FATE/Twilight Flicker: Split Daybreak OMAKE files

[Valles]

---

Is this right after Shiro gets downed by Lancer's attack? If it is, shouldn't they be on a school grounds not in a room? And either way, how did Saber get summoned when Shiro was unconscious?

---

Well...
First, we have the fight at school, which scene cuts off about the point where Lancer catches a thunderbolt in the face and Temujin goes down. Then we skip a period wherin the Tohsakas and their merry minions scoop up Shirou and cart him off to Maison Emiya, before picking up again with his dreaming about what happened right before he passed out.
Then he wakes up and meets Caster and gets briefed in on the whole war thing before we cut again to Saber's summoning. I guess that the breaks were somewhat obscured by the fact that they were in different posts...
Incidentally, though not relevant in this case, when Saber got summoned in canon, Shirou didn't do a damn thing to trigger it that I could see, at least aside from simply being in the right place.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[katreus]

Hrm. I thought it was triggered by his desire to live. I don't think it's necessarily a case of being in the right place; whereever he had been when confronting Lancer would have been the right place.

[Rieverre]

---

"I'm sorry."
She didn't react to the words, head bowed and mouth moving in silent prayer. She only did when she finished, rising from her knees and turning to face the speaker.
"Thou didst warn me," ruefully, she shook her head. He studiously payed no attention to the faint tracks of tears on her dust countance.
"My method of travel is less than reliable, and I am afraid that it's entirely my fault."
"How so?"
"As a child, I dreamed of being a hero of justice," he explained, a wistful tone creeping into his voice. "And for the longest while I've had an ... artifact ... of considerable power within me. Though I hadn't always been aware of it for nearly as long, it may have had some influence on the ..." he hesitated.
"The spell," she shook her head. "You need not worry about that with me. I tried never to let prejudice guide my thoughts and actions. You are most odd, yes, but I would never call you evil."
"I'm still sorry," he insisted. "This is exactly the reason why you had wanted to travel with me in the first place. You did not want to face your countrymen in the field ..."
"Such a beast is man," she interrupted. "Sometimes, I wonder if the devils in Hell are not feeling obsolete. This artifact of yours takes you not where you want to go, but where you need to be. Or ... where we need to be, in this case."
It would have been slaughter, had the two of them not emerged from the Between and into this Reality that Was where and when they had. Swords had been drawn, blood had been shed ...
... this was a lost cause. She'd heard, from the monks who taught history sometimes, about this place.
Bastion of Heresy. Stronghold of the Devil. Conquered through stout hearts and faith of the Crusaders a little less than two centuries past, the sins erased ...
Only it hadn't looked like that to her when she'd arrived, herself and her companion dragging the bloodied guardsmen they'd stopped from being killed.
This was as much a place of Satan as herself and her companion were creatures of the pit.
Rapid footfalls interrupted them, as one of the Knights Hospitalier who'd stood with the people of this place against unjust accusations came to a halt at the edge of the small courtyard.
"Sir Knight of the Bow! My Lady Jehanne! They come at us once more!"
Then there were no more words, only motion, as they rushed to reinforce the defenders where needed.
It was early morning, mid-January of 1244, and Justice had sent its allies to Montsegur.
They would serve it well.

---

I'm an unrepentant Iron Maiden fanboy, hence the snippet above (allow me my historical inaccuracies as a result of artistic license).
Incidentially, does anybody else think 'Gendo Ikari' when they listen to Iron Maiden's 'New Frontier'?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

Somone has been reading or watching "The Da Vinci Code"!
Might had been more fun if Jehanne and Shiro ending up saving Jacque de Molay.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Valles]

---

When several minute had gone by without an enemy being attracted by the flare of energy that had gone along with her summoning, the Rider, a tall woman with tremendously long hair and a build that otherwise matched her Master's, was called in and Saber's own Master propped up against a convenient wall so that he might contribute to the conversation without further straining himself. The Rider was unreadable - her expressions and words were carefully controlled, and anything that she might otherwise have given away unintentionally was hidden behind the hardened leather mask that covered the top half of her face and completely obscured her eyes.
Saber had to wonder how she managed to see anything.
Caster had settled near the wall opposite Shirou with his hood thrown back and his cloak mostly pooled in a disk on the floor around him. The sisters were sitting on either side of their crush, and Rider leaned against the doorframe, somehow without seeming the slightest bit informal.
Saber forced herself to stop pacing. "We need to plan our strategy," she said.
"Caster," Rin started after a moment, "how much do you know about the other Servants? You wanted to wait until this point to discuss it, you said..."
He shrugged. "A great deal about most, with live updates. Much less about others, from a different source, and nothing at all about one or two. By class...
"There are three Archers, all still active and all first-rate threats. The first is the last survivor of the previous war, whom Saber will be quite familiar with."
"What do you mean?" she asked, turning slightly to give him a hard look.
"Gold armor, stupid earrings, ego the size of Cincinnati? His name is Gilgamesh."
She snarled silently, and he nodded. "Yeah, I'm looking forwards to breaking his nose myself. Unfortunately, there's very little good news in dealing with him - I wouldn't call him terribly bright or perceptive, but he's as powerful as they come and, on top of all the Phantasms he's stolen from their rightful owners over the years, he controls what's probably the only holy sword more powerful than Excalibur."
"Which we don't have anyway," Rider pointed out.
Caster didn't say anything, but after a moment of watching him watch her, Saber did. "We do."
Rin caught on first. "I thought that King Arthur was supposed to be a man."
Saber... didn't quite shrug, but the particular flavor of impassive in her expression gave the same impression. "It was simpler to allow the misconception."
"You know my name, too, don't you."
"Yes. But it's not mine to reveal, is it, Lady Rider?"
"Wait... names?" Shirou asked.
Caster opened his mouth, then paused. "Er, before I start, would anyone want to field that and spare themselves a lecture?"
Sakura giggled, and shook her head. "Go ahead," she told him.
"Right. We Servants have our origins in, well, myth. There's power in stories; power that can be, at the very least, siphoned off by the mortal soul that lay beneath the original tale... which is in turn shaped by those beliefs. When an opponent is aware of our identities, they therefore have knowledge of our strengths, weaknesses and abilities - but if that information is secret, an advantage may be made of surprise."
"Sou ka," Shirou said, then grinned a little. "I suppose I shouldn't ask yours, then?"
"Nathan Baxter, not that it will do you any good. I'm not native to this timeline, you see..." he trailed off and gave Rin a concerned look; she looked like she was caught between choking and giggling.
"Does... does the name Uzumaki Naruto mean anything to you?" she asked, after a managing to mostly catch her breath.
"...as a matter of fact. Wow," he said, looking stunned. "hearing you ask that doesn't surprise me nearly as much as it should."
Rin started giggling again.

