(An hour before dawn)
(Celtic field command post)
In the trenches outside, Celts were calmly awaiting the order to attack. For the last week the soldiers had remained carefully dispersed in depth across several lines of trenches. However, this morning the men were slowly making their way to the line closest to the rebels, doing their best to ensure that their "stacking up" was not observed by the enemy.
"Isn't it getting light relatively quickly?" one of the officers asked their fellow, who looked up with a frown.
"It is. We should commence the operation now."
And with that, orders went up and down the waiting ranks. All across the front line, Celts began climbing out of their defensive positions and began making their way towards the American lines, steel in hand and muskets slung across their back to avoid entanglement in the expected melee.
For a while there was no response, but then with small flashes in the distance, the enemy began shooting at the attacking soldiers. Still, this did not discourage the Celts, who had by this point observed the separatists to possess "sharp eyes, but crooked trigger fingers".
(Dawn)
(Medb's forward command post)
"I think it's about time," Caster Cú commented while looking out.
"Finally we get to go all-in," Lancer Cú added cheerfully.
"My Chariot is ready, so we'll commence the attack now," Medb agreed, looking around at the gathered Servants. "There will be some rebel positions in the way, but we'll be going directly through them towards the likely Chaldean base. Leave it to my picked Redcoats to clean up behind us. Well, if there's anything to clean up, that is."
"Good, wouldn't want to get delayed by small fry and give away the initiative to our real enemy," Fergus nodded. "Let's do this."
Just outside, a number of Medb's honor guard were standing at attention, of course. But more important than them was the group of druids making up Caster's supporting logistics unit, and the various officers who would be leading the men following Medb's spearhead and guarding the logistics.
"...not bad." Cú Alter looked approvingly at the 'ranked up' form of Medb's Noble Phantasm. Following from its component concept of the 'steel of oppression', the upgrade had given it the appearance of being metal-plated, resembling what Bazette called an 'ironclad' at her earlier sneak preview of what Caster's buffs had accomplished.
"Come ride up here with me," Medb called out to her friend while jumping into the driver's position out front. "Everyone, get on top and we'll make straight for the Chaldeans !"
"Now this is riding into battle in style." Sétanta deftly jumped up, followed by the other Celtic Servants. Cú Alter was the last one on, with his long tail hanging off the back.
.
(Half an hour after dawn)
(Chaldean base)
"Weren't you going to join the defense of Washington?" the Dictator's latest messenger asked after noticing that the Chaldeans were seemingly prepared for action, but not taking any. After delivering the last status update from the city, he had orders to remain until another messenger arrived, so that there would be someone to carry word back if needed.
"It would be best to let Medb make her move first," Gudao remarked casually in reply. "We've got an 'AWACS' up that'll give us plenty of warn- oh she's back."
"Well, it seems that Medb is actually coming straight for us," Sasaku reported after landing in front of the Masters.
"How straight?" Gudako asked immediately.
"Their Caster seems to be shooting people as they move, but her Chariot is headed in this direction at top speed without diverting. There are probably some of her human soldiers further back who will try to exploit the breakthrough, but she'll make contact with us long before they could make it here on foot."
"Well, this was unexpected," Gudao looked over at Scáthach. "I guess you'll get to be part of this one."
"Ah, excellent," was the Caster's reaction. "This clutch of Gáe Bolgs will get some use after all."
(On top of a moving "Chariot My Steel Love")
"Looks like we hit the jackpot !" Caster Cú yelled out so that everyone could hear over the racket of battle as rebels shot pointlessly at them. "I can sense a Bounded Field ahead, definitely Scáthach's style."
Following their battle plan, Medb quickly brought her chariot to a halt and a number of the Servants on board disembarked and began clearing away the American soldiers to make room. They didn't want to give the Chaldeans an easy Anti-Army Noble Phantasm target.
Bold as always, Cú Alter took point moving directly in the direction that their Caster had previously identified, spiked spear in hand deflecting rebel shot. It only took a moment for the humans around to realize how hopeless resistance was, and then they were fleeing.
A few seconds of silence passed before a new wave of bullets came from straight ahead. The Celts immediately took defensive action - these balls were not shot from human barrels, but...
"I heard you're pretty strong in a duel," a Chaldean Saber spoke up, stepping forward out of the cloud left behind by a massive formation of matchlock arquebuses firing from a sparse clump of trees. "Good job not just charging into that, by the way."
Wordlessly, the Berserker threw his spear and prepared his Noble Phantasm, (Curruid Coinchenn). Watching her Celt opponent sprout bony armor, Chaldea's Okita Souji drew her sword, deflected the barbed spear to one side, and advanced. According to the pre-battle briefing, many of the enemies would have (Battle Continuation) so a quick kill was unlikely.
