(Pillars of the Special Anti-Chaldea Taskforce)
"New energy signature, behind the approaching dragon. This amplitude is..."
"The Chaldeans have control of the Grail. This is outside of our expectations."
"Calling for suppressive fire."
"It's too late for that, we're about to be struck. Reinforce the area weakened by the dragon's impact. Hurry !"
The Pillars turned their attention quickly to the identified weak point, but even with their incredible speed, only a couple of new wards from the nearest Pillars were in place before the Grail-powered attack punched through like a magical energy penetrator. One of the Pillars, who was directly behind the compromised point was pierced and had at least half of its mass vaporized as the incoming energy burned though the dense flesh like so much kindling.
"... Bifrons is down."
"Concentrate fire on the Grail holder."
"The other hostiles are closing in. Additional Chaldean Servants are approaching on foot."
"Recommend tightening formation to increase defensive density."
"Negative. The Chaldeans can only penetrate our wards with the Grail holder, a close formation would increase the efficiency of their attacks."
"We concur with Andrealphus' accessment. A Chaldean Servant should not possess the throughput to use such an attack without significant preparation. We should suppress them and focus on targeting their Master."
"The Master is most likely to be with their ground units."
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(Martha and Tarasque)
"Does it seem like we're being ignored?" Tarasque asked while dodging a couple of shots. He wasn't intimidated at all by this enough, and continued trying to claw through parts of the Pillar's shields. Off to the side, a far higher volume of enemy fire could be seen streaking upwards and away from the dragon-Rider pair.
"... it seems they're doing the minimum to prevent us from burrowing through any particular spot on their barrier," Martha agreed unhappily. Whenever the pair was chased away from one spot, the Pillars soon regenerated that section.
They have too much defensive capacity, she passed along the link to Gudao. We're not really able to divert their attention.
Yes, Kiyohime reported the same issue, the Master replied back. Chloe seems to have encountered the Celtic group who already decided to fight against the Pillars, so just keep it up.
"By the way," Tarasque commented to Martha, "Isn't Kiyohime's transformation the actual Noble Phantasm? She can't keep it up for much longer, right?"
"Don't worry, it seems some additional forces are joining us."
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(Sasaku and Ruby)
I'm spotting five Pillar signatures below, the Ruler sent over to Gudako. After that first attack they seem to have focused on me.
The Pillars' anti-air fire was devastating, with the space in between consecutive airbursts being shredded by shards of concentrated magical energy that pinged off her defensive barriers. That said, the stronger beams with laser-levels of focus were a much more immediate threat that made attacking at closer range difficult.
It seems the Celts will be joining on our side. They will hopefully be able to turn the tide. Though even then, taking on even two pillars without Noble Phantasms would be challenging, Gudako replied. Keep sharp, Kiyohime will be pulling back in a bit. Though as it is she and Martha aren't really pulling much aggro.
Sasaku shrugged while flipping over as one of those beams went past her leg. "Oh hey, I wonder what this `applies random effects' means. Guess I'll try this (Gate of ? ?) Skill."
A couple of black spears, followed by a sword and then a few more spears and an axe appeared and started descending to slam into the Pillars' barrier, leaving a number of small cracks that soon after started to close up.
"It looks like they are up-ranked versions of the usual things you have to throw," Ruby commented after observing the impacts. "That's odd though, which Heroic Spirit would have such a Noble Phantasm? Does it have a full release?"
"Do you think I can really full release something now?" the Servant grumbled. "By the way, is it me or is the Grail starting to destabilize?"
"That earlier blast might have caused an imbalance in the crystallized mana structure," the Kaleidoscope suggested. "It might not be the most efficient use, but I'd recommend making sure you allow a good outflow rate to avoid excessive pressure in your circuits."
Taking one of the black spears in her hand, Sasaku scrutinized it briefly before flinging it groundwards, but couldn't identify the weapon's attributes. "Some of these have to be defense-piercing augmented, but I can't tell which."