---

And tomorrow... *checks list* ...Escaflowne!
Ja, -n
(experimenting in organization)

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[CattyNebulart]

Unlike 4-chan we are a dignified forum with certain standards and a respect for the english language. Therefore cries like moar are beneath out dignity, but...
MOAR!!!!! (please?)

Seriosly these snippets offer interesting glances at a story, but they need to be connected and posted as a whole sometime...
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Rieverre]

*snicker* Ladies and gentlement, we _have_ transfictionality ... well, we had it before as well, just not as much of it.

---

"Well, that was a nice little display of rampant stupidity," the words echoed ... if only because he thought they should. It was his mind, after all, even if it looked like a space barren of absolutely anything at the moment.
The consciousness floating in this lack of light and any and all sensation kept oscillating between being annoyed at itself, puzzled at the outcome of its actions, and angry at the instigator of those actions.
The last was easily understandable. No matter how fast he could shift the mental gears, he had never quite been able to manage instantanous blockage of pain receptors - a warning in some form was neccessary for proper preemptive action. Getting your heart and the proverbial pound of flesh shredded and removed, not neccesarily in that order, was not a sensation he cared to repeat experiencing.
The foremost was due to the fact that because of his partially instinctive, partially anger driven response he was now, essentially, a somewhat smaller than volleyball sized sphere. Regenerating a body would take a while on the power constrains he was working with.
The remaining bit was wondering how in hell a simple, if violently overpowered, omnidirectional AT burst could have required the biomass burn that had resulted. Sure, he was working on a tighter reserve than he was used to, but considering the other manifestations of his Field hadn't differed from what he was used to ...
One reasonable answer he'd managed to come up with in the interim, between one twiddling of his mental thumbs and another, was that he still didn't quite have a hang of how the 'rules' of his usage of the Field had shifted in this particular situation.
It looked like some experimentation was in order as soon as his reserves trickled back to a level that would let him pull himself back into corporal existence.
Which, by the look of things, was taking its sweet time alright.
In all, his mood at the time could be best described as sour.
The fact that he could feel his Core moving around as if carried by someone wasn't helping at all.
He conceded that it might be a good idea to look into trying to acquire a greater steady feed of energy than was was currently being mediated to him via said Core, if only to avoid situations like this happening again.
It was too bloody embarassing, damnit.
***
"And?"
"Well, it certainly doesn't feel very powerful for a Noble Phantasm."
"Are you sure it's one?"
"Positive. And anyway, it's got a Servant's aura plastered all over it."
"And you have no idea of what it does, except maybe make for a damn poor paperweight."
"Doesn't really matter. Anything can be useful, in the right circumstances. The researchers back home should be able to find something when we hand it over."
After all, the two Magi thought as they stealthily made their way away from the site of the - well, battle would perhaps be too strong a word - Servants' confrontation, it's not as if the thing is powerful enough to warrant keeping it to myself.

---

-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

Two plotbunnies on placeholder mode for fermentation:
Bun-bun #1:
School Rumble:
Does Sarah Adiemus of School Rumble remind you of Saber?
Could she be Saber re-incarnated?

Bun-bun#2:
Zero no Tsukima:
Supposing Shiro got sucked into the portal with Saito?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rieverre]

I have no idea, not having watched the first and not having any idea what the hell the second is. Linky?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

For School Rumble:
This is the Wilkpedia overview of the series
Wannabe fansubs wiki of Sarah

For Zero:
You can download the anime episodes at Tokyo toshokan.
if you what a more thorough discussion of the series:
Zero no Tsukaima discussion of the novels the anime is based on
Aquastar forum discussion of what's missed in the animesuki forum
The anime is based on events till volume 3 and sides stories and volumes 4 and 5. The current count of the volumes in the novel are 9 volumes.
If the anime is light hearted now, it'll probably turn darker if they go to a second season. There's a scene in volume 7 that would be perfect between Saito and Shiro.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rieverre]

Now see what you've done. You've exposed my coffee-d mind to a target rich environment, and it's trying to tell me that 'Hiraga Saito' and 'Shiraga Katsu' can be exchanged perfectly well and without trouble ...
... I find myself with the intense desire to go watch this thing.
*browses summary*
Strangely, the desire persists. Well, only one thing to do.
www.froth-bite.com
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

---

Now see what you've done. You've exposed my coffee-d mind to a target rich environment

---

We aim to please

---

and it's trying to tell me that 'Hiraga Saito' and 'Shiraga Katsu' can be exchanged perfectly well and without trouble ...

---

perfectly well ,yes..w/o trouble?....*snicker*
watch the episodes and repeat that prhase to me with a straight face.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Foxboy]

Griever's avatar there? And I thought you guys liked that series? (Just kidding, G.)
Seriously? Katz or Emi there would result in a display of the Historical Dialectic, or at least the part from Feudalism to something more palatable. (At the least, Constitutional Monarchy from Emi, with a strong House of Commons, if not a Federal Republic.)
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Rieverre]

---

Griever's avatar there? And I thought you guys liked that series? (Just kidding, G.)

---

I'll take that as a compliment.

