed, and a Servant stood before him - a redheaded young man in casual wear, with glasses. "Shirou Emiya, Servant Caster. Are you - ah hell. Let me say now that if you try and put a stop to my experiments, I'll make you my next subject."
Kirei was rather interested, but didn't show it. "May I ask what sort of experiments, Caster?"
Incredulously, Caster rolled his eyes. "What sort of experiments, he says. What other sort is there, for a Magus, aside from the sort that involves taking people apart to see how they tick and can be tinkered with?"
Kirei raised an eyebrow, before he smiled. How delightfully ironic, that the Magus Killer's son should have strayed so far from his father's chosen path.
"So long as you are not overly attention-grabbing, I see no reason to impede your quest for science."
Caster blinked, before attempting to stare Kirei down through his glasses.
It didn't work so well, since Caster was rather shorter than Kirei.
With a sinister smile, Caster eventually spoke. "Interesting. If you're not the hardass 'avenger of the innocent' who gave me so much trouble, then this must be some sort of parallel world to mine. A sort of... mirror reality, if you will. And do you know what that means?"
Leaning just so that the candle light reflected off of his glasses, Caster gleefully said, "Possibilities. Now then, I don't suppose you'd have a handy source of surplus mana I could tap into...?"
Kirei's dearest wish had, perhaps, been granted. Whatever the outcome of this War might be, it would certainly be interesting.
Well, here you have it.