"Just throw the whole sheaf at them," Ruby commented. "Oh I think over there, the Celts arrived."
(Chloe and the Celts)
"Ok, so if you'd just run up to their barrier and start hacking away at it, that would be great," Chloe asked her comrades of the moment. "And don't die, of course."
"It's a good thing we're... mostly... weapon-based classes," the Lancer Cú nudged the Caster with them.
"Yeah, though even if Pillars have hearts, it probably is hearts, huh?" the other Cú retorted. "Anyway, I'm assuming you have some way to kill the Pillars after we get through their wall. Though we're obviously pretty good I don't think one-v-oneing them would work."
"Well just us is already seven Servants, and there's only five remaining Pillars, so it wouldn't be that bad. Still, we will be using Noble Phantasms of course."
"Hmm." Bazette made a fist. "I'd say getting through their barrier would be the easy part, having to actually fight them would be the real deal."
As the group split up, the Alter Ego boldly ran directly towards the awaiting Pillars, (Fragarch) at the ready. However, much to her surprise, with the very first punch thrown into the barrier, the whole thing came tumbling down like a proverbial house of glass.
"Eh?" She had a brief moment to be confused before a very different wall of energy beams started shooting out from all the Pillars all across the landscape
-We're in !- Chloe quickly informed Gudao.
"I'm not going to miss this stage !" Running hard, Elizabeth covered the distance from her initial position easily while the Pillars were focused on the new threat. In the middle of that, a very human-sized Kiyohime landed and joined her as though it was a race.
In front of them, the Celts were laying into a Pillar with their Noble Phantasms, while overhead the Chaldean Servants could sense a growing spike of magical energy as Sasaku shortened her range and prepared to fire off another Grail-powered Noble Phantasm.
Even so, the Pillars seemed to have an excellent close-combat plan, as they were using tightly-controlled cutting beams to attack Servants engaged in melee with their members. While trusting in his Noble Phantasm, Cú Alter was struck several times and taken out. Bazette, who successfully used her own Noble Phantasm to counter a slicing beam might have managed to inflict some damage on the attacking pillar, but another attack coming from a different angle took off her prosthetic hand.
To the side, Kiyohime abruptly transformed again as one of the Masters used a Command Spell. In the same tempo, Tarasque broke off upwards and started a wind-up into another spinning attack.
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(Pillars of the Special Anti-Chaldea Taskforce)
"Morax has ceased functioning."
"The Celts have used their Noble Phantasms, but the Chaldeans are using their Command Spells to renew their capability."
"Above ! Stop the Grail Servant before they ca-"
"Dantalion has ceased functioning."
"Two of the Celts are down, though they already did their damage."
"Ignore the (Fragarch) carrier, they don't have the same base offense as the others."
"We should take out the Chaldeans, without Command Spell support the Celts cannot defeat us three working together."
While the Celts focused on tackling one of the Pillars in melee, Kiyohime circled a second pillar, low, while breathing fire. Above, Tarasque pulled another flip and began descending towards the same Pillar, while Elizabeth was making her way to get as close as possible from behind Kiyohime.
"Leraje, you are the most likely to be targeted by Grail Servant."
"Agreed. However, Grail or not, they are still only Servant-level and they must be nearing their limits, both circuit- and potentially even energy-wise."
"I concur, our best path to victory will be a snap defense. Doubtless doing so means the Chaldeans will break my defenses, but they shouldn't be able to take me out... provided the two of you can provide support."
"Being afraid to take flesh wounds is not in our protocols. I will also divert defensive strength to Leraje. Recommend you reduce your current barrier strength to bait the enemy."
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(Sasaku and Ruby)
"Yes, I think we have enough for one more go," Ruby reported as the pair surveyed the battlefield and the embattled Pillars.
"Since the other Chaldeans are tackling one, and the Celts another, that leaves one open target," Sasaku considered the situation. "Honestly, the Celts are doing pretty well sustaining their offensive even after using their Noble Phantasms and taking a couple of losses."