---

Seriously? Katz or Emi there would result in a display of the Historical Dialectic, or at least the part from Feudalism to something more palatable. (At the least, Constitutional Monarchy from Emi, with a strong House of Commons, if not a Federal Republic.)

---

Katz would rather focus on locating a power source large enough to let him continue on his merry way ...
... *snicker* after blasting his way out of the Academy he's contacted by (and nearly offs) Fouquet and informed of a powerful item that may be able to aid him in moving on. They hatch a scheme and steal the Staff of Destruction ... boy, is he ever disappointed when he cracks the box open. And annoyed at his so called partner in crime.
After that bit of embarassment, he tries to find out more through actually legal channels - after turning Fouquet in and pretending Louise managed to convince her 'familiar' (grr) to return. It doesn't go all that well. Nope. Doesn't go well at all. Though he does end up 'motivating' Louise to improve - by annoying the hell out of her - and giving her some seemingly bogus advice. Nobody's more surprised than he when it turns out that she can make it _work_ ... make what work? He fed her some 'hokey' incantations. Two words "Exploder Wizardess".
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[classicdrogn]

Just the THOUGHT makes me cackle with glee. You simply MUST do something with this!
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[ordnance11]

Introduce her to Slayers magic..
The problem is not that she'd screw up a Dragon Slave...the real problem is that she'd get it right!
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Rieverre]

---

Introduce her to Slayers magic

---

I was thinking more along the lines of 'Bastard!!' really.
The image of her being called out to a duel and using Exodus to win it, as well as dealing with the predictable after effects of that particular spell *snrk* is firmly embedded in my mind.

damnit. I had a tight little segment written up when the power zorched for a second ... seeing as I'm working on a laptop that, for one reason or another, doesn't have a functioning battery at the moment, this can be considered a bad thing.
Okay, here we go again.

---

One: Zero no Tenshi/Pissed-off angel's karaoke.

To loosely quote John McClane: How can the same shit happen to the same guy, _twice_?
Apparently, very easily.
One moment I was getting ready to get on my way, and hoping the Trouble Twins hadn't demolished too much landscape when it turned out I hadn't been there after the Crossing that I'd been snatched out of, the next I was standing in the middle of a crater with a cloud of dust slowly dissipating around me, and a sense of deja vu.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Two weeks ago, more or less, had passed since the end of the most recent and hopefully last - if Nathan, Medea and Tohsaka were to be believed - Heaven's Feel.
The world was still there, which I suppose counted as a good thing. The city as well ... mostly. Which ... was a marked imrpovement over the last time I'd gotten into a scrap of this size.
Though that place had already been more or less devastated when we got there, so maybe that doesn't exactly count.
The two Casters hadn't been opposed to helping me in my attempt to return to the path I'd been on when an Association member with more ambition than he had talent had decided to take part in the ritual. The process, now that the Grail and the rituals karmic interference were no longer a factor, proved to be easier than anticipated. Didn't even have to spring for a virgin sacrifice or anything.
So, there I was, the crumbling Servant contract lending the start-up power to the mandala the shinobi and the sorceress had come up with while I said my goodbyes.
Not that I had many to say, really.
Fraga, whom I'd mostly annoyed - I have that effect on a lot of people, it seems - had shown up ... alright, so maybe annoyed is too strong a word. She was a good comrade, and one I'd trust having my back to any day.
The two present Servant spellcasters ... Medea had proven to be surprising in many ways, and Nathan ... he was easy to relate to in such a manner that led me to believe this wasn't the last time we'd cross paths.
Or maybe it was, and I simply had an overactive imagination.
The Tohsaka sisters were present, and Ilya, my former 'Master', had just gotten done with breaking my contract a few moments before. The three were mostly around because Emiya was around. Likewise, his Servant.
Poor Shiro. He'd either die of heartbreak, or exhaustion. I had a thousand yen going on the latter, mostly becuase I figured there was already enough heartbreak in the world.
I was in the middle of contemplating a receeding Rider - I think she was going to get refreshments or something like that - or more specifically, a certain leather encased part of her anatomy, when it happened.
The mandala flared, much to the surprise of the two Casters, I felt both drained dry _and_ better than I had during my entire stay in this reality as the contract finally crumbled, and the constrictions I'd had to deal with when using my Field went away ...
Though I had only a moment for elation, followed by an instant of vertigo, before the world flashed azure and ...
... I ...
... was ...
... gone ...
... the last thing I saw being both Casters' faces, looking on in consternation and not a little confusion.
The sensations that came with this Crossing were not wholly unfamiliar, I realized as I hurtled through the shifting in-between, and much akin to being pulled through turbulent waters by the rope you're holding onto. Only I couldn't let go.
Not dissimilar to the last time I'd gotten diverted in transit, which was one of the reasons I came _out_ of there with a bit of an attitude.
I didn't know what to expect. Part of me was hoping either Fujino or Kuga had managed to find some mystical or scientific mumbo-jumbo that latched onto me as soon as I was available, and I'd see the both of them and whoever thet'd coerced, threatened, blackmailed or simply convinced to help.
The more cynical (and larger) rest was getting ready to end up staring into the barrel of some sort of esoteric weapon.
Which was what caused me to end up in a crater half as deep as I was tall.
Okay, there and then that wasn't saying much, but there you go.
What I hadn't been expecting was to end up in the middle of a spatious, grassy courtyard of some sort of castle-looking structure, surrounded by a group of roughly my apparent age every member of which was in the process of picking him or herself up from the ground.
Apparently, I'd arrived with a bit of 'oomph'.
Then I noticed the uniforms, black cloaks, the prevalence of ... well, I'd call them animals, but that sort of description doesn't quite do justice to some of the creatures present.
The whole thing had an ambience that I can only describe as a mixture of *shudder*Harry Potter and *double shudder*Pokemon, and I suddenly felt the need to smell some exhaust fumes and cordite, feel concrete underneath my feet, and blow Genom Tower to bits.
You know it's bad when you get homesick for images of that, instead of Sylvie and Anri ... err. Right. Nothing. Nothing at all. Feel free to ignore that statement.
"Owowowowow," someone moaned, extracting themselves from where another of the ... 'students?' had landed on top of them and planted an elbow in their spleen. "Looks like Zero did it aga ..."
Which was when the person, a tanned redhead who'd be considered voluptous for any age, took notice of the source of the blast.
Namely yours truly.
The big, and I do mean _big_, red lizard behind her reared in my direction, flames curling up from its nostrils.
I suppose I had only myself to blame, since it was only then that I realized that my Field was manifesting. Likely due to the surprise and the fact that I had full access to it once again, rather than having to work with a limited pool of power.
Meaning my wings were 'out', and I had a minor AT effect going, which I had to wrestle back under wraps. Something that did not go without difficulties ...
... the wild fluctuations of Absolute Terror were enough to make some of those collecting themselves go back down and scramble to get the hell _away_.
The whip of flame that seared its way in my direction from somewhere off to the side, as well as the sudden burst of same from the red lizard and a few more minor signatures made me discard that course of action and shift the Field to Absolute Territory, leaving the attacks to splash against amber hexagons.
Not exactly conductive to peaceful negotiations. Neither was my wanting to blow something apart very badly at the moment.
For purely stress relief reasons, you understand.
So I decided that, for the time being, discretion should be the better part of valor. Whereupon I let the energies of my wings' Field do their job, lift me into the air, and shot forward after making a complete about-face.
I left behind a courtyard of befuddled people, some of whom needed a change of underwear, and a big hole in the outer wall of the place.
I could have gone over it, but ... well, stress relief. It worked, too. By the time I'd hunkered down to evaluate my situation, I was back to being more or less level headed.
What?
Well, they should be glad I didn't take the Loki and Bartleby method to heart.

