IV.
Rider's post horse charged up the steps that led to the entrance to the tower, Louise pulsing several zealots away with her mana barrier as they arrived at the concrete landing just outside the building. Both mage and Servant dismounted quickly and charged for the front door, Rider giving the beast a slap on the flank that sent it charging into the pursuing citizenry.
The pair was assailed by several more attackers as they entered the front lobby, like soldiers protecting a garrison they appeared from behind overturned furniture or from beneath the reception desk, rusted weaponry clutched in their bloodstained hands.
Though almost a dozen of them rushed forward it was still simple work for Louise and Rider to dispatch them, the former blasting them through windows with her still active shield, or the latter literally throwing them out through the front door to be left attempting to evade his raging mount with the rest.
The two instinctively raced for the stairs but found them covered in all manner of rubble and broken furniture, the makeshift barricade heavily obstructing the path up them. Rider may have been able to clear the barrier, given enough time, but they could hear some of the zealots managing to make their way into the building, the horse able to hold off only so many of them. The pair exchanged a look of understanding and immediately turned back to the elevator doors.
They fortunately didn't have to wait for a lift to arrive, the trademark ding as the doors opened alerting them that one was already on the ground floor and waiting. Rider kicked one last onrushing attacker away before climbing aboard the lift as the door closed in front of him.
Louise was happy for the brief reprieve afforded by the ride, the chance to finally stop and catch her breath being incredibly welcome. There was silence for a few seconds as Louise was still breathing heavily from the exertion and Rider was checking the condition of his sword and uniform. The sword he had used as little as possible, trying to only threaten attackers away from himself with the deadly weapon, and was therefore almost completely devoid of any damage. His clothing, on the other hand, was splattered with blood, and filthy dark gray patches were growing across its surface due to all the smoke and soot in the air.
Louise raised her head to speak when the elevator suddenly dinged again, despite having only stopped at the eighteenth floor and not their destination of the fifty-sixth. Louise shot Rider a worried look that was met with a rather exasperated one from the Musketeer. The door opened and, much as they both expected, a fresh troupe of soldiers attempted to force their way into the elevator.
Louise momentarily filled the entire doorway of the lift with her mana shield and the onrushing attackers went flying backwards even faster than they had charged forward. Rider nodded to Louise with a pained smile before he once more pressed the button for their floor, causing the doors to close in their lazy, calm manner, and send them on their way up once more.
"How are you holding up?" Louise asked as the lift continued its ascent. "It seems like everything is fine. You don't seem... you don't seem put out at all." There was an awkwardness to Louise's question that she couldn't explain, some doubt or worry muddling her words.
"I am fine, yes." Rider said curtly, also feeling visibly uncomfortable, as though he could sense Louise's concern but didn't fault her for it. "Everything seems to be working just fine."
"Good." Louise said, a forced smile on her face.
There was an awkward pause, Louise unsure of what else to say, already feeling foolish for letting her worry show. Suddenly Rider spoke, his words unexpected and startling Louise. "I meant what I said. When I said I was devoted to winning this Grail War. And not just winning it, but winning it with you as my Master."
Louise was quiet again and Rider was almost worried that she was still somehow not convinced, when she looked up from where she had been staring forward with a light smile. "Thank you, Rider. I-"
Louise was cut off as the elevator once again signaled it was stopping, and the occupants noticed that, just like the last time, they had still not reached their intended floor.
As the doors opened on the fifty-second floor the pair braced themselves for yet another onrush of attackers, but were stunned to see, not a crowd of threatening faces, but the equally surprised visages of Ali and Lord Wilmore.
"Ali?" Louise wasn't sure how to account for the other mage's presence.
"Louise!" Ali couldn't hide his excitement at having managed to so effortlessly run into the young woman. "Ah-ha! I knew it, I knew it. Didn't I tell you Lord Wilmore? Didn't I tell you she'd be getting stuck right in the middle of all this?"
Saber's only response was a dismissive shrug of the shoulder. He seemed far more interested in attempting to drill holes through Rider with only his look, his gaze sharper than any sword point as their eyes met.
Rider, whose life had been spent falling under the gaze of people who wished to assert their higher station over him by simply staring him down, bore the burning look admirably, happy to meet it with a self-assured smile that spoke to the Musketeer's own vanity.
"Were you out here looking for me?" Louise asked, not quite sure how to process the prospect that Ali was once again following after her without her knowledge.
