100: Triumph, arcing through the night sky
Natsuki Subaru
"Alright, we've finished our analysis," Doctor Romani says. "...Sorry to say, it looks grim. There's a lot, so I'll take it one step at a time.
"That city - there's no two ways about it. It's enormous. The very fact that you can even see it from Paris, more than a hundred kilometers away, is proof of that. In terms of its location, it seems to have manifested at around the border of the stratosphere and troposphere, around twelve kilometers above sea level. The tallest tower, that twisted obelisk that looks like it's about to touch the ground? It's probably only a little smaller than Mount Everest. Areawise, the place is comparable to modern Tokyo. It's not necessarily as crowded, since the inhabitants are bigger, but… well, let's get into those inhabitants now, actually."
His image disappears, and the projection changes to a shaky recording - from the familiar Da Vinci sent over, I suppose - displaying a rolling white fog slowly flooding the streets of Orleans - but beneath the seemingly placid surface, I can see a roiling mass of tentacles. The fog passes a street sign, and golden tentacles with spasming red eyes emerge, crush it, and drag it under. It catches a stray dog, and that too is wrung out and swallowed. Even a Sea Fiend, dropping down from the Spiral City above, is unfortunate enough to get close, and the things in the fog tear it to pieces.
"The first thing is this fog. It's been pouring out of the city since it appeared, mostly from that big tower - it's about four feet deep in Orleans, and growing. Anything small enough to get pulled in will be, even the monsters coming from the city; of all the things that have emerged so far, close to two thirds of them were killed by the fog already. That's going to be a running theme with these guys, they don't seem to have any sense of friend or foe."
The image switches to another display, a vague tentacled mass drifting through the air. But there's a striking, obvious distinguishing feature - a large, spiraling horn jutting out above its hideous circular maw, and glowing pink wheel-like sigil floating above that. Its body pulses, and a surge of diamond-eyed tentacles mixed with thick fog spews out of its mouth like vomit, falling to the ground below.
"There's around a hundred of this kind." I'm gonna throw up. You've got to be fucking kidding me. "In terms of raw magical energy, they're Phantasmal Beast tier, but those things mixed in their fog are giving off a signature similar to Flauros in Fuyuki."
"Yeah." I say, my mouth dry. "Bael was an ingredient in their creation, after all. But beyond that… Ley's whale went into the mix too. That fog they're spewing out, if it touches you, you'll be erased. It might happen to a human who ends up in the fog coming from the tower too."
How did she get so many monsters? What made the difference? I know the answer to that. "This was my fault. I totally forgot about Ley's Witch Factor when we killed him - I'm sure that's how Prelati's been able to produce so many monsters. The Gluttony Witch Factor was where all the monsters of the other world came from, after all."
"No, it was a natural assumption that it would disappear with him," Doctor Romani says. "This is my fault for not monitoring Batenkaitos's disappearance closely enough."
Is that really okay? I want it to be. I want to believe it. "...Thanks, Doctor."
There's a movement on the display - a titanic arm, with webbed fingers, reaches up, and snatches the flying abomination from the air, and I watch as a corpulent monstrosity that looks like a crossbreed of a frog and a bat stuffs the 'whale' down its enormous gullet without a second thought.
"That's as good of a segue as any." Roman says with a grimace, and the display changes once more, this time to four photos.
The first is the toad-bat monster, in all its hideous glory. In truth, the comparison to any earthly creature ended at its neck, because everything below that head was a formless corpulent mass, and the unnatural, asymmetrical angles of its limbs could not belong to any real animal.
The second is a pale white worm-thing with crystalline and pseudopodial growths extending from its body at seemingly random points, grabbing anything living to usher it towards the beast's vast mouth.
The third is a six-legged, three-eyed creature covered in what at first seemed to be fur, but on closer inspection have to be tentacles. This one is smaller than the others, but the fog seems to have parted around it, and I can see it snatching at the things in the fog with its crab-like pincers, its dangling proboscis dripping with blood.