---

Huh. That actually turned out better than what I'd lost. Who'd have thought?
-Griever
ETA: for some minor tweaks
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[ordnance11]

Hah, you actually did the smart thing....
Might had been amusing if Louise tried to seal the contract...
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[katreus]

was this line:
... the last thing I saw being both Casters' faces, looking on in consternation and not a little confusion.
Hee.
"Oops."

[Rieverre]

Will move this to its own thread when the next part gets written. Shouldn't be long. It'll finish the SoD mini-arc neatly.

---

Two: Kamikaze Kaitou Katz
It's only when something you've taken as a given has gone away that you miss it. This is the honest truth.
I realized it was such when I started missing hamburgers. And showers. And let's not forget plumbing.
Not bloody likely, what with the smell and all. Gah. I'm reconsidering the whole 'not an outdoorsman' thing I've got going.
Don't know if it's not worse that I'd gotten acclimated to it by the time a week and change were up.
It wasn't as much of a problem as it would have been if I were _all_ human and not just 'mostly'. Not having to worry about infection, sickness, or other exceedingly unpleasant things like that which seemed inevitable given the local conditions was something I was infinitely thankful for.
Still, there was only so much of the local 'culture' that I could handle.
Hence my desire to get the hell out of dodge as soon as I could.
I could have likely come up with some sort of bull reason for my haste to get the hell on my way other than my level of personal comfort being less than I was generally prepared to accept ... in retrospect, that was as much bull than any other reason. I'd been stuck in a D.D. Battlemover for longer than I cared to remember, which was about rock bottom as far as personal comfort could go, and hand't gone entirely mental during that time.
Well, never twice for the same reason, in any case.
Trying to make myself believe I was worried about Anri and Sylvie wasn't about to work. Both were highly competent, and had the equivalent of a small army with them last I could recall. One more pair of hands to shoot a gun wouldn't make a difference.
I _missed_ them, which was another thing altogether. Alright, not entirely, but by enough of a margin.
Same thing about Shizuru and Natsuki, save the army maybe.
They could take care of themselves, often more effectively than I could say the same of myself.
Which led me to skulking in wait, under cover of trees, waiting for an opportune moment ...
But I've gotten ahead of myself again.
I could start from the beginning, but that would make an already slightly lengthy retelling into something far too long and boring to bother with. Let's just say that before I managed to hunt down my first rabbit I found a type of berries that managed to give even my physiology indigestion.
The immediate reason for my cheap burglar imitation, staking out the very place I'd come out of the Crossing into at night and waiting for my momentary partner's 'go ahead' was the same one as always when I pulled something similarly ... odd.
Call me an easy dupe, but on the off chance of there being something here that was rumored to have a serious magical 'kick' to it - one that I had high hopes I could harness to let me Cross again - I was willing to go out on a limb to help steal said item.
After all, I doubt they'd be willing to part with something dubbed the 'Staff of Destruction' if I came up to the gates and asked for it. Especially not with the way I left last time I was one the premises.
And again, I get ahead of myself.
The 'they' in question were the staff and students of the Tristania Academy of Magic. Tristania being the name of the country I'd ended up in.
Irony of ironies, even without the Gift of Tongues every human/Angel hybrid seemes to have manifested in one way or another, I would have been able to get by.
The other countries around were both familiar and not at the same time. Germania, Gallia, Albion, Romalia ...
I'd not only landed in history, I'd landed in alternate history.
Halkeginia was an equivalent of Europe around the 16th Century AD, with more than just a pinch of the supernatural thrown in for good measure.
As to how I'd found out about that?
It turned out that I hadn't needed to go out for information. It had come to me on its very own.
Looking as I did, that wasn't too surprising.
That is to say, I got mugged.
Or, well, they _tried_ to.
Considerate, though. Gave me enough information to let me at least get oriented, and threw in some money to sweeten the deal.
Just for that, I stayed happy with leaving off at broken bones.
After all, whatever healthy 'fellow' brigands were around the area, not to mention the local wildlife - oh, was that a wolf's howl I hear? - would be far crueller that I to them. Consider it poetic justice, if you will.
Given that information, I could blend into the populace somewhat well. The eyes and hair weren't something a cowl couldn't hide, most of the time, and even they didn't draw too much attention. Though there were a few times during which I did wish I had been able to pick up Gabriel's little shifting trick way back when ... oh well. Live and learn.
I moved from town to town, consulting the occasional mage about the peculiarities of their craft and trying to ferret out useful tidbits.
Technology wouldn't be getting me out of this jam. I knew that much.
Well, not unless Shizuru and Natsuki managed to hunt me down. I wasn't going to remain idle and just wait for that to happen, or to see whether it occured at all.
Hence the research about the local magic.
Manipulation of external energies by those who had the talent, split into several element based classes and ranked according to the complexity of the weave they could create ... not par for the course, exactly, but not so unusual as to give me too many problems with comprehending the basics of how they did things.
Sadly, that alone wasn't enough.
Magic had pulled me here, magic could put me back on my path ... but unfortunately, the farther I got - which, admittedly, wasn't all that far - in my research, the more I realized that whatever happened had been a bit of a fluke.
So instead of trying to rely on something this unstable, I prefered to go and see about a tried and true method of travel.
At the barest of basics, it was still energy. My Field could work with that. Could maybe even harness a considerable enough reservoir thereof, which would allow me to attempt a Crossing on my 'own power' for the first time since End of Evangelion.
As I could hardly afford to pay for that sort of energy expenditure, or the sort of item that would likely come with it, there seemed to be only one thing to do ...
Causality seemed to conspire in my favor, since a week after I'd decided that I was contacted by a local of considerable renown in that line of work.
She called herself Fouquet, the Crumbling Dirt - the latter being her so called 'runic' name, and signifying that she was a mage.
Earth element specialist, too.
See? I'd learned a bit by that time. Not just that I didn't enjoy the gruel that seemed the universal breakfast food at most inns. Well, the sole one I trusted to any extent, anyway. Call me pedantic and picky, but I prefer quality in my meat. Sadly, expenses ... well, you know.
"You are Katz," she'd stated. Really, no need to ask. I was sort of distinctive, even in this land of odd haircolors. Case in point, Fouquet, with her _green_ hair. Lime.
She'd caught me at breakfast, as the case was, and in a mood that wasn't exactly enthusiastic so my answer, unneeded as it was, consisted of a brief nod and a return to my ale. I'd just gotten done with the gruel.
Better that than what passed for 'clean' water here most of the time, and the wine they served was too damn sweet for me to stomach for long. Hence, ale.
It had been kind of growing on me, though. I wondered what Albion imports tasted like.
Fouquet sat herself opposite me, and laid out her spiel. Thankfully, the chamber was mostly deserted _and_ the inn was known for its ... discretion.
Just the reason I'd picked it, really. Damn Germanian brigands. You put down two or three bands for a quick buck, and they give you annoying nicknames and start spreading silly stories that would likely draw the local mages' attention if I stayed too long in one place.
Basically, it had to do with a powerful magical item being kept within the vaults of the Tristanian Academy of Magic.
Well informed woman, that, to have caught my asking about similar items of power ... or I'd just gotten sloppy. Hadn't really had too much of a reason to seriously interrogate someone lately and all.
Trust her?
Oh, hell no.
Still, she was obviously well prepared, familiar with the place the item was held in, and capable.
After some discussion, during which I'd found out that what little I'd used of my apparent brand of magic - what the locals had taken my Field for, it seemed - had been noticed and relayed to her. Hence the offer, since the item in question was under some sort of expert warding that she thought she'd need help to get through.
We agreed to split the proceeds for cashing the so called 'Staff of Destruction', and I think I did a fair bit of bargaining. Enough, at least, to make it appear as if I wasn't going to snatch the damn thing at the earliest possible instant and use it for my own devices.
You know, like she seemed intent on doing.
You see, I'd known opportunists during my life. Been one myself, on occasion. And I'd known professionals. Also been one myself, though not quite as often as the latter.
She was most definitely the latter.
I wasn't _certain_ that she didn't just want to do this for the money. I had reliable doubts about it, though ...
Oh, well. Makes it a bit more fair to plan to double cross the double crosser.
At least she wasn't a cross dresser.
There really wasn't much preparation to be done, and she'd mapped out the defenses around our target very well, making the whole thing simple.
Far too simple.
If I didn't know better, I'd have said that she'd had inside help.
Oh. Wait. I didn't know better.
The culmination being me sitting there, brooding, as I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And considered that, next time I do something like this, I ought to bring by a book.
Then Fouquet's signal came. A shudder of the ground, a cloud of dirt and dust rising from the opposite end of the Academy compound to that which I was watching, a feeling of a spell going off from that direction.
Deception is the mother of all warfare, or somesuch, and Fouquet had drawn the attention of pretty much every mage in that complex with that display.
It was time to get this party started.

---

*grumble* And I've actually got a follow up plot.
Katz has been known to mess with minds. And to mess up minds. Rip apart minds? Stuff like that. Well, part of his trying to get in good with at least some people at the Academy would happen to include his first try at _fixing_ one.
I'm shaking my head and alternately crackling madly and sighing in surrender at the inevitable ramifications of that bit.
Also, being his usual tactless self and faux pax waiting to happen would get him mixed up in local politics.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Valles]

---

---

"Regardless, both of the remaining Archers are going to present extremely difficult problems - because their prototypes, the physical incarnations that started or will start their legends... are still alive. More, they're involved in this War - as Masters."
"So... They're alive, but at the same time their future incarnations are also somebody else's Servants?" Shirou said slowly, looking a little unsettled by the prospect.
"Yes. And... one of the problems with being a 'hero of justice' is that justice isn't a word with any kindness in it - it has no room for mercy, even when those it's coming for have hopes and dreams and loves of their own." Again, he didn't continue the statement, instead letting the meaning penetrate and waiting for the person the message was meant for to decide what to do about it.
"You're saying... that I..."
Caster shrugged. "He's lost his faith, somewhere in the blood. Wants to go back, change the direction of his life and make it all never happen... Even if the alternative is worse."