"Honestly that was the hope." Ali replied, motioning with his hand the question of whether he and his Servant might join them in the elevator. "But I more was focused on trying to find the source of all this nonsense. I figured if I helped put a stop to all this, maybe you would finally understand just how tempting my offer really is." Ali's smile became a look of slight concern. "My you look worn. Did your journey here really prove that difficult?"
Louise responded to the acted question with a gesture of her own, moving to one side of the elevator beside Rider as Ali finished speaking and he and Lord Wilmore moved into the lift. "No." She replied, trying to shake the look of exhaustion from her features. "We had just finished one battle before becoming embroiled in this one, I fear that two combats back-to-back has been a bit taxing."
"I daresay you were victorious in that other fight though." Ali mused, stroking his chin.
"Indeed." Louise did everything she could to not let her emotions show as she remembered the fight with Camille. "I can safely say that the Caster and his Master have been taken care of."
"Then this is perfect!" Ali burst out ecstatically. "Lord Wilmore and I had come here to put a stop all this nonsense going on. When the elevator had stopped on this floor, and we were immediately attacked by that mad rabble, I had assumed we were in the correct place to face the mastermind. Though I had clearly assumed wrong as there was nothing here but more of those stupid things."
Louise instinctively winced back from Ali's excited body language as he exclaimed. Something about his aloof and almost scornful opinion of the poor brainwashed citizenry, and his enthusiasm for his continued pursuit of her only added to the sense of unease she had lately felt when around him.
"But now, together," Ali continued, lost in his own excitement even if no one was there with him. "We'll be able to easily overcome this Master and put an end to this whole Grail War."
"Put an end to it?" Louise asked, surprised. "But what of the Assassin and her Master?"
"No longer a problem!" Ali said proudly. "We took care of them on the way here. They won't provide any more difficulty." Ali spoke as if the accomplishment were his alone, as if he had been the one to take down Assassin.
"What?!" Louise was shocked that they had so quickly and suddenly defeated another Master, but was also concerned when she recalled the way Lord Wilmore had violently disposed of Zoe.
"No need to worry those silly sensibilities of yours." Ali said, fully aware of Louise's concern. "I didn't kill the Master this time. In fact he and I exchanged a couple words like good sportsmen. I wouldn't be surprised if he were on his way to the church right now to wait this thing out."
Despite how unlike most mages it would be for a Master to accept defeat and patiently withdraw, Louise had to concede that his behavior at Ali's hotel had shown that Assassin's Master was not like most mages.
The elevator dinged for the final time to signal that they had arrived at the observation deck situated just below the rooftop terrace. "One moment." Ali confidently stepped toward the door as it began to open and deployed one of his usual barriers, the lines drawing themselves across surfaces and through the air as they formed an awkwardly rotating cage that mirrored the shape of the elevator.
As the doors finished opening, a torrent of golden light poured into the lift, the vibrant and shining magic enveloping everything within. Louise watched as the entire elevator- the floor, walls, switches, cables and all, were melted down and reduced to a liquid that fell like molten rain down the empty shaft, Ali's barrier the only thing keeping its former occupants from joining it in freefall.
"Madame, Messieurs." Ali said, motioning for the others to step from his magic and onto the fifty-sixth floor. "After you."
"That was quick thinking, Monsieur." Louise said to Ali, genuinely impressed by his presence of mind in the moment.
"It was nothing." Ali replied with exaggerated nonchalance. "I just had the thought that, since this was unquestionably the floor we would find our opponent on, it made sense that another mage would set a trap for any possible interlopers. I know I would."
The elevator had deposited them onto the observation deck, wrapped as it was in glass windows, with not a single solid wall; the room provided a safe and enclosed three-hundred and sixty degree view of Paris. There was a fully stocked bar and the cleanliness of it, as well as the orderly nature of the whole floor indicated that the brainwashed masses were not allowed this far by their mistress.
The room was empty, neither the Master nor Servant present. This didn't surprise Louise though as there was one last flight of stairs that led to the open air rooftop terrace, the highest point and where she was sure she would find Madame Fenix.
"I suppose now isn't the time for a drink?" Ali said surreptitiously eyeing the bar. The looks he received in response ran the range of confusion, shame, and a nod from Rider that implied he was not completely averse to the idea. "Fair. Might as well save that for a victory drink after the win."
The odd quartet crossed the distance from what used to be their elevator to the steps on the opposite end in pensive silence. Louise and Rider both felt there were too many unknown variables between Madame Fenix and Lancer, if their plan would actually work, and the completely unexpected and somewhat unwelcome element Ali and Wilmore added.