The fourth is simply a photo of an Orleanian street, but with a blobbish segment of the image seared away into pure blackness. At the edges of that damage, I can make out hints - vague implications of some indescribable, formless, writhing tentacular monstrosity.
"These four are giving off readings on par with what we'd expect from a high level Divine Beast. For now, we're labeling them 'Frog', 'Worm', 'Lobster', and 'Basilisk'. I can't really tell you much beyond that, unfortunately - they're big and awful, and that's all we've really got." Romani grimaces as the display returns to showing his face. "As far as I can tell, the only good option is to just hole up in Paris and hope for the planet to summon something stronger to deal with this."
That's-!
"Doctor, that's no good." Mash says before me. "You said it yourself - that fog is just going to keep rising and spreading. Besides, in that city - there's more things like those four, aren't there? This is only what's emerged so far."
"...The Grail." I say. "There's no way Francesca could have summoned something like this without the Grail involved, right?" She needed it just to summon that big monster at the end of the last loop. Even if she's got the Gluttony Witch Factor this time, it can't be possible that it made such a difference that she could summon a whole freaking city on hier own - which I guess means she snuck in and killed Dark Jeanne and that Gilles bozo. Good riddance, I suppose.
"Yeah. In terms of its 'existence' that city is basically being held together with scotch tape and thumbtacks," Romani says. "The second someone else gets their hands on the grail, the whole thing will just go poof - but we haven't been able to locate the grail, so-"
"No, I can guess where it is," I reply, pointing to the upside-down city. "That big tower, the one most of the fog is coming from - she's got to be at the 'top' of that, the point closest to the ground. Putting everything else aside, Francesca Prelati is ultimately a living human. She wouldn't survive at the altitudes necessary to hide in any of the smaller ones."
"Ah! That does make sense!" The doctor says. "Alright, I'll approve it. It's crazy, but I think that this is the only plan that gives us a chance of success, I think."
"Alright," I nod. "Did Da Vinci and Cu get a chance to finish those other levitation mystic codes?"
He shakes his head. "No, with how crazy things have been the past few hours, we had to assign them to guard duty in the command room. Until we can find Assassin, it's not safe for them to be anywhere else."
"Alright, I guess that's to be expected," I sigh, closing my eyes for a moment. "We have four, so… Gareth, Saint George, Marie, and Jeanne get them. Elizabeth can use her wings. Mash, Mozart, you're on Ahab's boat with me. You can sail over that mist, right?"
"Naturally," The Avenger answers.
It's fine. It's fine. It has to be fine. We can win this, because that's what Kongming promised. 'Attack Orleans as soon as Chlodovech shows himself somewhere else.' That was the plan. It's guaranteed to be right, even if there is missing information.
But man, I really hope someone ridiculously powerful gets summoned by the planet to bail us out-!
Merry d'Lyon
A flicker of motion. That's all that the clash between the first King of France and the self-proclaimed Emperor amounts to. As for the white haired man he had called Monsieur de Paris, the one I had been certain would kill me, his demise doesn't even amount to the blink of an eye. In the same moment of that brief clash between Clovis I and Napoleon Bonaparte, that man's head simply vanishes, and he crumples to the ground.
As for King Clovis, he staggers back, both arms broken, with a gaping hole in his chest. "S-seriously…? What are they… feeding you kids these days…?" He grunts as he fights to stay standing.
"Surely you've heard, your Majesty?" Napoleon replies with a grin. "There's not a person in the world who can beat Napoleon Bonaparte on French soil. And that was before I was summoned with this Saint Graph."
King Clovis's eyes widen, and he lets out a bark of laughter. "I get it! No wonder that girl was so damn scared of you!" His eyes narrow again as he leans on his trident. "You're a [Grand Servant], huh?