---

---

..oh LORD but that scene is a bitch. How the hell does Shirou take something like that? How does anyone, for that matter? GAH.
Oh, and the full version of Kirameku Namida wa Hoshi Ni kicks ass beyond all imagination.
I'm just going to skip away from this for now and hope that either feedback shakes something loose or a lightning bolt strikes. Maybe some Servant romance in the meantime.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[classicdrogn]

At a guess... I think he'd probably be out of it for a little bit, before rationalizing that whatever happened to this future self between then and now, he's really a different person, and all the present Shiro can do is try not to become someone like that, while giving his all as he sees fit.
But then, I didn't really watch enough of F/SN to get a soilid handle on the characters, just enough to know I wanted to burn it to CDR to watch later, someday when I didn't have things distracting me. (Liikke, oh, starting a couple weks form now, when I've moved and no broadband is available, with crappy phone lines that make dialup max out around 14-20kbps... and a house with phone wiring so old, it still has a black rotary hardwired to the wall...)
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Rieverre]

Oh, note, and a bit of stalinization: the sickle Perseus uses in the earlier scene isn't a Noble Phantasm. I went through Fuyuki-wiki again and

---

Harpe - The Snake-Hunter Sickle
What Perseus used to kill the Gorgon. Not that great a weapon, but posseses the ability of "refraction prolonging", a divine skill that cancels out special abilities from immortality and prevents recovery of wounds taken by Harpe. Probably would make a good anti-Dead Apostle weapon. (Healing by natural means is possible). Gilgamesh has the original in his vault.

---

So he's got beef against Gil too, it seems.
Also, will need to stalinize the Perseus entry for the Aegis with

---

??
A bronze mirror-like shield that projects information from the surrounding environment on its surface so the user can rely on that information to move around without having to move himself away from the mirror. It can also be used as a sort of detection device as it tranmits the heartbeats of those in the area. Used by Perseus.

---

And, yeah, I think Shiro's going to be pretty 'bwah?' about that particular bit of revelation.
You know, it occurs to me that this would be a perfect time for either a 'next morning' timeskip _or_ somebody attacking the estate. Like Illya and Herc.
Speaking of whom, the final scene for that team-up was knocking around my noggin' ...

---

The gargantuan blade tore through the plaster and brick without as much as a hitch, power alone driving the stone weapon forward as its wielder roared.
It's target veered aside from his charge, spindly limbs lauching the body into the air to land, crouching, on the wall above, and cling to it like some sort of oversized spider.

Berserker didn't hesitate - wouldn't have, even had he been able to - reversing the swing of the obscenely heavy weapon with seemingly casual ease that nonetheless had the pavement beneath his feet crack with strain.
The wall crumbled as the sword - more a blunt than an edged weapon, really, given how it had been chiseled from stone - ripped through it again.
Assassin dove through the ensuing cloud of dust and rubble without hesitation, his nimble body slipping aside the larger Servant's follow up, briefly touching down on the stone sword's edge, to finally dash past Berserker in a blur with a sound akin to steel scraping on stone accompanying it.
This incarnation of Heracles may have been a mostly mindless killing machine, but its combat instincts were still superb, and it was even more resilient than the other possible ones would have been.
The Hassan's dagger was evaded, not completely, but enough - the original intent of the Assassin had been to plant it hilt-deep in his opponent's eye, which the Berserker had avoided simply by turning his head aside and letting the blade - not even a Noble Phantasm - skitter across rock-hard skin.
Yes, the black-clad Servant was faster, but he could hardly cause his opponent any harm. As little as a day ago, things would have been different ... unfortunately, the presently one-armed Assassin couldn't change the past, or certain unfortunate events therein. His only consolation being that his opponent from then had apparently gotten off worse.
Though the dark Servant's Master had not been pleased, regardless.
Which, he reflected as he dodged a backfist from a limb that could likely dent battleship armor without even trying, was part of the reason for his being here, now, and trying not to get killed.
Said task was getting harder and harder to accomplish, though. The Assassin wasn't one for prolonged combat, and his opponent's stamina seemed limitless.
Berserker roared again, bringing his weapon around in a mighty swing ...
... and stopped, mid-attack, as crimson sigils flared along his body, spreading through the ground he stood on and his huge weapon.
The Assassin stepped back, still on guard, but if he could have smirked he would have.
Yes, he thought as he saw his Master's descendant dragging the giant's insensate Master out from a shadowed alcove a ways up the street. His Master may not have shunned cruelty, but he wasn't _stupid_. The tome in the boy's hand almost glowed with power, a testament to the newly 'acquired' Command Spells.
'And this brute will certainly be of aid to us,' he regarded the now stock-still Berserker, no longer illuminated but with the sigils and designs burned into his stone-like skin, with as much sardonic satisfaction as he'd experienced since being summoned to this War.

---

Of course, things couldn't be _that_ simple for Team Matou. Shinji manages to steal the Reiju (or rather, the Sealing tome given to him by his gramps does. he just stands there looking smug), but loses Illya to a group of Association Magi, because after acquiring them he'd already written her off as inconsequential.
Yes, Zouken didn't tell the runt _everything_, just that he should bring the Einzbern girl back along with her Servant. Unfortunately, Shinji, flush with 'victory', decided dealing with the Magi after all that would be too bothersome and doesn't pursue.
Boy, does he get chewed out afterwards.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[SkyeFire]

Valles wrote:
"You're saying... that I..."
Caster shrugged. "He's lost his faith, somewhere in the blood. Wants to go back, change the direction of his life and make it all never happen... Even if the alternative is worse."