Though Louise could still clearly smell the smoke and ash from inside the observation deck, she couldn't stop from recoiling back as the odor and heavy sensation of the air redoubled its effect on her as she emerged back into the open air. The rooftop villa, surrounded as it was by thick glass barriers and open to the sky, really did provide the best and most complete view of Paris below and of the destruction it had suffered.
For dozens of blocks in every direction, fire and destruction crept out from the base of the tower, spreading like a black and luminous spiderweb with them poised at its center. There was nothing on the observation deck itself, no furniture, benches or obstacles of any kind. There was only the open paneled floor with the stairs, Louise, and her companions at one end, and at the other stood two regal figures: The one with her back turned to the interlopers as she reveled in what she had set into motion, and the other seemingly uninterested in the carnage below, turned partially away.
As the footsteps of Louise, Ali, and the Servants sounded on the deck, Lancer, who seemed so detached from the situation down on the streets, turned her gaze in their direction. She spoke no words, but materialized the boar spear in her grasp and tapped the end of the bulky weapon heavily on the floor.
Madame Fenix, understanding that her Servant wished her to observe something, turned from her appreciation of the spectacle below to see what had attracted her Servant's attention. The look with which she surveyed the group gathered before her could only be described as a mixture of boredom and contempt.
"Yes, Lancer? And what is it, exactly, that I am looking at?" Madame Fenix's tone was almost one of anger with her Servant for having distracted her with what she saw as a pointless diversion.
"One of them appears to be the Master who escaped us back in the catacombs." Lancer replied. There was no subservience in her voice, showing she was unshaken by her Master's chiding, nor was there a haughty tone of reproach someone who thought themselves above the elderly mage would have indignantly effected. Her tone was even and matter-of-fact, as though she considered her Master's tone to be one spoken by a being of completely equal rank. "Another, her Servant."
"And?" Madame Fenix again bit with her words.
"If my senses are correct, they would be another one of the Master and Servant pairs."
"Another of the LAST Master and Servant pairs, if you don't mind." Ali corrected her, still very proud of the defeat of Assassin and Mordaunt.
"No one gave you permission to speak, boy." Madame Fenix indolently lifted the hand from which hung the numerous chained bracelet-rings and with an equally languid flick of her wrist, sent a plethora of jagged, golden bolts of magic flying towards Ali. As the magic drew closer to its target it coalesced into a shape that vaguely resembled a framework of a monstrous visage that rose from the floor to snap its massive jaws shut around Ali.
There was a wretched screech as the jaws of the magical beast met the resistance of Ali's barrier, bolts of blue and gold magic sparking out from the multiple points of impact. Ali, though very much shaken, did his best to keep his cool in the face of the opposition.
"Impressive, boy." Madame Fenix said, though the amount of contempt in her voice raised questions as to the praise's sincerity. "I will say that, though you did so quite rudely and out of turn, what you said has piqued my interest slightly. Clarify why you felt the need to specify 'remaining' Masters."
"Because, Madame," Ali's voice was strained, though Louise wasn't sure if it was from continuing to support his barrier lest the jaws of Madame Fenix's magic crush and maul him, or because he was trying to stay calm beneath her disdain. "This is all of us now. We are but three last pairs of Master and Servant."
"Is it now?" Madame Fenix seemed not at all surprised and as though she was already bored of Ali's speaking. "Very well then. It makes it much easier then for me to finish things since you both saw fit to come to me, I can only assume by some misguided desire to meet your death. Lancer." Madame Fenix made the same wave of her hand Louise had seen her perform before when she had ordered Leo's execution. The older mage was already turning her back on her opponents as Lancer stepped forward.
"Kneel." The elegant Servant brandished the tip of the spear at her opponents as a rumbling noise announced her Authority pushing down on Rider and Saber both. The Servants were both forced to their knees, Rider fully expecting it due to their previous experience facing Lancer, but Saber caught completely off-guard being forced to submit to anyone.
"What... is this?" Saber growled, enraged as he tried to force his way back to his feet.
"Proof that you are subservient to your Master whether or not you are willing to admit it." Lancer replied calmly.
Ali was still immobilized, having to expend every bit of concentration to stop the golden spell from breaking through his beloved barrier, and both Servants were prone from the enemy Servant's power. Louise was the only one able to stand before their opponents.
Lancer turned her cold gaze on the young woman. "Just as last time, it is only you who remain standing. I will at least acknowledge that you alone may deserve to present yourself before myself and my Master. But this is where you shall die. Though you stand before us, you stand alone."