-[Grand Servant]. A variant of the normal class container, manifested through the [Ritual: Heroic Spirit Summon] performed by the Planet itself. Granted a class container as far beyond a normal Servant as a normal Servant is beyond a human, a Grand Servant is summoned to cooperate with six other Grands, for the purpose of saving humanity from the [Beasts].
In other circumstances, a Grand could not have been summoned to Orleans. Even if Francois Prelati took control and unleashed the Evil God of the Abyss itself, a Grand would not have been summoned. The necessary condition, the manifestation of [Beast], would not have been met.
But in this world, there is a shadow following Natsuki Subaru. The Beast of Another World, who has usurped the position of [VII of the End], who has already reset the world more than twenty times in this singularity alone.
This was all the justification necessary for the Planet to summon a Grand Servant.
In another situation, another Servant would be the "strongest" Archer. But in this world, where the obstacle is the Evil God of the Abyss, who embodies "impossibility" the "strongest" is Napoleon Bonaparte, who makes the impossible possible.
And so it was, that the Grand Archer Napoleon Bonaparte was called to the French singularity.
(He might have ended the singularity before Chaldea even arrived, had he not been compelled by his nature to attempt to court Jeanne Alter. But that's a story for another time.)
"Hah… I guess this is it for me, then," King Clovis says. "But I've got a bit of advice for you kids before I vanish." A wide smile stretches across his face. "-Be nice to your parents."
And then, in a shower of golden dust, the first king of France disappears.
"W-what perfectly normal grandfatherly advice…" I mutter - and then, there's two horrible pulses of energy, hot within my chest, and I wince as I absorb both his spirit origin and the white haired man's.
"Ack!" Napoleon slaps his forehead. "My apologies, mademoiselle. I forgot I was supposed to take them alive."
"...Eh?" I mutter. How did he-
In a blink, a man in a green cloak is standing nearby - wait, that's the scary "kuhaha" guy who almost killed Lord Siegfried a few days ago!
"We don't have much time," He says. "The frenzy has begun."
"Who needs time, Monsieur Comte?" Napoleon shoots back. "If it's about those monsters, or that hideous city above Orleans… I can hit them from here."
Natsuki Subaru
"[Báthory Erzsébet]!" Another tentacled whale-like creature moans as Elizabeth's sonic blast begins to tear at its flesh, opening a stomach wound that Gareth plunges her lance into, blue ether erupting out of the beast's mouth and the top of its mouth as it dies.
"...Pathetic." Ahab mumbles, as the Pequod continues to carve a bloody trail across the tentacle-filled fog, the creatures within dying beneath us. "Where art thou? Where art thou, my true whale? Dost thou not know that I seek thee?"
"Incoming! Beneath the ground!" Amadeus calls, and a moment later I hear the rumbling - and a moment later, it emerges. A massive worm-like creature, with a black-gray body, and a writhing tentacular maw, large enough to encircle the Pequod twice over. It lunges for us and-
"[Lord Chaldeas]!" Mash shouts, and the beast is repelled - and then I realize. "Worm", the creature we saw before, wasn't this color, was it?
No sooner have I thought that, than it arrives, a pale white worm just as large as the first, plunging down from above, tangling around the first and-
I understand, in that moment, the true scale of white worm - no, the tentacle, catches up the lesser worm, dragging it into the air, and towards the maw of "Worm", who swallows it in a single gulp.
It's almost a kilometer away. It's that far, and it was in range to snatch away the biggest monster we've seen so far and eat it like a single french fry.
Spindly crystal claws shoot towards us, and Mash's shield blocks them all, but-
Something lands on the deck of the shup with a wet thud.
"Fishie, I…" Elizabeth says, from that spot, right next to me, when she should have been in he air. "Sorry, I guess this is-" Her legs, where are her legs?
I understand, at last. "This is… impossible." These horrors, those four monsters alone, are-
"[Attendre, Espérer]." In a flash of golden light, Elizabeth is restored, and I'm left with my mouth hanging on the floor. The Count of Monte Cristo glances towards me, a grin on his face. "Kuhaha! If he could hear you, that Emperor would tell you to stop making up words, Natsuki Subaru!"