"Are we going to use the last of the Grail energy on (Unlimited Prisma Codes) again?" Ruby asked.
"I would think so. Honestly, it doesn't have any special conceptual advantage against the Pillars, but I guess that also means they have don't a straightforward vulnerability to try and patch over."
"Well, as far as I can tell, these Demon God Pillars don't check the demon, demonic or divine boxes anyway. Unfortunate, really. In any case, I'm ready when you are."
Let us begin to build. This is a good body. I'm going to borrow it...
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(Pillars of the Special Anti-Chaldea Taskforce)
"Enemy Grail Servant signature spiking. We estimate this will be their final strike."
"Hold off for a bit, until their energy levels blind their own signature sensing. Otherwise they may detect our defensive actions."
"We have analyzed the energy patterns of their boosted Noble Phantasm release and can provide an appropriate timing."
"I concur with Andrealphus' assessment. We will wait for your signal. Prepare fast-deploying defensive wards."
...
"On my mark - deploy wards."
A blast of purple energy, streaked with black, lanced towards Leraje. Moments before its burning touch could reach the Pillar, several wards sprang up. Even though these shimmering walls of materialized defensive concepts were almost immediately eaten away by the attacking Noble Phantasm, even more appeared in the time bought.
Though the Celts were hacking into Foras' flesh, for a Pillar it was only like being bitten by insects, and thus Foras was able to perform its task perfectly.
Though Tarasque slammed into Andrealphus at high speed, ripping off a large chunk of its body, and even though Kiyohime followed up with her fire, the Pillar was able to reach its calculated ward output despite the damage.
Sasaku's attack chewed up ward after ward, finally breaking through and vaporizing parts of Leraje before running out of offensive potential and ending.
"I've taken... forty percent damage. Core functionality not compromised. Shifting to regenerating."
"Confirmed, the enemy's signature has dropped to standard Chaldean levels. The two of us will continue battling the Servants until you have recovered enough to support us."
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(Sasaku and Ruby)
"... it wasn't enough?" Sasaku muttered in surprise.
"They must have anticipated your attack," Ruby replied. "There's nothing more we can do like this. We should prepare to return to Chaldea."
"No, that won't solve the Singularity problem, not with so many Pillars here. Even discounting the possibility that they brought another fragment with them, they could easily maintain such a stable Singularity until one could be fetched."
"How do you figure that?" the wand asked.
"It's why they weren't in a rush to try and secure the Grail after their first member failed to get it from Geronimo. They knew we'd have to deal with them."
"Ok, even so we're out of the fight."
"I wouldn't say that, we still have resources left. By my Command Spells -"
"Wait. Wait !" Ruby raised its voice over the sound of the Command Seals being activated. "Even so, that isn't enough to activate that Noble Phantasm."
Sasaku's eyes, which had died down after her last attack, reignited with the sudden flow of fresh energy. "Indeed, that one has horrendous cost. But there's another one which will do the job.
"No, I can't let you do that, it's too much in your current state. I can tell by the rate of energy leakage that your circuits are degraded from all the high throughput," Ruby protested.
"Sorry about this Ruby, but in my `current state' I can actually do this even if you happen to be disabled by that limiter. Command Spells loaded. This is my all..."
Even though Sasaku was essentially reading it off her records, Ruby at least recognized that particular release sequence. "Not that one, even with a Kaleidostick supp-"
(Quintett Feuer)!"
(Martha and Tarasque)
"This isn't good," Martha frowned as she and Tarasque came around for another pass at their target Pillar. "The third one is starting to regenerate rapidly."
"Those Celts took another causality when the Pillars suddenly started firing on them again," Tarasque reported. "Can we finish off that wounded Pillar before our own target can take down Kiyohime and Elizabeth?"
