61: False Safety
Of course, the attack doesn't end after Fafnir leaves. Not five minutes after Berserk Rider's escape, winged shadows begin to circle over the carriage. Swooping down, dozens upon dozens of wyverns fall upon us.
"[Ira Lupus]!" Again and again, Gareth's lance pierces foe after foe, carving a path through the bulk of the enemy assault. Here and there, clouds of enemies fall into the swirling curses and blasts of mana that Prelati and Marie are filling the air with. But it's not enough, and bit by bit, more and more wyverns break through, clawing and biting chunks of wood off of the carriage -
"[Lord Camelot]!" Mash finally pulls the trigger, and the Wyverns are dashed upon her wall, bones and scales cracking, blood spattering across the chalk white surface from the speed of our motion.
From among the swarm, larger shapes descend - large dragons, about half the size of Fafnir, raining down fire on [Lord Camelot], but achieving no visible result. Until, at last-
"-Master, I'm at my limit." Mash finally says.
"That's fine, we're close enough!" Prelati says. "-This should finish it! [Grand Illusion]!"
My stomach churns, a dizzying, sickening sensation as a sea of farmland rushes through the sky above me, until a large city comes into view, hanging upside down in the air above our carriage. Prelati's illusion folds miles of space, jumping us around half of the way down the road towards Paris in a single instant.
This was our big get-out-of-jail-free card. According to Prelati, he's got no chance of pulling it off on this scale more than once, and the increased range will drain his reserves for the rest of the day. That's why it had to wait as long as possible. But now, as gravity reverses and we drop towards the city square-!
"[Fleur de Lys]." A bored voice calls out, and the city rushes out of view as space unfolds itself. The carriage crashes upside down, in a dusty heap along a nondescript dirt road, flanked on either side by blackened crop fields.
Confusion. Everything is chaos. I can't see, and something is pinning my body to the ground. Then, another crash, and the roof - no, was it the floor? The debris on top of me, whatever it was, is blown away by a kick from Jeanne, and I stagger to my feet, head frantically turning from side to side - and seeing enemy after enemy.
Dark Jeanne, flanked by two more of those true dragons. Vlad III, sheltered from the sun's light by the cloud of wyverns overhead.
And a third Servant, one I haven't seen before. A blond boy in a red cloak and a golden crown, leaning against a hulking axe with a head shaped like a stylized Fleur de Lys. His skin is a pale, almost clammy gray, combined with dull blue eyes that are a bit too large and a slight greasiness to his hair to give him a vaguely fish-like appearance.
Berserk Archer…? That doesn't seem right. But we already saw the other six, plus Berserk Avenger-!
Unless… "She's not limited to one per class." I realize with muted horror.
"Sorry kids, but this is the end for ya." The boy is the first to speak, displaying sharp teeth. "An awful bad turn, getting matched against someone like me."
-I know that axe. I've seen it once before. Haftless and partially melted, but the fact remains, I have seen that axe before. Scattered bits of partially erased memory come together, and I remember.
There was a certain vault in the Atlas Academy. A vault where they stored seven superweapons, each capable of saving or destroying the world - along with numerous replicas of said superweapons.
To be honest, most of them blended together in my mind. There's only so many annoying talking cubes or scary guns that a guy can remember, after all.
But the axe stands out in my mind. It was, after all, one of the only items in that vault to have actually been deployed. A superweapon created from the fragment of a greater Superweapon - the Holy Axe [Fleur de Lys].
"...Which makes you King Clovis I, right?" I ask with a grimace.
This is awful. Absolutely terrible. To have the first king of France show up as an enemy, wielding that weapon, especially against our current party - talk about an unwinnable battle!
He clicks his tongue in annoyance. "It's Chlodovech, brat. Chlodovech! Kids should pronounce their elders' names correctly."
Ah, so he's part of the elusive Shotajiji archetype, huh?
"-So? How does it feel, me? To see even the first king of France side against it?" Dark Jeanne asks, a grin on her face.
"It doesn't matter how many servants you drive mad." Jeanne says, prompting a scowl. "I shall still fight for my country. I shall still follow God's will."
"Our country!? God!? Saints, noblemen, even the founder of France itself stand against you, and you still persist? What are you thinking, me? We're just a useless peasant girl with delusions of grandeur - you realize that, don't you, me?" Her evil clone spits. "How could you have not realized that, after what they did to us!?"
"To be honest, I was starting to think something like that. Between your existence, and my weakness after being summoned, I think I was on the brink of admitting you could be right." Jeanne says with a sigh, shaking her head - and then stands up straight, gazing at her doppleganger with a smile. "I'm glad that you put those fears to rest, just now."
"What the hell are you talking about, me-!?"
"That's just the thing, isn't it?" Jeanne says with a small laugh. "You keep saying 'me' and 'us' when you're talking about me, but you don't understand my thoughts at all. Because you're not, are you? You aren't 'me' at all."