Mash looks at him with fear. Elizabeth with confusion. Mozart with a raised eyebrow. Ahab with a roll of his eyes. And as for me-
I see it. A rainbow, arcing across the still dark sky, towards Worm's head. The Great Old One turns, and a fractal pattern of energy stretches in front of it, forming a barrier - and then a second, and a third.
The first shot of Napoleon's Noble Phantasm shatters through all three as if they weren't even there, and annihilates the monster's head completely.
Worm recoils, writhing, and I already see flesh beginning to emerge from the stump of its neck - but in its flailing, the wound dips too close to the mist, and a tentacle shoots out, burrowing into the wound and dragging it down. And then another, and another, digging in, spraying foul black blood and pulling, pulling. There's a hideous crack as the monster's carapace splits, the tentacles within the fog working to peel it like a lobster, all the while pulling it down, splitting, tearing, until finally it vanishes beneath the surface of the fog.
Finally, as I look at the Count of Monte Cristo, his back turned to the whole affair, I find words.
"If you're going to get here three days early, say something about it, you asshole!"
From his position ahead of all the others, Saint George sees "Worm" die. "One down - but that means nothing if we cannot stem the tide. That's where my battle comes in."
All of the horrors emerging have been wholly mindless. Simple creatures, moving, eating, and little else. Why, then, did they emerge in the first place? They had plenty of each other around to feed upon. 'Something' has to be urging them on. A leader, or perhaps merely a first in line.
"And the way that I see it, the only one around which these things are exhibiting any sort of direction, is you, correct?" Saint George concludes, pointing his blade at the creature labeled 'Lobster' as the things in the ring of mist surrounding the two churn hungrily.
It makes no sign of having heard him - but then, there's a flash from its third eye, and an invisible force crashes against the Rider's sword like a freight train.
"Hm," The Saint lets out a contemplative noise. "Unfortunately for you, my sword is invincible."
The beast dashes forward at that, snapping with its claws, but each blow is parried with ease - and then in a spray of blood, its right claw is severed, and Lobster scuttles back once more, its third eye letting out several more blasts of invisible force.
"I wonder if this might be enough to make you surrender?" Saint George asks. "You can understand what I'm saying, right? With all of those attempts to mislead my sword there, I can only assume you do. Of course, I'm a bit too experienced to fall for tricks on that level."
Lobster's third eye lets out a hideous sustained glow, and as it washes over him, the Rider feels his organs begin to heat up. "I guess not, then. Of course, my Magic Resistance will hold this trick off long enough. This is your last chance to give up - my next blow will end this. Especially with your hand like that."
The creature glances for just a moment, at the dragon's claw that has regrown from its wrist stump in the place of its normal pincer - and then it charges, toothed proboscis flared out, all three eyes flashing intermittently with blasts of force.
"Thou dragon, clad in sin, see the truth of [Ascalon]!" Saint George's blade gleams a blinding white as it cleaves Lobster in half vertically.
With a small sigh, he steps in between the split monster's halves as they sail past him and into the mist, where they detonate in a brilliant explosion. "And you?" He asks, gazing up at the hulking form of "Toad".
The great creature blinks once - and then, after dropping a last handful of tentacles scooped out of the mist into its mouth and letting out a deafening burp, it hops back towards the spiral city above in a single leap and vanishes into a strange angle in the rock of one of the buildings.
In the city above, the terrible howling that had been audible all this time, finally falls silent.
Napoleon's eyes find his next target - and then he freezes for a moment, and gives a full body shudder. "So that's how it's going to go, huh?" He asks with a grimace - before forcing a grin back onto his face. "Fine! [Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile]!"
Once more, a dazzling light erupts from his oversized golden cannon. Three hundred and sixty miles away, "Basilisk" dies and is swallowed by the still rising fog.