"Uh... one moment, didn't the Masters say that Sasaku would be out? Why is her signature rising?" Martha was about to contact Gudao when she realized what the source was. "I don't think we need to worry about that one after all."
A bullet of magical energy, perhaps more like a cannonball if those came with pink and white auras, slammed into the heavily wounded Leraje which was preoccupied with the tricky process of regenerating.
"Oh ! That's a great hit," Tarasque cheered, while switching to a rising path."
"Don't get distracted, Tarasque, dive !"
The warning came too late as Foras off in the distance took a well-calculated shot at the slow moving Tarasque from an unexpected angle. The beam struck at a good angle, piercing the dragon's iron scales with ease.
From just below, their target swept a cutting beam across the sky, slicing off one of Tarasque's limbs.
(Sasaku and Ruby)
*cough* "It looks like they got Tarasque."
"Don't worry, he's tough. I'm sure Martha can get back on the ground safely. You're not looking so good."
"... I'm having some difficulty seeing," Sasaku admitted, wiping away what she thought were tears. But even to her blurry sight, it was obvious that the shimmering red that came off onto her gauntlets was a very bad sign.
"Hey, this is pretty serious !" Ruby floated around its contractor with increasing alarm. "Is that blood?"
Indeed, while they had not taken any hits, her green-and-silver clothes were stained with the same ichor. Which, now that Ruby had brought it to her attention, she could also feel wetting her skin where cracks had appeared. Even a spiriton-based body could not trivialize the sort of material fatigue that came from being required to contain high pressure magical energy that was subsequently abruptly released.
"Ah, it's like with Sakura," Sasaku commented to no one in particular as she lost consciousness and started falling.
"No, no, don't give up now. Servant or not, if you slam into the ground like this you'll instantly die !" Ruby tried to get under the Ruler as though it could somehow hold her up. Its best efforts hardly did anything against the pull of gravity. "Not again, not again... Even though he took precautions !"
(Chloe)
Right as Gudao had finished activating a Command spell and telling Chloe to use her Noble Phantasm to attack the heavily wounded but unengaged, third Pillar, a surprising extra attack came from above, taking it out before she could even start forming a sword. Instinctively, Chloe looked up at the source. With her Archer class perception, she could clearly tell that the attacker was now in an uncontrolled fall.
As she started running towards the falling magical girl, the Pillar being left behind switched it attention from her to a fire-breathing Kiyohime that was attacking its last remaining comrade.
But I don't have a good way to break her fall, Chloe thought to herself. Looking around quickly, she identified a very busy Kiyohime and a Tarasque who was himself having a bit of a falling problem. If only we had someone el
With a mighty *woosh*, the most inappropriate mount appeared on the battlefield at speed. A massive silver...
"A UFO?" Chloe asked no one in particular. Still, in a manner unlike the flying saucer trope, the craft quickly maneuvered below the falling Servant and began slowing its, and thus her, descent as Chloe ran over to the likely landing spot.
Rather than a few seconds to a quick end on the ground, it was about thirty seconds before Sasaku finally tumbled off the curved edge of the flier and was safely caught by Chloe.
"Whoops, couldn't get here any faster. But you've got things under control right?" Their sudden new ally poked her head over the edge, looking down at Chloe.
"Helena? Is this UFO your Noble Phantasm?"
"It isn't a UFO, but it certainly is mine. Thanks to you Chaldeans' great showing, I managed to get some magical energy reallocated to this," the Caster explained.
"Can you help out with that?" Chloe pointed out Andrealphus, who was holding out against Kiyohime and Martha handily after the first had lost her transformation and the second her dragon. "The three of you should be able to handle it, working together."
"I'll leave the girl to you, then. Now I can show off the might of this (Sanat Kumara) freely. Make sure your allies don't stand directly below me!"
"I'll pass on the warning," Chloe quickly did so as Helena flew off starting her Noble Phantasm release with gusto. "Ah Ruby, I should actually go on the attack myself. Can I leave this to you?"
"She's going to die," Ruby remarked sourly.
"What? But Helena just saved her?"
"Nah she's out of magical energy and basically hemorrhaging out the vitals faster than the circuits can regenerate to stop the loss." Chloe couldn't tell if the wand was depressed or just resigned at this point.
"Well then, a Command Spell..."
"Didn't you hear? Her circuits are so shot precisely because of high pressure magical energy. It was literally Command Spells that broke her back."
"Uh, so..." Chloe thought for a moment. "So she needs something like a drip rather than an injection?" She glanced over as Kiyohime transformed again and took to the skies, barely clearing the rush of Elizabeth's Noble Phantasm. Having crash-landed on the opposite side of the Pillar, Martha wasted no time in re-summoning Tarasque and leaping into battle again to clinch the kill. At this point, all of Chaldea's command spells were expended, though accounting for each one wasn't exactly on the Archer's mind. "I can do a dripfeed."
"Your Skill doesn't work that way," Ruby protested.
"No, it doesn't," Chloe agreed. "But general ways to transfer magical energy still work. And apparently I have very good affinity for magical girls..."
Acting quickly after making up her mind, the Archer sat up the Ruler so that their heads were roughly level. Around she side of Sasaku's head, Chloe could see Andrealphus be devastated by the downward beam of Helena's (Sanat Kumara). Thanks to the assistance of the Celts and now Helena, they had somehow managed to defeat six Pillars in a pitched battle.
"By the way, Ruby, you..."
"What is it?"
"Nn, nothing. Tell me if I should adjust the transfer rate up or down. I'm basically running +P now and this isn't exactly a precision transfer method like a drip."
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Notes:
Ruby has their own bit of character story, but it'll largely come around in the Prisma event, along with some other people you might expect in the magical girl event.
The Chaldean side burned a massive eight Command Spells. Sasaku used two, obviously. But there were six uses to get extra Noble Phantasms off between Martha, Kiyohime, Elizabeth and Chloe. A Pillar basically takes multiple NPs to kill "quickly" (though the one Okita took out was largely because that one wasn't in a combat-ready form and she hit the Core precisely). Tally is roughly five Chaldean Servants of Noble Phantasms (if you discount Jeanne who was not fighting directly), 7 command spells (Chloe got one but didn't NP with it), 1 charged Grail, 6 Celtic faction Servants, and Helena. For 6 Pillars.
Do magical circuits undergo material fatigue from sharply variable loading? Probably only with Grail-level sources if you are at Servant-level. Remember also that (Quintett Feuer) harms the user. (Unlimited Prisma Codes) is if anything even worse there. There's probably some sort of FGO reference one could make about using a Black Grail and still failing to 3-turn because the boss survived due to hp bloat...
When Chloe says she's running +P, it's an overpressure ammunition reference. Because she was just earlier recharged via Command Spell to finish off Leraje, but it wasn't used. Recall that a bunch of the transfer methods have both a "high pressure to low pressure" aspect as well as an element of control on both the giver (pushing) and receiver (pulling) side. Like with many things, the use of words like "pressure" or "level" is more of an analogy or mental image thing rather than a really concrete description of reality as though magical energy is a gas or liquid (see: energy signatures and "smell").
As a bit of background detail (not sure when it could actually come up organically other than passing references) when Rin and Kojirou were at the Clocktower, as he was only partially incarnated and thus still had high energy costs outside of a Realm like at Fuyuki, Rin basically had to draw from stored energy - one of the handy early applications of the mana prism - and then transfer it to him. In the Four Houses' development timelines, the mana prism predates their current high-quality synthetic gems, but retains the lead in being very cost-efficient for storage-retrieval applications. You can't cast from Mana Prisms like with gems as they are low-pressure in the Four Houses parlance. Actually some of this would be an amusing focus for something like an interlude with the kids. Though they should have been taught these basics, they are still human children and would forget a lot more than say homunculi do.