Silence follows her declaration. Dark Jeanne doesn't even protest the accusation. She simply stands there, glaring at Jeanne, before finally clicking her tongue.
"Whatever, I'm bored of this. Berserk Lancer, Berserk Rider, just kill them already."
"Finally. I was worried I might start openly drooling." Dracula chuckles, rolling his shoulders.
"Yeah, yeah." Chlodovech says, hefting his axe. "Kids these days are so damn demanding…"
Wait, he's a Rider-?
"[Quinotaurus]!" Shouts the blond, and a cyclone of water and steam erupts into existence, hurtling towards us-
"[Luminosité Eternelle]!" Jeanne shouts - slamming her flag down, she erects a barrier, and the attack is halted.
Through the barrier, I can see it - a massive mechanical bull, with a fish-like lower half, and a trident embedded in its head between its horns, spinning like a drill as it drives against Jeanne's Noble Phantasm.
"Good work, Jeanne! Just give me ten more seconds, and-!" Marie starts to shout, but she cuts off as she stares at the wrecked carriage. "-Okay, this is fine, I just need to-!"
But her desperate planning is cut short. In a ridiculous movement, Chlodovech vaults into the air with his axe, over his mount, and brings the weapon crashing down on Jeanne's barrier.
What will happen next is obvious. The Holy Axe [Fleur de Lys] operates under a relatively simple principle, for a conceptual weapon - drawing upon the power of the Counter Force, it directly imposes the [Common Sense of Man] upon the texture of the planet, creating a sort of Reality Marble in which nothing can occur contradictory to the average man's expectations.
In other words, nothing unexpected will be allowed to happen.
Of course, in 15th century France, where Monarchy is still deeply entrenched, and gender equality is virtually nonexistent-!
"[Cor Leonis]!" I activate my authority of Greed in the vain hope that I might be able to prevent it, but-
The efforts of a mere Peasant Girl cannot hope to hold back the might of an ancient Hero-King. Jeanne's flag shatters in her grasp, and the golden greataxe bites deep into her chest.
Red warmth colors my shirt as blood spews from my mouth. My focus is broken, and Cor Leonis slips from my grasp-
Through eyes darkened by shock, I see Chlodovech deliver a second blow to Jeanne, and she goes still.
I collapse, shirt soaked with blood. But I need to stay awake. I need to witness every moment. That's my duty. I can't check out just yet, even though I can feel fate rapidly closing its fist on this loop.
[Emergency First Aid]. Keep your eyes open, Subaru. For the next time. Because, next time, for sure-!
"Senpai!" Mash shouts, starting to dash to my side, except-
"[Kazikli Bey]!" A swarm of bats impacts her, stakes of bone peppering the right half her body before a blast of pink energy beats Vlad III's attack away from her - wounded but not slain, Mash follows up with a vicious smash which knocks the Vampire's head from his shoulders. With a furious kick, his body is catapulted a good five meters away from the head, stalling its regeneration slightly.
"▆██▆▬▆▆████!" A static-laden bellow of rage rings out. Saltwater sears my wound as a wave crashes over me- but the Quinotaur shoots over our heads and lands behind us, fooled by an illusion from Prelati.
"[Ira Lupus]!" The cyclone of water and steam stalls as the [Quinotaur] bellows in pain, molten metal spewing from a rapid series of punctures delivered by Gareth.
A blink, and Chlodovech is next to her, massive axe swinging for the back of her head. My Mystic Code pulses with mana, and [Emergency Evasion] allows her to dodge the blow. A follow-up strike with the haft of the axe thunders against the Lancer's shield, before he bounds away with an annoyed click of his tongue.
"Going to make these old bones work for it, huh?" Chlodovech grouses as the Quinotaur dematerializes.
"Come now, your highness, you don't truly mean that, do you?" On the other side of the battlefield, Vlad III straightens his head on his shoulders with a sickening sound. "Prey that doesn't fight back is just dull."
Dark Jeanne rolls her eyes. "Whatever, you're both damn useless." And with a gesture, the dragons above us descend, a cloud of teeth and claws raining down upon our group.
"[Lord…" Mash raises her shield, but-!
"[Kazikli-!" Vlad III roars, surging towards her - but Gareth intercepts him, carving the Vampire in half with her lance-!
"-Bey]!"
From the two halves of Berserk Lancer, a forest of stakes erupts, and Gareth, standing between them-!
"Dodge it!" I yell, Command Spell burning bright. In a moment, she flickers back into range, just as Mash's shield comes crashing down.
…Camelo]-aah!" Mash's invocation is cut off. Somehow, impossibly, a spear of blood has pierced her right shoulder, through the side of her ribcage, and out the other side.
How? How!? How the hell did he-!
Another spear of blood explodes out of the Shielders body. And another. And another. From within her previous wounds, stakes of blood explode forth.