"Mademoiselle, can I borrow your communicator now?" He asks, finally looking away from the horizon.
"Y-yes milord!" Merry says, still wearing the wide smile that hasn't left her face since the Emperor arrived.
A moment later, the sweat-damp face of Natsuki Subaru appears in front of the Emperor.
"Man, I'm so freaking glad to finally meet you." The boy says, wiping his brow. "How close are you now?"
"Ha! Monsieur, I haven't moved since I arrived!" Napoleon retorts, grinning.
"S-seriously!? Aren't you like, 600 kilometers away right now!?" Subaru shouts. "The Archer class is seriously made up of Archers!"
"-That said, I've got some bad news." Napoleon continues. "I saw something I shouldn't have, just now - or maybe it's good that I was the one who saw it, since anyone else would have been petrified already, with how it's affecting me."
"Geh!" Subaru flinches. "Is it… that 'Basilisk' guy?"
"Basilisk… that's a good label for that thing. Anyway, it's dead now, but I'm afraid I've only got one more shot in me." The Grand Archer says. "It's not that bad, I was running a bit low on mana anyway - but now I've got to make the call. This is my last shot, and then I'll try to get as far away as I can from Mademoiselle Merry before I disappear."
"That's…" Subaru looks away.
"Ooh la la! Why so glum, monsieur!?" Napoleon grins. "I was going to forfeit my Spirit Origin on the last shot anyway. It's too good an option to leave on the table. So with that in mind, what do you say to cracking that big tower wide open, Monsieur!?"
Subaru closes his eyes, and a weak voice escapes his mouth. "...Is that really okay?"
"I made a lot of men die for this country, you know?" The Emperor grows serious for a moment. "It's only proper that when I'm called to do the same, I follow through, right?"
Subaru sighs - and then, he opens his eyes, grinning. "Alright! After that first shot, I'm expecting a lot! Blast it wide open, Monsieur!"
"Oui oui!" Napoleon shouts, aiming his cannon. "I renounce my status as Grand Archer!"
In that moment, his power surges. All the enhanced might of his Grand saint graph, is poured into a single attack.
"Oh people!" The Emperor shouts, and his voice seems to resound to every corner of France. "Lift up your voices! Make your plea heard! There's no need to fear! Nothing is impossible! Why!?"
The golden cannon shudders as he levels it, cracks starting to form through which blinding light pours.
"Because I'm here."
The world shakes.
"[Arc de Triomphe-" Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte shouts, even as his limbs begin to tighten and freeze up. "-de l'Étoile]!"
A rainbow splits the sky, arcing far into the distance - and that tumorous growth, the tower at the heart of the [Sunken Spiral City], shatters.
-Its lower body already destroyed, the great squamous form of the [Evil God of the Abyss] slides out of the rubble with a wet pop, and falls to the earth with a howl.
Natsuki Subaru
My brain shudders as the monster emerges. Even from here, some ten kilometers out, I can feel my eyes burn from the sheer stench of its wound - the dust of the oldest tomb in the world, mixed with rotten fish and ooze. And then the sight, the strange twists and curls of its hideous green skin, the horrible unfeeling malice of its dull yellow eyes, the bone-shaking force of its cries.
I can feel it, that spiral, boring into my brain, and-
The stroke of a piano key cuts through the haze of pain and madness.
"If all he's got is aesthetic horror, he doesn't stand a chance against me." Amadeus announces with a smirk.
And then, all is motion.
"Forward!" Ahab roars, springing from the wheel to the deck, running to the prow. The ship begins to lean, but an invisible force arrests the wheel and rights it. "Forward, all hands! Aye, there she be! Thou damned whale! At last, thou showest thyself to me!"
This is it. This is the end. We draw nearer and nearer. Have I missed anything?
"To the last, I grapple with thee!" Ahab roars, and black fire begins to emerge from the pale white scar running down his body.