From further behind, Nobunaga was preparing another volley. Although the Masters would have found it ideal for Medb to ride her Chariot right into the teeth of their Archer's (Three Line Formation), it just wasn't to be. Above Nobunaga's head, Sasaku cleared the foliage, taking to the sky and taking over suppressing the Celts with a hail of glowing pink bullets fed from Ruby's endless supply of magical energy.
Taking up a wedge formation, Fergus, Lancer Cú, and Sétanta moved to their right, while Bazette, Caster Cú and Medb, still on the latter's chariot, rolled on to the left.
"That's our cue," Marie nodded to d'Eon. "(Guillotine Breaker)"
Materializing on command, the glass horse Noble Phantasm took form behind the obscuring smoke and Marie nimbly mounted it, with d'Eon following suit behind her. "Hold on tight so you don't get thrown off. And now we go."
As the chariot-mounted Celts saw the Chaldean Rider charging at them through the smoke, they immediately shifted into defensive stances. From his vantage point on the roof, Caster Cú started shooting magecraft at Marie, but the attacks proved annoyingly ineffective.
"Don't worry," Bazette said confidently, taking out a silvery sphere. "Caster, shoot into that smoke behind her. I'm sure they're holding their last Servants for a surprise and we wouldn't want that. I'll handle this."
Medb and Bazette shared a quick look before the Alter Ego boldly jumped out in front of Marie's charge.
"Hmm, there's the Counterer," d'Eon remarked calmly, looking over Marie's shoulder at the Servant who stood to block their way. "Just as Gudao thought."
Unlike a mortal horse, the (Guillotine Breaker) had no qualms about charging into anything at all. Of course this didn't mean it could break through everything. The figure of Bazette grew steadily in the eyes of the two riders as their mount closed the ground at a speed faster than most Servants would make on foot.
Bazette readied her Fragarach.
d'Eon let go of Marie.
Much like Medb had erroneously done in their previous encounter, Marie sharply turned her horse to the side. It immediately started to stumble, throwing d'Eon and Marie into the air and sliding rather than charging into Bazette.
"(Fragarach) !"
The retaliation struck the (Guillotine Breaker) right as it began its 'attack'. As a result, instead of Marie turning it to the side, causing it to stumble and throw d'Eon and Marie off, it was instead hit by Fragarach, causing it to stumble and throw d'Eon and Marie off.
There was a moment for Bazette to realize that something was off as the massive glass horse, now with a fine hole through where its heart would be, bowled her over.
"What the hell ?" Caster Cú was taken back to see the apparent failure of Bazette's Noble Phantasm, but didn't have time to reflect on this oddity as there was a Saber headed right towards them in a dive, saber-point first. "Medb, get down !"
"No, this is perfect." Medb couldn't help but grin lustily after seeing who the Chaldeans had sent out on this particular headhunting mission. They should have had the other Saber do this, and tasked him to delay Cú Alter. All of their other Servants were female, but of course they didn't swap out d'Eon as he had been summoned here separately from them. But of course, that Saber would be the one to go with Marie.
"You're mine ! (Fleur de Lis) !"
Rather than avoid the descending d'Eon, Medb spurred her bulls to shorten the intercept time. Unless that French knight could fly, he wouldn't be able to avoid her charms now... "Become mine, (Chariot My Love) !"
.
Notes:
Ok, so you might be wondering why the Fragarach didn't hit Marie. One reason is she used her Noble Phantasm to materialize it much further back, but that wasn't part of an attack. Secondly, she wasn't attacking in the standard sense since she actually made the horse fall over, and it was just 'sliding forward' due to the physics of momentum. You can compare it to chopping down a tree, and as it starts to fall on someone, they try to Fragarach it. The third reason is a bit more involved, but Marie personally might have been able to tank it anyway it since the above mean the retaliation would be weak if it did target her as she wasn't fully utilizing her 'trump card' and is rather tanky. But you see, even so it would cause her to flinch, yanking the reins, causing the horse to stumble etc etc.
Essentially, the real mechanism working against Bazette here is the general self-correcting nature of the World. Yes it is able to, and has to, rewrite history to account for the fact that someone or something got Fragarach-ed before they started an attack that was countered by the Retaliator. But it does so in a way that minimizes the amount of rewriting needed. This is like a weaker Novikov self-consistency principle. Obviously changes are allowed - however whenever this is necessary the World picks whatever is the minimum change. In this case, hitting the horse would be allowed and is also a smaller change than hitting Marie, as you can see by comparing the various scenarios.
Minor point, but if you wondered why they were able to swap out Brave Liz, it's because she wasn't summoned like d'Eon was (he is your classic Rogue Servant brought in by the World). Liz actually arrived from another Chaldea's Support List, which she directly mentioned to the group in Ch 74 ("Alliances"). Chaldea is still fielding six Servants, plus Scáthach who is tethered to the leyline (you need to be a Caster or have that sort of Skillset to do this).