..oh LORD but that scene is a bitch. How the hell does Shirou take something like that? How does anyone, for that matter? GAH.
Oh, and the full version of Kirameku Namida wa Hoshi Ni kicks ass beyond all imagination.
I'm just going to skip away from this for now and hope that either feedback shakes something loose or a lightning bolt strikes. Maybe some Servant romance in the meantime.
===============================================
Well, for my part, I see Shirou looking off into the distance with his "I've just made a decision and nothing's going to stop me expression"....
"Justice isn't worth fighting for, if it doesn't have any... any *caring* in it. I wanted to be a 'warrior of justice' because I *cared* about the people who were suffering. Justice for it's own sake is just... empty." He turned to look sidelong at Caster, an odd sort of smile playing around his lips. "If he's forgotten that, I suppose *someone* will have to.. remind him."
Caster looked apprehensive. "He's not *you* anymore -- there's no guarantee that he'll listen to you. In fact, there's no guarantee that he even *can* change, anymore."
Shirou's odd smile grew and hardened into something that was distinctly disturbing, on such a gentle person's face. "Oh, I can make him listen -- I know how, after all. Who better?"
Caster's expression was shading towards mildly alarmed as he eyed Shirou's quietly vibrating fists, but he held his tongue. After a moment, Shirou turned away and stared out the window again, obviously looking at something other than the view. "And besides... going back is no good. Trying to change what you did is meaningless, even if you can do it. You have to *fix* the things that you break, make up for what you've done wrong... you have to go *forward.* That's another thing he's forgotten." The younger man's face shifted, and suddenly his resemblance to his Heroic Incarnation was much more obvious. "I suppose I'll have to teach by example. One way or another."

Okay, just my $0.02.

[Rieverre]

Fore!