The flying abominations are still being held at bay by those with the levitation mystic codes (plus Elizabeth and the Count). Mash is by my side to defend me from any surprise attacks. Mozart is repelling the mental damage from the thing.
"For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!" The old whaler roars, raising a harpoon now alight with black fire.
In that moment, my vision swims. I double over, feeling sick. This is - mana exhaustion!?
"The generators - no, it's the summoning room!" Doctor Roman shouts. "Someone is performing another summon!"
"A pinch of silver and a pinch of iron
"Boil up the head clerk
"That's Até's lovely recipe "
Tenor notes ring out in Chaldea's summoning room. A middle-aged man waves his finger this way and that, his eyes closed, a smile on his face.
"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill it up
"Fill, fill, fill it till it spills
"Bring together five closed wounds "
It's in the middle of his nonsense chant that the door opens, and he cracks one eye to see Olga Marie Animusphere arrive, alongside… that girl from the records department?
"Time's up, so I'll skip the rest... " The man concludes with a grin as the summoning circle shines, and emerging from it-
"Haha! My new Master must be quite the eccentric to summon me!" Says Francois Prelati. "-Oh, and it seems we're in a tense situation?"
"John Marcus, huh?" The Director says with a sigh. "Or should I just call you Francois Prelati?"
"Haha! You figured that much out?" The middle-aged man laughs, in a manner totally divorced from the working attitude she had seen from him in the years he had worked at Chaldea "But since there's two of me here, now, you can call me Francis."
"Pffft- haha! Wait, seriously? Why would you even do that!?" Francois laughs.
"Well, my past self is living it up as the big villain of the current singularity, and he summoned himself too! So I figured it looked like fun!~" Francis answers.
Olga grimaces, and she takes a step forward to place herself in between Elron and the two maniacs.. "I should have come here first, not the generator room."
"Haha! I bet you thought it was me that did the summoning last night, so I wouldn't come here, huh?" Francis asks. "Bad luck. Looks like you managed to hire three traitors, huh? Maybe more - to be totally clear, I wasn't the one who offed Marisbury, or the one who summoned Hassan-i-Sabbah, okay?"
"I know." The director responds. "You've been a loyal asset to Chaldea up until this point. I realized yesterday I'd heard the name Prelati before in connection with Chaldea, so I looked you up - you were the one who set up my father's UN connections, and you were our primary financier before he won the Holy Grail War."
"I did do that." He says with a smile and a nod.
"To be honest, my plan was to just arrest you for now, and release you again once the temptation to aid your past self was gone." She continues, eyes narrowed. "But this was a step too far. I won't forgive insubordination."
"Haha! That's cute! I'll take those as your last words, okay?" Francois says, and the room begins to melt into a meadow. "And you, lovely lady with the blue hair?"
"...Don't miss." Mutters Cerejeira Elron.
"What adorably defiant last words!" - Is Francois Prelati's thought in that moment.
But as for Francis, his thought is - "Oh crap, I've made a mistake."
His mistake is a very simple one. He forgot that Olga Marie Animusphere is a hypocrite. While she'll take every effort to make sure her own staff follows the rules with absolute exactitude - she is also the kind of person who will break those same rules without a second thought the moment it becomes necessary for Chaldea's survival.
Why did Olga Marie bring Cerejeira Elron here? The answer is plain and clear from the Command Spell glowing on her hand.
"[Zabaniya]!" As ordered, Hassan of the Cursed Arm does not miss.
A crimson arm finds the heart of Francois Prelati, and he dies one minute and twenty-four seconds after his summoning.
Francis Prelati, on the other hand-
"[Gandr]!" Olga shouts, staggering him - and the next moment her reinforced fist shatters his nose.
-he still has a good amount of pain ahead of him.
Natsuki Subaru
-As quickly as it hit me, the mana exhaustion vanishes.
"-Huh? Wait, it's gone? Don't tell me whoever was summoned was eliminated already?" Romani says.