"-Ah." Mash lets out a single whimper, and collapses.
But I don't have any time to take it in. I don't have a single second to mourn. Because, with Mash and Jeanne both down, the wyverns-!
"-I suppose that's far enough." Mozart says with a sigh as he finishes scribbling something on a piece of paper. "The Intelligence Bureau comes to order. We expose the past and collapse the future." The composer says, his voice distorting and growing deeper.
And then, with a snap of his fingers, the storm of Wyverns vanishes in a sea of flames.
"[Incineration Ritual: Amdusias]."
Servant Parameters - Rider (Chlodovech (Clovis I))
Class: Rider
Alternate Classes: Berserker, Ruler
True Name: Chlodovech (Clovis I)
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Armaments: Armor, Holy Shroud
Manifestation Cost: High-Overwhelming
Bio:
The First King of France, an apocryphal saint who restored order to the chaotic world following the demise of the Western Roman Empire. Ruthless yet generous, barbaric yet noble, Pagan yet Christian - a walking paradox who embodies the transformation of the Franks from irrelevant barbarians to the center of Medieval European Culture.
Naturally, having been summoned to France, his power in this work is completely overwhelming. Outside of Western Europe, his Parameters are all one or two ranks lower, and his [Fleur de Lys] is significantly weakened.
Parameters
Strength: A
Endurance: A
Agility: B
Mana: C
Luck: B
NP: EX
Class Skills:
Riding: D
Magic Resistance: D-B
In France, where Chlodovech is revered by some as an apocryphal Saint, his normally mediocre Magic Resistance receives a drastic boost.
Presence Concealment: E-
Acquired from an anecdote where Chlodovech slew a disobedient soldier while distracting the man by telling him his boot was unlaced. In other words, a form of Presence Concealment that only functions briefly while the target is already distracted.
Personal Skills:
Divinity: C
Chaotic Villain: A
Charisma: B
Noble Phantasms:
Fiend of the Northern Coast: Quinotaurus
Rank: E-
Type: Anti-Fortress
Range: 1-15
Maximum Number of Targets: 30
A Divine Beast attested to in the Chronicle of Fredegar, a child of Neptune that haunted the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic. According to legend, it assaulted the wife of the Frankish king Chlodio and sired Merovech, the Grandfather of Chlodovech.
-That being said, the Quinotaur is almost completely unknown in the modern day, and so it suffers a tremendous drop in the power that it ought to have as a Divine Beast, in truth only reaching about the level of a C-Rank Anti-Army Noble Phantasm.
…Even so, could mere obscurity result in such a drastic drop in effectiveness?
New Order, Bloom Amidst the Ashes: Fleur de Lys
Rank: E - EX
Type: Anti-Army (Self) - Anti-Divergence
Range: 1-40 - -
Maximum Number of Targets: 100 - -
The Axe of Chlodovech, gifted to him by Saint Remigius. Forged from the gauntlets of the Powered Armor [RESTITVTOR • ORBIS], one of the Seven Superweapons of Atlas, which was destroyed in the Third Century.
As a conceptual weapon, [RESTITVTOR • ORBIS] operated by enforcing the Common Sense of Man upon the Texture of the Planet in a feedback loop that forced all events to play out according to the status quo. "The Emperor cannot be defeated. Rome cannot fall." In such a way, that which the people took for granted was materialized and made irrefutable.
After the armor was destroyed, its fragments were recovered by the Roman State, and the portion still in possession of the Papacy in Chlodovech's time was forged into an axe for his use. While weaker than the original superweapon, it is still powerful enough to render its wielder all but invincible and nullify most reality-distorting Noble Phantasms.
As a weapon produced by the Church, and originating from a Saint, the Axe has also obtained Holy properties, and can be considered a Saintly Relic. For this reason, it is able to overcome Jeanne d'Arc's Noble Phantasm, much the same as a Church Sacrament can bypass her Magic Resistance. Natsuki Subaru, being unaware of this, attributes it to the secular power of the Axe, but he's incorrect about this.
Incidentally, if summoned outside of France, this Noble Phantasm is reduced to a powerful Magic Resistance buff for Chlodovech and his allies.
A/N:
In Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood, Araki introduces eight new named characters in the last quarter of the arc, just before the final confrontation with Dio. I have not done that in this chapter, but it still makes me feel a bit worried.
I feel really, really conflicted about including Chlodovech. It's not like this arc hasn't already been dragging like hell, even without him here.
But he's been in my "outline" (read: daydreams about future chapters) for a while now, so I figured including him would be better than not.
Yes, his axe is bullshit. No, it is not a canon Atlas Superweapon. Yes, the Quinotaur is a real thing that was written about in the history of the Merovingians. No, it wasn't a robot.
Chlodovech is the last of the four great obstacles of this arc to make an appearance. The other three have been introduced already.
Anyway, Happy Birthday Subaru. Here's some misery for you, my man.