---

It was reflex action, really. The first thing she'd heard upon coming back to had been unfamiliar voices, the first thing she'd felt had been restrains, both physical and mystical, that were supposed to keep her bound and immobile.
No normal person would have managed it. No normal Magi either.
Illyasviel von Einzbern was far from normal, though. She'd been _born_ for the sole purpose of fighting in the War. Mystical restrains that would stop or at least hamper Magi severely had less effect on someone whose body was, for all intents and purposes, a collection of Magic Circuits. Some Magi spent their lives seeking power, while she, from a certain point of view, was power incarnate.
It was one of the reasons why she'd not gone insane under the constant mental pressure of having had a bond to ...
... Berserker ...
... she'd almost called out, despite being aware of the futility of said action on a level more intimate than was possible for non-magic users. To a being like her, the lack of Reiju that had been almost integrated into the intricacies of her own Magic Circuits by then, was like the sudden lack of a limb.
The only being she'd _known_ cared for her, even if its way of doing so had been crude, simplistic, and basically centered around the concept of 'you hurt Master. you die!', was gone.
There were many variables that decided how efficiently a Magic Circuit could direct mana, or with how much capacity it could do so. The emotional state of the was one such variable.
The realization of captivity, the trauma of knowing that someone had taken her only 'friend' from her ...
What followed was rather like the result of setting off an explosive charge in an enclosed space.
***
Heinrich Krause was no longer concerned. He'd gone past that a few moments ago, headed past 'worried', and somehow wound up stopping at 'furious'.
True, he'd initially only been ordered to observe, but his patrons in the Association hadn't limited themselves to that, and while their suggestions were not strictly within the limits set by his motherhouse's directives ...
... well, everybody and their dog knew that those were more like guidelines anyway, unless you were actually inept enough to get caught breaking them.
A Magi was only worth as much as his ambition was powerful, or so the old proverb stated.
Traditionally, the War was not to be interfered with.
Tradition, though, only applied when it could be made useful. Heinrich was priviliged enough that his patrons had enlightened him.
Power is power.
And Heinrich had always been quite ambitious.
He'd always been very good at his job, both official and not, else his patrons wouldn't have had him sent to Fuyuki in the first place.
They'd located the Einzbern homonculus early on, they'd bided their time, they'd taken advantage of a situation that, whilst dangerous, had also served them their target on a silver platter.
The Gods had gone ahead and given Heinrich the boon of a short sighted adversary, something he'd always been fond of. The strike team wouldn't have been able to directly overwhelm the Matou brat _and_ his Servant ... or Servants, but they'd not been required to.
All it had taken was a little pressure, posturing, and acting for him to hand over the 'useless, now that she doesn't have Reiju' girl to 'her Einzbern bodyguards'.
Sniveling coward. How people like that were able to become Masters in the first place, Heinrich didn't know and didn't much care.
Now, though ... now things were not looking all that rosy.
They'd brought the homonculus back, retrieved restrains that would hold even Heinrich himself - he'd though this with more than a little pride, since he'd been the one to design them - and were about to secure it in a null-zone cell ...
There was nothing left of the two apprentices who'd been assigned this task, save scraps of meat and bone splattered over the walls of said cell.
And now that subhuman _thing_ was loose in their facility - if she were to get out, things would become distinctly unpleasant for the Magi present. If not directly, then when the reports came in.
Doctoring them was always an option, he knew, but things like that had a nasty habit of coming to light under the Questors of the Association. The Clock Tower in particular.
"Sir! We have it!" one of the apprentices tied into the facility's wards exclaimed, unfocused eyes tracking movement he alone was seeing. "The locking and containment wards of the outer storage chambers have been tripped."
Well, that was a mixed blessing. Hopefully, it could be captured and contained before it caused too much of a mess.
***
... there was only darkness.
She jerked in surprise at the sudden shift in surroundings, finally regaining some semblance of sanity again.
Not that she'd been entirely out of it, but she realized that she hadn't exactly thought in terms other than immediate survival after managing to free herself.
She'd been running on desperation, sorrow, anger ... and had recognized that, the fluctuations in power it brought - so she'd taken the path of most resistance, hoping to bring her captors' strength and numbers down by as much as she could before those aftereffects left her a burned out mess.
How that reasoning had caused her to break the strongest ward she could sense in her vicinity, she couldn't exactly tell, though she'd left a trail of broken Magi and Apprentices in her wake in the process.
It wasn't much of a chamber to look at, the place she'd gone into - shelves, shelves, and nothing but steel supports and shelves. And cardboard. The occasional crate. The _contents_, though, were powerful to her senses. Plain as a star on a cloudless country night.
Then pursuit had caught up, and she was dodging, forcing more power through her Circuits, and flinging it towards the newcomers.
What she'd been made for.
In a flash of hindsight, Illya realized the display had cost her a few years of her already stretched existence. As a homonculus, a magical construct, she'd already taken up a lease on it when she'd first been created. Oh well. It wasn't like she'd had much to look forward to, or much to go back to ...
... Berserker ...
Revenge for that. Maybe. Maybe she was wrong and did have something, as shallow as the concept was, to look forward to.
Now, though?
Her body felt distant, like during an astral projection, and she only felt her form defined by the Circuits' metaphysical representation.
She remembered the exchange of spells, the hectic mystical slugfest among the shelves and crates of the magical storeroom - that was the only thing the place could have been, all things considered.