We draw closer, closer, to that mountainous green squid-like head filling all of my vision. The monster swings one flabby arm towards us, but-
"[Guillotine Breaker]!" A crystalline horse slams into it, holding it back. And then-
"[From Hell's Heart, I Stab at Thee]!" Ahab roars, and black fire consumes his body as the harpoon at last finds its mark.
The Evil God of the Abyss reels, flaming cracks appearing in its head - and then the Pequod slams into it, and for a terrifying moment, its bulbous skull offers resistance. Then, with the stench of a thousand open graves, the monster's head bursts like a rotten fruit, and we carry through to the other side.
But this scenario, in that story, is-!
"It's reforming!" Amadeus shouts, gazing back at the monster.
I can see it, the wretched green flesh of its head already knitting back together - and even its legs as it begins to rise out of the water.
And in the center of the monster's reforming gray matter, I can see - male, this time, white hair stained red with blood - Francois Prelati standing, a triumphant grin on his face.
"So close, Subaru! You got so close, this time - the boat grazed the top of my head! But that's all!" Francois Prelati laughs. "You blew it, idiot!"
A javelin of light, launched from Saint George's sword - embeds itself in the rising wall of regenerating flesh.
A sonic blast from Elizabeth Bathory - is blocked by the Evil God's leathery wing.
Edmond Dantes flickers into close range, his hands alight - but a fractal shield springs from the grail clutched in Prelati's hand, deflecting the attack, and the Avenger must retreat as tentacles surge from the Evil God's regenerating flesh to ensnare him.
"Too bad! So sad! Back to square one for you!" The Alchemist laughs as the Great Old One's flesh blots out the last light, protecting him completely. "Suffer more! Die more! I can't wait, this really is the absolute-!"
A spark of crimson light, at his feet.
"-Eh?" Prelati glances down to see a pale hand emerging from the meat at his feet, encased in fire, just barely visible because of the damage the Evil God had sustained. "-Seriously!?"
"[La Grondement-" Jeanne d'Arc Alter snarls.
"Wait, wait, wait wait wait-!" Prelati backpedals, fractal barrier appearing in front of him again.
"-Du Haine]!" Cursed flames erupt from the Evil God's head, and Prelati tears out of the monster's head, propelled by a burst of crimson fire.
"No waaaay!?" He screams, even as the gout of flame homes on him, several black iron stakes exploding from the Evil God's head to chase him. How was she even able to- "Don't tell me she actually became an Avenger!?"
Natsuki Subaru
Fire explodes from the Evil God's head, and I don't have time to figure out what caused it- "Mash!"
"[Lord Chaldeas]!" She shouts, and the shield comes down, blocking… Jeanne Alter's cursed fire!?
Something lands on the Pequod's deck a moment after the wall is raised, and as it stands-
"Safe!" Francois Prelati shouts, and with a grin, he raises the grail still clutched in his hand, as Mash stares at the one who slipped past her shield in horror. "Now then, let's-!"
Crack!
-Before he can say a thing, [Heaven's Lash], the whip I made from Jeanne's holy shroud, finds its mark.
The Holy Grail, knocked from his grasp, bounces across the deck, and his head whips towards it in shock-
"Where the hell are you looking!?" I roar as my fist, still clutching the whip, crashes into Prelati's jaw.
He staggers back, but behind him, I see Mash's invincible shield begin to crack as she fears for my life, even as the Evil God's fist crashes into the chalk wall. "Keep your eyes forward, Mash!" I shout. "If it's just this guy… I can handle him."
"Ahaha! Handle me, huh!?" Prelati shouts, pointing a hand towards me, glowing with a menacing purple light. "Let's just see about that, Subaru!"
-His spell fizzles into nothing before he can fire it, my Command Spell gleaming. "[EMT]!" My next punch breaks his nose, sending him sprawling backwards- but I'm not done!
[Heaven's Lash] catches Prelati's neck, and yanking it back, I pull him straight into a left hook.
-A glint of steel, and my pathetic fighting instincts allow me to just barely dodge backwards as a newly drawn dagger slashes towards me.
Heaving breath after breath, each of us takes a few steps back.
"Ha… haha…" Prelati gives a forced laugh as he spits a few teeth out of his mouth. "You really are… something else, Subaru. I wonder, how many-?"
"Don't get ahead of yourself, asshole. I've been flying blind since we took down Ley." I say, grinning.
He returns my grin. "-I love you."
"Shut up, I'm only interested in silver-haired elf girls." I shoot him down without a shred of mercy.
"But you'll remember me. No matter what, I'll engrave the memory of me onto your very soul!" Prelati raves. "Hate, love, who cares which is which!? I'll definitely-"
"You think so?" I scoff. "-Like hell. I don't even hate you. I'll end this here, and then I'll forget all about you, Francois Prelati."
"Ha, haha, hahahaha! Is that so!?" He laughs "Then I'll just have to try, again and again, until-!"
-In that moment, he lunges, knife gleaming under the starlit sky.
My whip snares the blade, and I wind up my fist. "Get the hell…!"
EMT ends. [Emergency Reinforcement].
"...OUT OF MY WAY!"
Bone shatters. Prelati's right eye is crushed as my final blow sends him sailing up, over the Pequod's railing-
-He grins, and just before he careens over the side, his remaining eye is exchanged for the diamond-shaped eye of Demon God Bael. 'Something' settles upon me, and I flinch.
-and then Francois Prelati vanishes over the side of the boat, and his laughter mixes with screams and the crunching of bones as he is crushed and dragged into the mist.
A moment later, Mash picks up the Grail, and all of the horrors summoned vanish like a popped soap bubble, leaving only a slowly dissolving boat in a wasteland stripped bare by the devouring fog.
Author's notes:
And so, France ends exactly as it should have began, with Subaru punching Prelati off a boat.
Comments on the chapter:
-It's a pretty weak showing from the Cthulhu crew. Napoleon, on French soil, with his NP that has special effectiveness against Mystery and Divinity, is a pretty hard counter to them. Enhanced by his status as a Grand Servant, they just don't really have a chance against him. At least Ghatananothoa gets a sneaky mutual kill with his curse, so he's got that going for him.
-Of course, Rhan Tegoth loses to Saint George, not Napoleon. But he's a jobber in the source material too, his great revival stopped by a single guy with a handgun.
-And Tsathoggua is just in it for the munchies. If there's fighting happening, he'd rather just go home and sleep.
-Speaking of Napoleon, some people may be aware of the lore originally saying that only one person could occupy the position of Grand in an era. That was retconned. (Thanks Nasu!) Now it's just 'whoever is strongest for the battle that needs to be fought'.
-Prelati's presence in Chaldea is going to be controversial, but I strongly believe that this is a twist that's being set up in canon.
Fate Strange Fake Volume 6:
When she spotted her other acquainted—Gilles de Rais, the "noble knight of Bretagne"—through her far-seeing spell, however, Francesca was bowled over and set out on a trip from Antarctica to Japan with only the clothes on her back.
Enkidu Interlude 2:
Da Vinci:
"It turns out the culprit didn't just modify the simulator's own systems; they cast their own illusion on top of it too. They must have spent a long time planning this prank."
*Later*
Moriarty, talking to an unknown figure who helped him set up this scenario in the simulator:
"Looking forward to it that much, are you? Personally, I would rather have nothing to do with you or other Mephy types, but oh well."
-My actual guess is that it's Meuniere, but I didn't want to have such a dangerous guess be part of this story, so changed it to "John Marcus", a spiritron engineer. (He is one of the members of Novum Chaldea.)
-Cerejeira has miniscule Master potential and no Rayshift potential. Don't expect her to go adventuring with Subaru. She was just brought into this because Olga hersefl can't summon Servants.