She'd ducked through the space between two shelves, come out on the other side, let loose a brief and overcharged burst that corroded the steel supports of it ...
With a bit of help the whole thing collapsed onto a pair of her assailants, before one of them - a dour looking man who was too controlled to be an Apprentice but not really powerful enough to go much past graduating as a Magi - set loose some sort of Force Projection spell in his last moment before being crushed.
She recalled her body being picked up and flung into the next steel and wood contraption. Her personal wards had held before the impact, and buckled moments later, whereupon she slammed back-first into a wooden crate.
For a moment, there had been silence. Then the sound of something _rolling_ came, and her body ached too much for her to turn her head and look. Something solid and smooth bumped into a haphazardly outflung arm, and her Circuits were suddenly resonating ...
Now there was only this darkness.
Was this death?
If so, she thought, then ... it wouldn't be so bad.
And suddenly, her Circuits hummed. There, in the distance, something flickered.
Illya willed herself to move, and did, floating through the inky blackness towards ...
Oh, how cliche. A light in the darkness. How many novices fell for this sort of trap at one time or another ... sadly, she didn't see how she had much of a choice in this situation.
Maybe she _was_ still alive somewhere, on the ground, stunned ... if so, she wasn't about to just stay there and _die_, all comfort aside. Not if she had a choice!
Of course, 'do nothing' was also a choice, but it wasn't one she'd contemplated.
To Illyasviel von Einzbern, life was motion and change. Something she secretly, desperately craved.
The flicker grew steadily, little more than a shade of slightly off-color blackness at first, then a sheen of some sort ...
Finally, the palms of her hands came to rest on a smooth surface. Black, somehow reflective even with the only lighting coming from Illya's own 'body' of glowing green Magic Circuits.
Nothing happened.
Then, the outlines of where she held her 'hands' sparked, flickers of azure appearing around the spot like fairy fire or ghost-lights.
Nothing changed, or so she thought, before she realized the eyes she saw 'reflected' back at her were not her own.
Simply because the last time she'd checked, her astral body was quite definitel _female_, whereas that one ...
What is it you want? What is it you seek?
It was as if the question had echoed within her mind with the strength of a cannon-shot's report, resonating with her Circuits and striking her Self.
The reply that came wasn't one made with words but something far more primal.
Lend me your strength. I shall lend you mine. Until such a time when we may both stand on our own.
***
"Heilige Scheisse," holy shit, Heinrich mumbled.
The storage chamber had been ... well, not totalled. Close, though.
Artifacts lay strewn where they'd fallen after one of the stands had been collapsed, more littered the ground elsewhere - results of spells gone off target - and the air was almost bitter with a mixture of powdered plaster and burnt mana.
And that was without mentioning the bodies. Not as many as in the corridors, but still ...
"Over here!"
Heinrich turned and waded into the now silent chamber, between broken wood, bent steel, the occasional puddle of blood and surviving artifact.
Hiroyuki Takeshi and his two Apprentices were in the process of putting a kekkai around an insensate white haired girl.
Apparently, she'd gone through a metal support, then slammed into a crate with enough force to splinter and nearly break the wood around her impact point, which had knocked her out.
Good.
Good.
He allowed himself a sigh of relief when Takeshi informed him the homonculus had only taken minimal damage, and her Circuits were still intact.
Well, that wasn't exactly pristine, but nobody said it needed to be. His patrons merely required that the thing still functioned after retrieval.
Strange though ...
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.
The sound carried through the air, not coming from any one place but seemingly from all around them, making the present Magi and Apprentices startle.
Heinrich's foot bumped into something, and he looked down.
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
A sphere, somwhat smaller than a volleyball, rolled away from where he'd kicked it ... trailing sparks?
"We ... may have a slight problem here," Takeshi called out, his hands a blur and his Apprentices both chanting with increasing speed.
The green radiance of Magic Circuits coming to the fore covered Einzbern's body, the threads of power seemingly reaching outwards to draw ...
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
The cloying sensation of burnt mana was momentarily gone, and Heinrich's eyes went wide as he backed away, slowly, then with increasing speed ...
"Containment!" he shouted, slamming the door shut as he dashed into the corridor. Oh, he did not like where this was going one bit, and to hell with Takeshi - there was no time to tear him away from the spellcasting anyway, since wards were very delicate and had a tendency to do ... weird ... things when not properly laid or completed. "I want this whole section locked down and isolated, _now_!"
He turned, slammed both hands into the door, and activated his own Circuits. Others joined.
There was a brief flash of power coming from the locking spells that were slowly starting to be layered on the wall and door, then ... nothing.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
But the _whisper_ still reached them, even as something in the storage chamber twisted the mana, and Heinrich remembered where he'd felt something remotely similar before.
"A summoning? No, something ..."
Those were the last things he said, as two dark red lengths of metal suddenly went _through_ the hastily layered protections and the reinforced metal of the door ... before going into and through his chest.
There was a moment of chaos as he slid down, and the concrete wall seemed to erupt outwards with a burst of ... amber? ... but as the light dimmed he saw the bedamned homonculus being carried from the wreckage by what could only be a Servant.
One wielding a dark red, two-pronged spear in his free hand.
Invictus.
And then, for Heinrich, there was only darkness.
A rather permanent one.

---

I felt the urge to write this bit, and it just wouldn't let me go.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm