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“Oh, forgot to mention. You remember how I can use the 72 Transformations technique to take just about any form I want?” Wukong replied. After his Master nodded, he continued with a sidelong glance at your party, “Well, let’s just say I could turn myself into a stone statue if I really wanted to. And turn myself back.”

“Oh come on...” Rushorou sighed in exasperation, beating you to it. Is there no end to the number of cheat-skills this guy has!?!

“Хopoшo*, but do not rest easy just yet… finish them off quickly.” Fyodor ordered his Servant while short on breath, before taking several gulps from a water-bottle.

[*Pronounced ‘harasho’ if spelled in roman letters]

“You should go all-out too Caster,” Kiara added, “If we win, it won’t matter if they learned your True Name.”

After ruffling his fur, Wukong slammed the tip of his staff into the ground as you detected his and the Caster’s magical energy surging.

Avenger’s ready to start attacking, but you wonder if it’s time for her sun-related Noble Phantasm to make its debut since your opponents aren’t holding anything back. Scorching the battlefield, blinding the enemy, and increasing her overall power may be what you need to throw off whatever Wukong and Caster of Red were doing, compensate for the damage she took earlier, and perhaps create an opening to attack Wukong’s Master. On the other hand, it may be more efficient to attack normally with full force to interrupt them as they prepare to make use of their Noble Phantasms. Hopefully whatever Rushorou decides to do won’t get in your way.

You’ll opt to:
> Let Avenger attack at her discretion and aim to take down Fyodor if the opportunity presents itself (y/n on whether lethal force on the Masters is the default).
> Order Avenger to use her sun-related Noble Phantasm to dazzle your enemies, and when they’re disoriented you’ll neutralize Wukong’s Master by any means necessary (y/n on whether lethal force on the Masters is the default).
> Have Avenger primarily focus her attacks on Caster of Red and secondarily on any clones Wukong generates, while leaving his main body to Rushorou’s Lancer. The Caster’s NP may prove dangerous, so you’d prefer to just stop her from using it.
> Something different (write-in)

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To commemorate the start of thread 8, I’ve also included a tl;dr recap of the quest’s timeline:

It’s a Holy Grail War where there are 28 Servants total, with a group of seven corresponding to four color-classifications “Aka no”, “Kuro no”, “of Red”, and “of Black” (I misspelled Aka in the first couple threads, please headcanon it as the correct version if you review the archives). The color-classifications aren’t teams, it’s still officially a free-for-all. The war takes place in an artificial world called Akeldama, a city whose layout resembles that of Tokyo. A few thousand people had been abducted at random to fill the roles of the Masters in the Grail War. Due to various circumstances, most have perished, with many of the deceased filling the ranks of an undead army.

The first day:

Midday – Anon wakes up in a deserted city without memories, finds a church and summons Avenger of Red (totally not an edgier version of Circe from Sweets-Loving QM’s Akeldama quest) while being teleported into another deserted city. They meet Truvietianne Edelfelt (whose nickname switches between Truvi and Anne) and Lancer of Black (who they later learn to be Perseus) and end up deciding to stick together for a while. Kuro no Lancer (who is later revealed to be Sun Wukong) skirmishes against Perseus before deciding to leave. Two high-school boys (Yumigawa Rushorou, who has Lancer of Red and Matsuda Ryuuta who has Caster of Black) that Anon met in the first city join the party as well, along with their Servants.

Late afternoon – Miss Edelfelt brings everyone up to speed on the history of the Fuyuki Holy Grail Wars. Anon directs Avenger to blow up a couple of ship-based Servants, which they do successfully. Anon’s group finds an abandoned pub with food stocks and has lunch, then split up to survey the city’s leylines to get the lay of the land and find some enemy Servants. Anon and Truvietianne take their Servants as one group, fight Aka no Rider, his army, and an unidentified Archer. Anon eventually uses a Command Spell to let Avenger teleport everyone out of a sticky situation back to the church from the first city. Avenger gives Anon a checkup on his elemental affinity and finds that it’s Ether, but two kinds of it (the normal kind and the extinct type from the Age of Gods). Anon gets a little greedy and suggests he try to summon another Servant, but Avenger gets him to walk it back. Anne and Perseus went into the city to see if there were any survivors, and come back with a diminutive schoolteacher named Koyama Komoe (who goes by Koko because that’s way easier to remember and type). They meet the war’s overseer Triscus Adajio and his bodyguard, get some snarky exposition from them, then learn that he’s about to teleport every remaining human and undead monster out of the preliminary city into random locations in the main one. They teleport back and reunite with Rushorou and Ryuuta, then decide to try to rescue the remaining civilians that night.

Evening/nightfall – Anon and Avenger teleport to one of the civilians, a building engineer named Tachibana Suzaku. They destroy some undead monsters and encounter Rider of Red and his telepathic Master, Abraxas. Anon and Abraxas exchange information then part ways peacefully. After they take Suzaku to their base they try to find another civilian in a subway station, but only get to her as she’s being bitten by a ghoul. Anon defeats the monster and decides to use one of Avenger’s Noble Phantasms to alter the course of the woman’s transformation so she isn’t reduced to a mindless zombie. She turns into an albino vampire and tentatively goes by ‘Jen’. They interrogate the ghoul, then Jen kills him before they return to base. Anne and Rushorou reported encountering a Dead Apostle Master named Rusalka and her Servant Aka no Lancer Diomedes while trying to recover a civilian, and ended up ceding the civilian’s custody to Rusalka and Diomedes. Anon then passes out.

Night: Anon is asleep and has a dream involving Avenger’s past.

The second day:

Late morning/early afternoon: When Anon wakes up he chats with Jen, learning that she wants to help him kill Servants among other things. He then has a late breakfast with Avenger, where they talk about his dream and some of the rules of the Fate setting. They get Jen and practice magic for a few hours.

Later afternoon: Anon and Avenger rejoin the rest of the Masters for a strategy meeting and a lecture on the Dead Apostle life-cycle from Truvietianne. They decide to relocate their base, so Anon, Rushorou, and Ryuuta take their Servants and see to securing the target area after leaving Anne and Jen with Koko and Suzaku to do some internet research. Anon tries out rock-climbing with the lads, gets a fragmentary memory flashback, and chooses to carry a mace and gladii as weapons. Rushorou goes back to base to guard against nearby chaos, and Anon goes with Avenger to fight the Archer from the day before, learning that she’s probably an Amazon. They go for hit and run tactics from long range and gradually chip away at her, but are interrupted by Kuro no Berserker (totally not Adelheid from Sweets-Loving QM’s Akeldama quest), who shoots Avenger and asks them a few questions before they juke her. The Berserker and Archer opt against committing to chasing Anon and Avenger down, so they rejoin Ryuuta and his Caster. Soon after, Anne calls Anon and asks for him to return since the situation at their base had gotten even more chaotic. They do, then teleport Koko and Suzaku to Ryuuta and his Caster for their safety before everyone remaining goes to find Perseus, who went to ambush Sun Wukong alone. They find that he wounded Wukong’s shoulder and further weakened his immortality, but took substantial damage in Wukong’s counterattack. Wukong’s Master, Fyodor Boglyubov reveals himself along with his allies, Caster of Red and her Master, Sessyouin Kiara. After a brief discussion, Perseus petrifies Wukong and sends the rest of his allies into a desperate flight. The pursuit has some twists and turns, culminating in Wukong revealing that it was a clone that was petrified and his main body was actually hiding in Fyodor’s robes in the form of an ant. He also insinuated that he is capable of eventually reversing the petrification process on himself and that Anne, Jen, and Perseus are at his mercy, but you’re reluctant to take that at face-value.

There are also a few side-story interludes sprinkled throughout the threads, notably the adventure of underachieving otaku Ogawara Yatsuhide and his fiery Berserker of Black, Kiyohime.

>>5667734
> Have Avenger primarily focus her attacks on Caster of Red and secondarily on any clones Wukong generates, while leaving his main body to Rushorou’s Lancer. The Caster’s NP may prove dangerous, so you’d prefer to just stop her from using it.

>>5667732
Btw Anon here look like Manhwa protagonist

>>5667732

> Have Avenger primarily focus her attacks on Caster of Red and secondarily on any clones Wukong generates, while leaving his main body to Rushorou’s Lancer. The Caster’s NP may prove dangerous, so you’d prefer to just stop her from using it.
>Write-In: Rallying Rushorou we wil use openings made when we break Fyodor off from Wukong and wound him into conceding, aim for the tendons and the more painful spots to be hit in

We're back at last! And I am finally ready to make Monkey brain soup out of Wukong for all his cheating bullshit

>>5667830
>>5667851
I see you'll be going for the often overlooked ATTACK THEM WHILE THEY POWER-UP approach.
>>5667834
I'm not familiar with Manhwa so I'll take your word for it.
Also if it's the hair I'm open to suggestions on restyling it, it just happened to turn out that way when I was brainstorming it.

>>5668368

Gotta have them waste that energy from powering up to avoid healing and other important things. I will sew what wins out first our brutal pragmatism or this endless cheating bullshit

>>5668546
>endless cheating bullshit
Accurate
His powers and feats from the mythology were ridiculous.

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“Avenger, focus fire on the Caster primarily; we should shut her down in case her Hougu is dangerous. Also destroy Wukong’s clones, but leave the main body to Rushorou’s Servant.” You advise your Servant as she begins firing. She directs her attacks as you suggested, and both Caster of Red and her robot are both forced to spend their efforts desperately trying to evade Avenger’s unrelenting fusillade.

“Ruyi Jingu Bang!” Wukong shouts as he rushes toward Lancer of Red and swings his staff in a wide sweep. As she leaps over his strike, you notice the air where he swung the staff appears to have become a bit more opaque, as though something had been smeared into it. His Noble Phantasm has some kind of space-freezing ability from what you can intuit. The snow-white woman retaliated by igniting an aura of flame around herself and repeatedly thrusting her spear toward the monkey king from different angles, forcing him back but not scoring a decisive blow.

Concerned about how long she can maintain the upper hand in the face of the dangerous ability of Ruyi Jingu Bang, you turn to Rushorou and say, “Our Servants bought us an opening, let’s get the priest.”

After the younger man’s nod of assent, the two of you run toward the two opposing Masters while their Servants are occupied; Caster of Red is still firmly on the back foot in the face of Avenger’s assault, but Wukong started creating more clones from his hairs after he bought himself a moment of respite. Fortunately, it appears that between Lancer of Red’s flaming aura and Avenger’s redirected attacks scorching them, they won’t be overwhelming your Servants anytime soon, as they appear to be getting destroyed right as they’re being created. Visibly irked, the monkey king increases the length and diameter of his staff to the point that is looks like he’s swinging a tree-trunk around and sweeps it through the air at both Rushorou’s and your own Servant, who have to reposition themselves to avoid being hit and pinned in place.

As Fyodor and Kiara try to flee into the subway station, you clip your mace back onto your bandolier and draw a gladius as you prepare to quickly spring forward and cut the tendons in priest’s legs with it. You estimate you won’t need to kill him, just inflict enough pain and injury to coerce him into conceding. As your swift footsteps quickly close the gap your quarry realizes that he has no chance of outrunning you, so he turns around as he draws a knife of some sort from his robes and warns, “Halt! Those who live by the-”

You can tell that the man is too tired from supplying his Servant with energy to do much with his weapon, so you simply slash your blade against his hard enough to knock the knife out of his hand. Even as the enchantment from Avenger that augmented your strength starts to wear off, you can tell that without it you’re still far stronger than he is. With your free hand, you close a firm grip around his shoulder and shove him to the ground before ordering, “Concede as a Master if you value your life.”

“Stop!” Kiara screams over the crashing noises of your Servants’ battle, causing you to glance up at her as she runs toward you. As your eyes meet, you feel as though your nerves seized up as she pleads, “Don’t hurt him, please.” Of course, what were you thinking? This is probably all a misunderstanding, Fyodor’s surely a good man at heart. This isn’t the time for…

Hold up, is she trying to hypnotize you?! This is bad; you’d assumed that once you were clear of the enemy Servants that there wouldn’t be any issue subduing the Masters, but if Kiara’s capable of mental attacks you need to act quickly before she can do something really dangerous like… you actually have no idea what kind of things she could do. Induced paralysis? Mind control? You don’t want to find out.

“Enough! Not another word!” You shout at her; though she appears unfazed by your outburst she falls silent regardless. Tightly gripping and lifting the priest by the part of his robes near his neck, you poke your gladius slightly into his stomach as you growl, “No more stalling. Stand your Servant down or I run you through.”

You hear a faint buzzing sound behind you as the priest stammers, “A-alright, Lancer, stand down.”

“Command Seal!” You remind him as you stab your blade slightly further in.

Rushorou, who’d caught up with you a few moments ago, suddenly shouts, “Don’t hesitate! Wukong was-!”

A vice-grip closes around your sword-arm as the voice of Sun Wukong intones, “Gotta give you credit, it takes some balls to break away from your Servants like that.”

“Kaze no Mikadzuki ken!” You hear Rushorou shout as he swings his sword, but you can’t see whether it amounted to anything. How could this have happened?! Your bases were covered! As you turn your head and throw your elbow back, you find a heavily-charred monkey king with a newly-cut slash mark across his shoulder holding Rushorou’s wrists and the hilt of his sword in one hand and leering at you right before your elbow smashes into his face.

Wincing in pain, Wukong grunts, “That one hurt!” before hopping back, pulling you and Rushorou with him. Swinging the two of you into each other full force, he then hurls you both into a wall before you can react.

Pushing yourself off the floor as you regain your senses, you find yourself asking in irate frustration, “How? Just… HOW?!”

“Your two girlfriends did a good job burning the likes of me away right as we were spawned, but I was able to transform into a fly and hide behind the main body in the nick of time for his Magic Resistance to soak up the heat.” Looking over his body, which was burned so heavily that most of his fur was gone and his skin was blackened, he continued, “Well, most of the heat. Of course, I snuck here unnoticed right away.”

“Avenger, what’s your status?” You ask your Servant telepathically. This clone may have caught you off-guard, but you’re not giving up. You may be covered in bruises now, but you feel a grim determination building in you. This insufferable monkey has been a thorn in your side for long enough. He may be a bit stronger than the one you defeated earlier, but he’s also burned so badly that you’d bet a glancing punch could peel off a big patch of his skin. With Rushorou helping you and his Master down for the count, you estimate you can win… so long as Kiara doesn’t have some ace up her sleeve that can shut you down.

“The Caster’s on her last legs, but Wukong’s main body is a tough nut to crack. Haven’t you cornered their Masters by now?” Your Servant asked, unaware of the monkey king’s latest trick.

Before you respond, you sense another Servant’s presence bee-lining it toward the battle with Sun Wukong’s main body. Fyodor says to his Servant, “Oi, I thought you crushed that guy earlier!”

“I guess he was too angry to die?” The clone of Wukong replied with a little bit of embarrassment slipping into his tone.

Recalling that Truvietianne had mentioned Wukong was probably fighting Kuro no Archer before Perseus engaged him, you realize this could be the turning point you needed. You also hear Fyodor respond in rising frustration of his own, “And you said you eliminated Perseus. Shouldn’t your Multi-Layered Immortality be restoring if his Spirit Core was extinguished?”

A realization dawning on him, Wukong answered, “It… really should have started to by now. Let’s see, I put him on death’s door, that crazy chick ate his heart at the last minute, and then she…” Stopping himself, the clone of Wukong turned and gave you a glare as he asked, “What kind of monster is she? The one that looks like you.”

This is happening way too fast. Is Perseus actually dead? Did Jen just betray you and kill him? Did something happen to her after she did it? How did a clone of Wukong get there? Is Wukong’s immortality skill about to reboot and make him nearly invincible?!

You don’t really have time to think about this. What will you do now:

Regarding the situation of Wukong demanding an answer from you:
> “I’ll leave you guessing as I beat you senseless. Come on Rushorou, we’re taking him down.” Stand and fight!
> “If you know what vampires and Dead Apostles are, she seems to be something like that, but with some unusual features. I don’t really know more than that. But are you sure Perseus was killed?” Give them something while fishing for information.
> Make something up that sounds plausible or deflect to try to buy time (write-in)

Regarding what to tell Avenger:
> “They’re putting up more resistance than expected, but I’ll handle it. Just make sure none of Wukong’s clones get away.”
> “Break off and come here ASAP. One of Wukong’s clones is here and there’s more to Caster of Red’s Master than meets the eye.”
> “A Servant who has a score to settle with Wukong is on his way. Let him fight in your place when he arrives and then head over here ASAP.”
> Something different? (write-in)

>>5670298
>> “I’ll leave you guessing as I beat you senseless. Come on Rushorou, we’re taking him down.” Stand and fight!
> “They’re putting up more resistance than expected, but I’ll handle it. Just make sure none of Wukong’s clones get away.”

To Low Speed Anti-Divine QM: I apologize for hijacking/interrupting your thread but I want to run something by you. I’ve been planning a Grail War quest that has a different feel than yours. Mine is more like a Stay Night or Zero situation where we have a character with definite, known abilities and backstory in a location known to him and we fight enemy Masters with our Servant to be the last ones standing. I’m sure there would be overlap between our audiences but I don’t mean to try to compete with you. I’m still in the early stages but I don’t want to try to tread on your turf so I wanted to ask if, should your quest still be running by the time I get mine ready, I could have your permission to run mine concurrently.

>>5670298
>>5670467
+1

>Percy
Book of Job

>>5670298

>A realization dawning on him, Wukong answered, “It… really should have started to by now. Let’s see, I put him on death’s door, that crazy chick ate his heart at the last minute, and then she…” Stopping himself, the clone of Wukong turned and gave you a glare as he asked, “What kind of monster is she? The one that looks like you.”

Wait a minute, if Wukong is still affected by Harpe and Jen DID eat Percy's heart and did a "Betrayal"(dunno how genuine it is yet)....something tells me we're gonna have to do thurough interogation of what the fuck happened there when we get back.

> “If you know what vampires and Dead Apostles are, she seems to be something like that, but with some unusual features. I don’t really know more than that. But are you sure Perseus was killed?” Give them something while fishing for information.
> Make something up that sounds plausible: "So what's it to you if she somehow ate his heart and he's still going? Way I understand it Servants have durability that well exceeds humans, so shouldn't you be capable of something lile this?"

I genuinely don't know what to do but I think getting this cheating bastard to give his own thoughts on what's going on may help us theorize what her deal is. I hate how meta it is, but I think Wukong pointing out the peculiarites of Jen will set us to figuring out what we Accidentally'd into the world

> “They’re putting up more resistance than expected, but I’ll handle it. Just make sure none of Wukong’s clones get away.”
> Something else: Inform Avenger of Kiara's attempted hypnosis so she can prepare something up for when we drag her in as a prisoner.

We'll have to try and continue to delay and soften up Wukong until they have to deal with Ashva coming back. They're backed into a corner but not done yet fellas so be sure to be pepared for some last ditch effort to splatter us

Rolled 37, 19, 2 = 58 (3d100)

>>5670467
>>5670542
Anon is done with talk, time to settle things with steel and blood! Roll Bo3 1d100 to see how much fortune favors you (the three I'm rolling are for Rushorou).

>>5670478
I appreciate you giving me notice even though you didn't really have to. If there's a story you want to tell, go ahead and tell it. There's nothing stopping my current players from switching between two Fate quests, if anything it may boost morale to have story updates in general coming out more often. And if your writing is better than mine or your story is better received I'm not so egotistical about the quality of my own writing to get passive-aggressive/seethe about it. If anything the satisfaction I'm looking for is definitively stepping out of the shadow of the previous Fate quests, which while my story is taking on a life of its own I don't think I'm quite there yet.

>>5670605
>if Wukong is still affected by Harpe and Jen DID eat Percy's heart and did a "Betrayal"(dunno how genuine it is yet)
One of the things I did in the intervening time between the last thread going off the board and posting this one was write a couple interludes that go into detail on what happens. Not sure when would be the right time to trickle them out, I was thinking of posting the first part before the next main story update.
>I hate how meta it is, but I think Wukong pointing out the peculiarites of Jen will set us to figuring out what we Accidentally'd into the world
I don't think that course of action would necessarily be meta; you'd be trying to prod information out of someone whose knowledge of the world would encompass a lot of things that you couldn't possibly know about.

Rolled 26 (1d100)

>>5670942
damn rush, you fell off

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>5670942

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>>5670942
Thanks a lot, LSA-DQM. Off to more setting up and hopefully Fate/t______ t____ will be up and running in a couple of months!

>”DK” is in the middle of the captcha
>chose the image before I clicked for it
Auspicious!

Rolled 19 (1d100)

>>5670942

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>>5670942

Damn Rush, you're just not having a good one today are you man?

>>5670942

You know what? Fair enough, I only really said Meta since I dunno how much we will force outta the bastard. And with how mucu I wanna torture him over brunting my strategies with his layers of bullshit

>>5670953

Ohoho yeah, it's Gamer Time

>>5670953
Pretty good, fortune is favoring the bold this time around.

Oathbound

Morning of the second day

“Wait here and watch the horses, Saito Miko. You needn’t concern yourself with debate among the Holy Grail War’s Masters.” Diomedes said in a reassuring tone as he laid his hand on the girl’s shoulder, stopping her from stepping from the large balcony where he’d parked his chariot into the indoor-section of the building where Rusalka had invited a new Servant and her Master. Earlier that morning, Diomedes had taken Miko with him in his chariot to search the city, where she used her Mystic Eyes in conjunction with his Presence Detection to track down and request an alliance with the Servant, a small blonde girl who Rusalka addressed as Kuro no Berserker when she greeted her. Miko had learned that Diomedes could only use his detection skill to find certain types of Servants, so her ability was instrumental in getting the general location of the Servants who weren’t registered by his skill. Afterward, his talking owl would stealthily close in to verify if the Servant she was sensing was in fact the one they were looking for, and luckily for them they found the Servant of interest on their first try this time.

“Thank you, Diomedes-san.” The girl replied as she walked back toward the horses that drew the Achaen warrior’s chariot. Every second Miko didn’t have to spend in the presence of the Dead Apostle or her wights was a second where her unease regarding her predicament could abate. She’d also developed a fondness for the horses, as their auras gave a similar comforting sensation to that of Diomedes. She couldn’t deny that once she got over the initial shock of being flown through the city’s airspace in a chariot pulled by the mystical beasts, it was a memory that she looked back on happily. Recalling how she felt being held firmly at the hero’s side until she was ready to steady herself in the chariot, she really wished she could do something about Diomedes being Rusalka’s partner. If it was just her and that hero, they could… well, she would be embarrassed to share what she was fantasizing about.

The girl spent the next few minutes in relative peace, but it was eventually interrupted by a blood-curdling scream from the room where everyone else was having their meeting. Instinctively running behind the horses to conceal herself, Miko considered fleeing, but remembered that unless Rusalka was somehow killed the vampire could simply track down her scent. And she was pretty sure based on the pitch of the scream that it wasn’t made by Rusalka, and there was no further commotion in the room to indicate a fight between the Servants had broken out. What could have happened? Miko definitely wasn’t going to go inside to investigate. Having had a few moments to assess the situation, she could tell that Rusalka and her wights were all alive and well from the malevolent presences she could still faintly detect in the building no differently from before.

A couple minutes after that, Diomedes, Kuro no Berserker, and Rusalka all stepped into view of the balcony walking toward her, and Miko decided to try to listen to what they were talking about.

“I must admit, it was quite the simple solution you had to my former Master’s refusal to ally with you.” The Berserker laughed, “Who would have thought that eating the Command Seals would instantly transfer the contract? But that was hardly all you ate!”

“Oh think nothing of it, my new Servant!” Rusalka chuckled as she stopped into the shadows to avoid unnecessary exposure to sunlight, “I was getting hungry anyway; the least I could do was liberate you from service to a moronic weakling.”

“Indeed, it was less his weakness as a Master than his weak-mindedness that concerned me.” Kuro no Berserker replied more soberly, “I suspect he would have spent his Command Spells to order me to kill myself in a fit of self-righteous delusion if he understood exactly what I was.”

Rusalka… eats people? And she just ate a Master whose Servant is apparently pleased with the change in management, Miko reasoned. Though it didn’t come as that much of a surprise that a vampire could eat someone rather than just suck their blood, the girl found it jarring that those three could be going about their day as though nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. Surely Diomedes wasn’t okay with something as monstrous as that….

“Well, you have no need to fear that now, my old friend.” Rusalka responded, “If you and Diomedes have a disagreement about how to use the power of the Holy Grail, you can settle it between yourselves once we’ve wiped out the competition.”

“Old friend?” Kuro no Berserker asked, “I don’t think we were properly acquainted back in the day. You were one of those ‘foreign specialists’ that Heinrich called in to claim the Holy Grail in Japan, yes?”

“That’s right, and we would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for those goddamn annoying bitches from Finland getting two Servants out of one slot and throwing a wrench in my plans!” Rusalka answered sarcastically, leading Miko to doubt that the Dead Apostle wasn’t really all that broken up over it after all this time. “Oh, speaking of: one of their descendants happens to be in this field of blood as a Master. Small world!”

“Do prevent your flair for the dramatic from causing you to squander strategic opportunities.” Diomedes’ owl hooted at Rusalka while standing on his shoulder.

“Don’t get the wrong idea Athena, it’s quite a relief that I can win just by doing whatever you tell me to do!” The Dead Apostle laughed, before spotting Miko and waving her over while saying, “It’s rude to eavesdrop, my dear. Come here and meet my new Berserker.”

Nervously stepping out from behind the horses, the girl bowed toward the diminutive Servant as she recited, “My name is Saito Miko, pleased to meet you.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The Berserker replied, “As you’re in the same camp as my current Master, you may call me Adelheid.”

Writing a satisfying fight scene for the next update is proving harder than expected, so here's something else in the meantime that may be relevant soon. I'll try to be done by tomorrow.

>>5673882

So it seems Rusalka and Hitler do have some relation to eachother. My suspicion about them working together seems confirmed though. Still feel pretty bad for Miko here caught between being a vampire's stressball and being manipulated(probably) by Diomedes, can't catch a break this girl!

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“I’ll leave you guessing as I beat you senseless.” You answer, too fed up at this point to fish for information or attempt diplomacy. “Come on Rushorou, we’re taking him down.”

“How cheeky.” Wukong remarked as he pawed at one of his remaining patches of fur attempting to create an item of some sort, but he was displeased to see it quickly crumble into ash. You suppose his ability to use his hairs to create clones and items stops working so well when they’re all burnt up. “Whatever, your Servants will stand down once I show them your unconscious and broken bodies.”

“Not gonna happen.” Rushorou said as he rose to his feet, prompting you to advance toward Wukong with him.

Wukong reacts by backpedaling a little, then grabbing Fyodor’s dagger with his foot. He tosses it into the air, catching and flourishing it in his right hand before noting, “The weight-distribution is off, Master.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” Fyodor sighs as he stumbles behind his Servant with Kiara’s help.

You swing your mace as a probing attack to either sunder the dagger or force Wukong into Rushorou’s reach. He opts for the latter, parrying your ally’s swings without much effort. You try to flank him to get a hit in, but his ability to keep at just the right distance stops you from making any progress, as does his agility in repositioning himself such that either you or Rushorou is constantly getting in the other’s way. You need to control his movements somehow.

Fortunately, it quickly dawns on you that his maneuvers are geared toward diverting you away from his Master. If you were to just switch targets, the burned-up doppelganger would have no choice but to stop you at any cost. As you run back toward Fyodor, you hear Wukong curse under his breath and hop around Rushorou to obstruct you, cleanly parrying the lad’s sword-strikes as he goes. You let him get closer than your mace’s ideal range before drawing a gladius as you turn around, swinging both that blade and your mace one after the other. Your gladius knocks the thrust from Wukong’s dagger away from your vital areas, leaving you with just a shallow cut in your arm, and your mace scrapes across his scalp as he tries to duck under it, peeling a patch of his charred skin off.

“Khh!” Your opponent hisses in pain as he draws his dagger back, weaving away from Rushorou’s attacks yet again, receiving just a few minor injuries. Even with the two preexisting wounds as a result of the main body being cut by Harpe on top of the damage from the flames, this mere clone is still keeping up with the two of you with an irksome tenacity. You suppose his main body’s lasted as long as he has against multiple Servants by similarly making it so that his enemies get in each other’s way rather than successfully flank him. As you get ready to move against Wukong’s Master again, something happens that gives you pause: another Servant is approaching the area, this time through the subway tunnels. You have no idea who it could be; maybe it’s the fourth Servant that Truvietianne reported was fighting alongside Kuro no Archer. So far you’ve been fighting in an entrance lobby on the ground-floor, but it won’t be long before the new interloper arrives on the scene.

“Looks like things are getting even more crowded here, better make this quick!” Wukong grumbled as he switched to a more offensive strategy. Swiftly charging at Rushorou, the monkey king let himself get a glancing cut on his left side as he slashed his dagger across the bicep of your ally’s sword-arm in exchange. Luckily, you at least manage to crush Wukong’s right shoulder with your mace before he can dart away. Both Rushorou and the copy of Wukong disarmed, your ally fell to his knees as he clutched at the wound while Wukong picked the dagger back up with his foot before tossing it into his left hand, while his right hung limply as it bled.

“That cut looks pretty bad, mister! You should get it checked before you bleed out!” Kiara spoke up abruptly, causing Rushorou to visibly become more anxious as he watched his blood leak out from the wound. You also sense that his Servant appears to be trying to break off from the fight to come to his aid. It may not be that big of a deal now that another Servant (probably Kuro no Archer) is fighting Wukong’s main body, but it’s frustrating that your plans keep getting sidetracked by Wukong’s antics. More to the point, you REALLY want to finish this copy off before anyone else comes. It feels personal at this point.

Caster of Red and her robot suddenly appear at Kiara’s side; she must have used a Command Spell to call them over. However, they won’t be much help as reinforcements; Avenger’s done enough of a number on them that the Caster herself can’t even stand on account of severe wounds and blood-loss, and the robot is cradling her in its arms as it holds noticeably still. Perhaps it went dormant? Either way, they quickly dematerialize, but you can tell they’re alive in spirit-form, if only barely.

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“I’ll be right there, Master. That Archer is rather hard to work with.” You hear Avenger say to you telepathically. You can also tell that the main body of Sun Wukong seems to be trying to bring the fight a little closer to the subway station, and the unidentified Servant coming through the tunnels is drawing closer by the second.

Time is of the essence: you’re going to break through whatever defense Wukong can muster with his left hand and hew him down. Rushing forward, you move toward his right flank as it’s harder for him to defend. Deciding to let offense be the best defense, you begin a relentless assault with your mace and gladius. Two weapons against one, attacking from an advantageous angle, you’re able to at last daze him with a mace-strike to his neck and quickly follow it up with a sword-thrust straight through his heart.

As the copy disintegrates, you turn to see Lancer of Red standing protectively by her Master’s side and trying to stabilize his wound with her magic while Avenger lights on the ground with her staff pointed at the enemy Masters. Neither of the two got through their fight against Sun Wukong’s main body unscathed, but they don’t seem debilitated by their injuries. You yourself have a few cuts here and there, and Avenger’s power output between the skirmishes in the south and against Wukong is starting to wear you down, but you’re confident you can keep going a while longer.

A hare also sprints into the station, and you realize that Wukong transformed to give his third opponent the slip. He manages to dodge a few blasts from Avenger before transforming back to his normal form and readying himself in front of his Master for a final stand. His body is less burned up than that of the copy you fought, but he’s still covered in wounds with large patches of his fur scorched off.

The third Servant fighting him decides to pursue by smashing through the roof of the station, prompting you to dodge some rubble as he lands with a huff. Sure enough, this heavily-armored Servant wielding a giant metal wheel was Kuro no Archer, who angrily shouts, “Getting real tired this shit, monkey! Fuckin’ die already!” You find yourself starting to like him.

“You’re as persistent as Erlang Shen.” Sun Wukong grumbles, “Looks like we’re settling this here and now.”

“He can’t guard the Masters from me in these conditions.” Avenger informs you, “Would you like them dead or alive?” .

Before you respond, the Servant you detected in the tunnels earlier emerges with two decaying, animated corpses following behind him. Aka no Lancer: a heavily-built young man whose armor’s style reminds you both of Perseus’ and Aka no Rider’s.

“Diomedes.” You hear Rushorou mutter grimly, “And the wights.”

Addressing Wukong, Fyodor, and Kiara, Diomedes remarked, “It seems you lot could use some assistance.”

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“If you wanna fight the people fighting us, you won’t hear any complaints from me!” Kiara chirped; Sun Wukong grunted an acknowledgement that could be construed as reluctant approval while Fyodor simply laid back against a wall, barely hanging onto consciousness.

Diomedes picked one of the worst times to show up. How are you going to deal with this:

> Tell Avenger to attack the newcomers while you leave Wukong to the Rushorou’s Servant and Kuro no Archer.
> Have Avenger try to kill/capture (specify which) Fyodor and Kiara to neutralize Wukong.
> Try to talk Diomedes out of helping (default argument is that if Wukong is allowed to recover Diomedes will have a hard time defeating him, but feel free to share suggestions if you think of something better).
> Something else (write-in).

>Erlang Shen
Based

>>5674590

Uhhhh shit, seems Wukong is right and things are getting crowded around here.

> Have Avenger try to capture Fyodor and Kiara to neutralize Wukong.
> Try to talk Diomedes out of helping. Appeal to his sense as a warrior, it may be easier to deal with Wukong now that he's been sufficently bloodied. It's our own battle this time, unless Diomedes feels pride in trampling over bruised individuals on death's door then don't assist any of us, and when it's over don't interfer in us leaving.

I will NOT let the coolest dude in the Trojan War screw us now. We're capturing the Balkanoid and the Child alongside their Servants, those Command Seals will be our's

>>5674590
>> Have Avenger try to capture Fyodor and Kiara to neutralize Wukong.

>>5674590
>>5674945
+1

>>5674590
>Have Avenger try to kill Fyodor and Kiara to neutralize Wukong.
>Try to talk Diomedes out of helping.
On top of the default argument, point out that Wukong is on his last legs and the effort of turning the situation around would leave Diomedes vulnerable.

>>5674945
>>5675147
In terms of votes this one is currently leading ^
>>5675820
This follows a different line of persuasion. Both options assert that it would be in Diomedes' interest to not step in; the first appeals to a sense of ethics while this second one is more of an attempt at intimidation.
Worth consideration I guess. I'll finish cleaning up interlude part 1 and post it before officially determining the vote, in case anyone has anything else to say regarding it.

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Trophies

“Hey Perseus, since we have some time to kill, there’s something I’ve been wanting ask you.” The white-haired vampire said as she took off her sunglasses; the overcast sky and rain were making it difficult for her to see. Fortunately, her apprehension by being under the sun had greatly lessened when the storm clouds gathered above the city.

Resting on a bench beside his Master, the hero of Greece replied, “Alright, fire away.”

“Your legend kind of peaks when you cut off Medusa’s head, but you had a few adventures after that.” Jen said, “And every time someone crossed you, whether it was the sea-monster who was after Andromeda or the king who was after your mom, you just instantly won by showing them Medusa’s severed head.”

“And?” Perseus replied calmly.

“Did those victories feel… cheap to you?” Jen asked as she surveyed the area, “Like Medusa was the one doing all the work, even though she was dead?”

His lips curling into a slight frown, Perseus sat quietly for a few moments before answering, “Let me explain it like this: if someone you’re fond of is chained to a rock about to be sacrificed to a giant monster, do you risk both your own life and the other’s trying to showboat a ‘satisfying’ victory, or do you kill the monster safely so you can both live to see tomorrow?”

“That’s answering a question with another question.” Jen quipped while skirting around the substance of what he was saying, “Two, are you trying to guilt-trip me?”

“I suppose it would only make sense if you’re seeing yourself in the place of the people, rather than the monster.” He retorted with a sigh.

“That’s… not the point.” The vampire replied hesitantly, and with uncertainty. Deep down, she knew that his appraisal of her mentality wasn’t far off the mark. What’s more, she IS a monster. She feels an aching hunger and knows that it can only be sated with blood. She can catch the scent of a human as easily as a trained hound. She can grow claws from her hands and heal herself by unnatural means. The mere memory of the light of the sun makes her uneasy. Her existence is one whose relationship to humanity could be rightfully described as predatory, or perhaps parasitic. The fact that Mr. Anonymous and Avenger decided to take her in puzzled her at first, but she quickly realized that Anon at least expected her to help them fight the Holy Grail War. She had them to thank for giving her a mind and will of her own, so it seemed a fair trade to her; there should be plenty of blood to taste on this battlefield too. And neither of them seemed to be entirely human, so she could understand them not feeling revulsion or dread in her presence.

What she found perplexing was how the others treated her. Anne, Koko, Rush, Ryuu, Suzaku. She easily recognized their fear when they realized her true nature, but one olive-branch of a looting trip later and they start getting friendly. Koko’s bubbly cheerfulness and Anne’s eager curiosity in particular stuck out to the vampire. And instead of just feeling contempt toward them for how they were manipulated into ignoring their instincts, Jen felt almost… comforted by it. And she couldn’t decide if that sense of comfort was what she should be feeling. Is it wrong for a predator to befriend and be solaced by creatures that it could prey upon? She recalled from Jennifer Hill’s memories that on occasion wild beasts like tigers or bears could make nice with humans and other animals, but was that acting contrary to their nature? What is her nature, what is right and wrong? Does she have to decide it all for herself?

“I’ll spell it out for you as directly as possible: I valued the life of the woman I loved and the future we could share over a desire for self-aggrandizement.” Perseus explained, “I hope you can understand that.”

“For the record, I agree with her: you rely on your trophy too much, Lancer of Black.” The voice of Sun Wukong piped in, freezing the blood of Jen, Truvietianne, and Perseus.

Jumping to her feet, the Edelfelt Master was the first to ask the not-at-all petrified Wukong, “How are you still alive?!”

“My guess is you’re making two faulty assumptions.” Sun Wukong said as he raised two of his fingers, “The first is that I would ‘die’ if I were forced to take the form of a stone statue, and the second is that I’d be incapable of eventually turning myself back to normal.” Quickly creating a staff and armor from a couple of his hairs, he then shouted, “Time to finish our fight, Lancer of Black!”

BANG

“A gun? However will I survive?” Wukong muttered sarcastically as he rubbed his left temple where a bullet just struck it. Meanwhile, Perseus had risen to his feet as well, though he was far from ready to fight in top-shape.

Jen smiled as she confirmed that casting a reinforcement spell on the bullets in her pistol like Anne suggested earlier today made them capable of damaging Servants. He may not be hurt that bad, but a little trickle of blood could be seen where he was shot. After taking her mask off and blowing some smoke out of the barrel of her pistol she responded, “If you can bleed you can die. Everyone’s terrified of fighting you, so I was wondering how tough you are, monkey-man.”

“Jen, wait!” Anne shouted, trying in vain to discourage the vampire from attacking Wukong alone.

Deciding to strafe to the side while opening fire the monkey king, Jen fired five more bullets that her opponent either dodged or caught before he rushed into grappling range and closed his hand around the barrel of her pistol. Unprepared to deal with the speed of his approach, she hissed as she fired once more right into his palm and extended the claws of her free hand to try to slash across his face. However, Wukong weaved his head under her swing and grabbed her by the throat with his own free hand, and before Perseus could intervene, the monkey king threw Jen into a brick wall. Her back slamming into it, the vampire’s breath was crushed out of her lungs as she felt her bones splinter inside of her (despite the lingering reinforcement spell from Avenger) before she slumped onto the ground.

“I’ll play with you later, so wait your turn.” The monkey king said coolly to his attacker.

“Nngh…” She groaned as she soaked in a puddle that had been formed by the rain, only able to muster that much as a response. This isn’t how she wanted to learn the limits of her healing ability. It was starting to mend her bones, but she had no idea when she’d be able to fight again; it might be all over by then. Forcing herself to take a deep breath to think clearly, she remembered the technique to see ambient mana and decided that now was as good a time as any to learn whether absorbing it through her breath could substantially increase the speed of her recovery.

“You really won’t stop being a pain in my ass.” Perseus said as he squared off and readied his spear.

“Right back at you!” Wukong replied as he braced his staff, “Don’t you think sealing my immortality makes you the guy I need to kill first? As a first-rate clone of the Great Qitian Dasheng, your accursed spear stops being a problem for us here and now.”

As the two clashed, it was clear that although the worst of his wounds were healed by Avenger before she left, Perseus was still suffering from exhaustion far worse than his opponent, who had the upper hand in the majority of their first exchanges. That advantage lasted until a gemstone was thrown right at Wukong’s head, throwing off his concentration as it exploded; enough for Perseus to score another hit on his forearm.

“Thanks, Master.” The Greek hero noted quickly as he pressed his newfound advantage.

“It’s my duty to support you, and you need all the help you can get!” She replied as she aimed a flurry of red and black curses at Wukong’s feet, knees, or whatever less heavily armored target presented itself. She’d realized that this clone didn’t have Magic Resistance, so as long as she could hit hard enough to break through his baseline toughness, she could take that much of a burden off her Servant. However, even her strongest Gandr shots didn’t really faze him, so she decided she’d have to use the dozen remaining gemstones that she’d started imbuing with mana as carefully as possible.

“As if that’ll make a difference...” Wukong grumbled as he skillfully blocked or evaded most of his enemies’ attacks when he was forced onto the defensive.

“It already has!” Anne yelled as she threw another gemstone toward his face, this one a violent burst of intense light that dazzled the doppelganger long enough for Perseus to cut his leg.

“Not what I meant!” Wukong spat as he reached down and caught the shaft of Harpe, before transforming into a snake head-first and slithering up his opponent’s weapon. Before Perseus could fling him off, the snake lunged and sank its fangs into his hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2aM5btBLVU

“Damn!” Perseus cursed as his grip on his spear loosened. Wukong then swiftly morphed into a tiger and cleaved into Perseus’ breastplate with his claws, and finally transformed back into his normal form and punched him into a nearby shop.

“Damn you!” Anne cried, screaming as she threw gem after gem at Wukong.

Running straight through her desperate attacks, Wukong caught her wrist as he said, “That’s enough! And not to be a heartless asshole, but if you try to use your Command Spells to restore his reiki I’m going to rip off your arm.”

Grabbing the rest of her gemstones from a pocket in her dress with her free hand, the Edelfelt Master screeched, “Go to hell!” as she threw them into his face. The resulting explosion left her eyes dazzled from the flash of light and her ears ringing. To her chagrin, Kuro no Lancer hadn’t released his grip on her wrist despite taking the entirety of her magic head-on.

As the smoke from the explosion cleared, it revealed that half of Wukong’s face had been scorched and maimed nearly beyond recognition. His rate of healing also appeared to be particularly sluggish, as a result of his fresh wounds from Harpe. Wearily, the monkey king sighed, “You really should learn when to quit.” He then chopped the blade of his hand into her neck, knocking her unconscious before laying her onto the ground.

“God… damn it…” Jen cursed as she shakily rose to her feet. Inhaling some of the ambient mana hastened her recovery, but she knew that if she didn’t stand a chance fighting head-on before, her disadvantage was far greater now. But she wasn’t giving up: this clone of Wukong had taken a fair amount of damage, and his healing had been nearly entirely neutralized. She could still check on Perseus and see if they could think of something to turn the situation around. Her enemy didn’t even see fit to stop her as she stumbled to where Perseus got sent, he simply observed while causally following.

When she was able to peer into the shop, she found Anne’s Servant lying in a pool of his own blood, with a deep gash from a tiger’s claw right above his heart. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blood, even though at some level she knew that she should ask Perseus if there’s anything she could do to help. Almost as though in a trance, Jen knelt down next to the hero and began trying to scoop up as much of his blood with her bare hands as she could.

“Hey Perseus, you’re not using all this blood, right?” She asked as she sipped a mouthful of it from her hands. The ecstasy she experienced from its taste was nearly indescribable, every carnal urge that her psyche could generate was screaming that she drink as much as she possibly could; she also felt her body’s healing processes suddenly go into overdrive, she could be fully healed in no time. Yet that ecstasy was stained in guilt. She knew that sating her curiosity regarding the taste of a Servant’s blood wasn’t the most important thing right now. Wukong was probably quietly laughing at her from how she was acting.

“Showing your true colors now that my Master can’t see you?” Perseus mumbled in disgust.

“Sh-shut up! Do you think I’m proud of doing this!?” The vampire yelled with tears forming in her eyes, though her voice began wavering as she continued, “Your blood tastes better than I could have hoped when it’s on my tongue, but in my gut the only thing I feel is a twisted knot of shame! Shame that I can’t control these urges, shame that I’m too weak to stop him from hurting Anne… shame that I’m just… a bottom-feeding lowlife….”

After watching her sobbing for a few moments, Perseus replied, “Perhaps I misjudged you”. He’d been wary of the vampire’s arrival from the start, but decided against taking action from how well she seemed to get along with his Master. He’d suspected that it was all an act and that she was coldly waiting for an opportunity like this, yet her outburst of emotion and regret threw off his expectations. Glancing up at the copy of Wukong who’d been calmly waiting behind Jen, he continued, “I’ll give him credit: this is as far as my Spirit Core goes. He outplayed us.”

“Why thank you.” Wukong responded with a polite bow, content to let those two do whatever they wished in the time they had remaining.

Addressing the vampire, Perseus clasped his hands around one of hers as he continued, “I sense that if you go through with this, you’re going to have to make a serious decision about who you want to be.”

“You mean…” Jen whispered, short on breath from her inner turmoil.

“Think carefully about the future you want for yourself.” Perseus cautioned firmly as he moved Jen’s hand over his heart.

Her claws extending and twitching, Jen nervously said, “If you do that, I won’t be able -”

“To stop yourself?” Perseus asked knowingly, “You’re the only person other than Andromeda who could say I gave you my heart. You’d better make it count.”

“I will… I have to.” Jen answered, steadying her voice. She wasn’t sure what would happen to her if she ate his heart, which she remembered was part of what Anne called a Servant’s Spirit Core, but if drinking his blood was any indication she’d at the very least grow significantly more powerful for a while. As she tore his heart out of his chest and stuffed it into her mouth, she hoped with every fiber in her being that it’d be enough to put an end to the clone of the monkey king.

“The fuck are you doing?!” Wukong asked, astonished that one of his enemies finished the other off early in such an unexpected way.

“Amazing…” Jen said as she suddenly sprang to her feet, “This is amazing! I can feel a new power coursing through every part of me! My heart, my arms, my eyes…” Her excitement shifting to trepidation, the vampire clutched at her face as she said, “It’s… trying to take over my eyes?”

>>5676058
That's better than what I expected, guess I shouldn't have doubted Jen. Though that last part is concerning.

>>5676057

Well now we know what happened now, RIP Percy. You were a pretty cool dude to the end of things.

Though I guess from Jen's reaction to eating the Spirit Core she's suffering some kinda mutation given the talk of Medusa previously. I am ready for some wacky hijinx that'll point back to our own nature

>>5676098
>look at me daddy and mommy, I turned myself into Medusa!
uh huh she turned herself into a snek and not a birb (like her mum)

“We’ll neutralize Wukong by capturing his Master and the girl, be ready.” You hastily tell your Servant telepathically before you try to think of some way to dissuade Diomedes from interfering. You have Wukong on the ropes; you absolutely cannot allow this interloper to make all of your efforts and sacrifices to this point for naught. Should you warn him that he’d have a hard time defeating Wukong if the latter were allowed to recover? Perhaps try to intimidate him since you have a numerical advantage in terms of Servants? You don’t know what makes this man tick, but you speculate that the best argument may be one that appeals to his pride.

“Not so fast, Diomedes. This battle is ours, and it’s in your interest to let us finish him off anyway. Unless you feel pride in trampling over-” You begin, but are loudly interrupted before you can say anything else.

“I ain’t got time for this shit!” the heavily-armored Archer spat as both the flames erupting from his helmet and his magical energy surged, “And I’m killin’ anyone who gets in my way!”

The instant Kuro no Archer lunges toward the monkey king, Avenger conjures thin strings in the air and begins pulling Fyodor and Kiara toward you with them as though they were puppets; however Diomedes also swiftly makes his move. Namely, bursting straight toward you, spear-first. Between the split-second distraction that the raging Archer unintentionally made and Avenger’s focus being split on capturing the enemy Masters, Diomedes had just enough time to close the distance to you while evading or blocking Avenger’s handful of reflexive attack-spells with his large round shield. Caught comparatively flat-footed, you manage to take half a step back and swing your mace across your torso and try to deflect his thrust away from you, but you’re not particularly successful. He’s able to run through your gut; the only silver lining is you managed to deflect the thrust a couple degrees and stopped him from severing your spine as well.

As he retracts his spear to guard against the swift retaliation of Avenger and Rushorou’s Servant, you look down and clutch at your side. It hurts. It really hurts. You fall to a knee. It wasn’t a clean wound: he really twisted the head of his spear around as he withdrew it. It hurts more than anything you’ve felt before. The pain is practically vomit-inducing. You don’t want to think about how many of your organs he just shredded, you want to analyze the battle and come up with a strategy to turn things around… but right now you just can’t stop yourself from trying to alleviate your agony by whatever instinctive measures you come up with on the spot.

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And that’s when it hits you: this wound could prove fatal. You really could die here. Especially if something happens to Avenger and she’s unable to treat you… and that’s a very real possibility as well. Something you hadn’t experienced before now was creeping into your mind: paralyzing fear. Was it the fear of death? Pain? Falling short of your goals? That last one stings; how pitiful an end this would be. Dying nameless on this god-forsaken battlefield, leaving the others caught up in the same predicament to muddle through it without you. All from a casual spear-thrust, no less….

You feel something splash against your wound, and the pain begins receding. Glancing up, you see Avenger toss away a potion vial as she tells you, “Can’t have you dying on me, Master. Look alive.”

“Thank you.” You say gratefully as you slowly rise to your feet. Your gut still hurts, but the relative relief greatly boosted your morale, allowing you to focus again.

Rushorou also moves to stand by you, saying, “We should stick together so our Servants only have one spot to defend. And brace yourself, that wight’s spell saps your energy!”

Of the two wights, one was largely skeletal aside from the eerie glow in its eye-sockets, garbed in a simple robe, carrying a dagger and darting about erratically. You suppose it was having a hard time finding an opening in the melee when the other combatants were Servants whose speed and power exceeded its own by a vast margin. The other, however, had partially-preserved remains of flesh, skin, and hair, wearing ancient and ornate armor, including a helmet, carried a longsword and a round shield, and was concluding a chant in a language that you didn’t recognize. Frosty particles began forming all around its body, before scattering throughout the station’s lobby in a chilling breeze.

“That’s nothing to be afraid of.” Avenger replied as she waved her staff, dispersing the particles with her own counterspell of a wind-gust. You don’t feel any more fatigued, so you suppose the spell works when the particles land on your skin, or something of similar effect.

Refocusing on the battle, you could see that Diomedes held an advantage over Rushorou’s Lancer on account of her mounting fatigue, and was able to maneuver effectively enough that it was difficult for Avenger to target him without your ally getting caught in the crossfire. Though when your Servant would cease fire and try to apprehend Fyodor or Kiara again, Diomedes would push past his opponent and make Avenger have to redirect her efforts toward forcing him back again.

To make things potentially worse, you suddenly sense that there’s another Servant on its way to your location. And you can tell that this one has no sense of subtlety from a crashing cacophony of wanton destruction of the city that its approach is heralded by.

You also sense that the clash between Kuro no Archer and Sun Wukong was about to come to a head.

“Battle-ring: activate! I’ll rip you apart using the blade of immortality!” The raging Archer shouted as he threw his wheel onto the ground. It suddenly grew to an even greater size, and flames erupted all around it as it dug into the ground while rotating in place.

You can tell that its sheer destructive power should be more than enough to finish Wukong off if it lands a solid hit. The only issue is the ability of Ruyi Jingu Bang: if Wukong is able to strike the wheel with his staff before it hits him, it may freeze in place and be unable to break through.

> Tell Avenger to summon a bunch of hounds to dogpile Wukong and stop him from parrying Kuro no Archer’s attack. You’ll risk one or two of them misbehaving.
> Ask Rushorou for his Servant to flank Wukong and break his guard while Avenger focuses everything on holding back Diomedes.
> Something else (write-in)

I generally don't include 'trap' options, but talk-no-jutsu simply wasn't going to work this time around.

>>5678759
>> Ask Rushorou for his Servant to flank Wukong and break his guard while Avenger focuses everything on holding back Diomedes.

>>5678759
> Ask Rushorou for his Servant to flank Wukong and break his guard while Avenger focuses everything on holding back Diomedes.

>>5678759
>Ask Rushorou for his Servant to flank Wukong and break his guard while Avenger focuses everything on holding back Diomedes.

>>5678759

Well seems my "Talk it out before stabbing when they turn away" strat failed fellas. Let's make up for it

> Ask Rushorou for his Servant to flank Wukong and break his guard while Avenger focuses everything on holding back Diomedes.
>Write-In: Ask Avenger if she knows some offensive spell we can use on the fly as insurance in case something goes awry

Wouldn't hurt to ask in telepathy

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Guess you'll be going with teamwork over memework.

But not before interlude part 2, totally not featuring a cheeky reference to an arc from a previous Fate quest that dragged for an unreasonably long time. Mainly because I don't want the timeline to get too convoluted by the release-order.

***

Jen’s vision spiraled into darkness. She wasn’t in the shop with Perseus and Wukong; she had no idea where she was. It appeared to be a dark, stone chamber lit only by the fires of a few scattered torches and pyres. Thinking about how this came about, she remembered feeling as though her consciousness was twisted and kneaded in her body before being suddenly compressed and forced into her eyes.

At a loss, the white-haired vampire sighed, “Where the hell am I?”

A menacing voice echoed, “Well well, to think I’d be paid a visit.”

Turning around, Jen saw a woman with monstrous features, such as a thick, serpentine tail sliding along the ground, scales covering the ends of her limbs, and hair resembling an array of serpents swinging about. She also wore some kind of device over her eyes that served as a blindfold. Addressing the woman, Jen asked, “Are you… Medusa? You’re far more beautiful than I expected.”

“I’ll accept that as clumsy flattery.” The monstrous woman replied, “I am a fragment of the consciousness of the monster known as Gorgon, which that hero’s Spirit Origin happens to carry with him. Normally I wouldn’t do anything but faintly observe as he used my severed head as a weapon, but your arrogance in trying to assimilate his Spirit Core has given me an opportunity.”

“What do you mean by that?” The vampire asked nervously, “And can you tell me how I even got here?”

“Your body hasn’t moved: your mind simply had its consciousness shifted into this mental world. You needn’t worry about the passage of time either; we could be here for hours, days, perhaps even months without the outside world being any the wiser.” Gorgon replied.

“Yeah, hard pass.” Jen said firmly, “Don’t get me wrong, you seem like a really interesting person, but I think we’d run out of things to do after a few hours if we stretch it.”

“I hadn’t the slightest intention of taking nearly that long.” Gorgon scoffed as she stretched one of her hands toward Jen, “Join me, and accept the power I offer: it would make you one of the most formidable monsters to walk the earth, especially in these days of decaying mystery.”

Curious, the vampire asked, “How would that work? And what do you get out of it?”

“You need only take my hand and I’ll handle the rest.” The monstrous beast answered, “For my part, I’d enjoy our wrath laying waste to any vermin that dare cross our path. Your body would still be your own, aside from a handful of mutations to allow you to use my power.” Slithering closer to her guest, Gorgon continued in a sweeter voice, “We aren’t so different, you and I. Humans can neither control nor tolerate beings like us, and we both delight in sacrifices of blood. We could start by disposing of that impudent monkey, then move on to whoever else is nearby.”

“I think I understand: we’d be partners, enjoying an endless feast of blood and carnage.” The vampire replied. “Well, having the power to quench my thirst for blood whenever I want has its appeal.”

“I’m pleased you’re quick on the uptake.” Gorgon remarked with a smile.

“Until a hero shows up and hacks my head off.” Jen continued sarcastically.

Irritated at her insolence, the monstrous beast tersely asked, “I beg your pardon?”

Mustering her courage, Jen replied, “I’m getting the impression that accepting your power means I’m also going to have to adopt some of your habits. Now let me ask you this: when your life was reduced to waiting in your lair for would-be heroes to show up so you could add them to your statue collection, what exactly about that struck you as a life worth living?”

“A life worth living?” Gorgon asked after a long pause, “Enjoying the suffering of humans was enough. Nothing sets my heart aflutter like ordinary lives brimming over. I must say you’re missing out if you haven’t indulged in such pleasure.”

The faces of the people she’d met flashed into Jen’s mind. Anon, Anne, Koko, Suzaku, Rush, Ryuu. Try as she might, she couldn’t consider them as merely food, and she greatly doubted that their suffering would amuse her. Jen already saw Anne suffer as Sun Wukong assaulted her and her Servant, and she felt pity rather than whatever sadistic delight Gorgon would have enjoyed.

“I think we have less in common than you supposed.” Jen replied at length, “The future I want for myself doesn’t include me becoming the kind of monster you are. That’s not who I want to be. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Foolish girl.” Gorgon hissed in agitation as the serpents of her hair snapped their mouths, “Your compliance would have made this easier, but it’s hardly essential. You would do well to realize the futility of your sentimental cowardice: you cannot change the fact that you’re a monster any more than I.”

“You may be right, but I’ll choose the same as Perseus chose, and put you out of your misery.” Jen decided as she extended her claws and prepared to fight, “I have a feeling you’re not going to just let me leave, so let’s get this over with.”

“Well said!” Spoke a voice from above that Jen recognized as belonging to Perseus, and his spear fell into her hands. As Jen gripped its shaft, it began melting into her arms until she realized that it was incorporating the concept of “immortal slayer” into her claws. Flexing them once again, she found that they could now extend far further than they could before, and could take a shape resembling the curved blade of Harpe; and inflict the same type of wounds that cannot heal outside of natural means.

“You dare stand against me? Your soul will crumble under the weight of my malice!” Gorgon spat, slithering forward to attack. The serpents of her hair lunged first, which Jen slashed asunder with her claws as she maintained distance from Gorgon’s main body. Landing on her feet, Gorgon then swung her tail around like a whip with the diameter of a tree-trunk. Jen hastily met it with her claws, which dug into it, but the sheer momentum of the swing flung the vampire into one of the stone walls. However, her body didn’t suffer as much damage as it did when Wukong threw her before. Perhaps it was because she was in a mental world where the spiritual is more important than the physical, or perhaps she’d simply become sturdier from absorbing Perseus’ Spirit Core.

“One Thousand Mystic Eyes, release.” Gorgon said as she reached one arm to the back of her head.

Not wanting to find out what would happen to her if she didn’t stop the demonic beast from unleashing this attack, Jen mustered every ounce of strength that she could to rush back into close range and end the fight quickly.

“I shall curse you as you cursed me. Melt away.” The monster recited as her body began to grow and her remaining hair stretched throughout the room.

Reinforcing her legs to their absolute limit, Jen sprang right for Gorgon’s head. The larger monster swung her arm in surprise at the vampire’s burst of speed, but Jen dug one of her clawed hands into the demonic beast’s arm and swung herself toward her foe’s throat from a different angle. As the blindfolding device fell from Gorgon’s eyes, she tried to shift her gaze onto Jen, but she didn’t have enough time before her neck was cloven through.

“This hatred and pain… I’ll look forward to meeting you again…” Gorgon gurgled spitefully as she fell.

Jen didn’t know what to say, if anything. She didn’t hate Gorgon; she saw a lot of herself in the cursed monster. Perhaps if she hadn’t met anyone that treated her kindly, she could have ended up like that. And even though she’d never want to seclude herself on an island, she at least respected the strength of will it took for Gorgon to carry on alone.

“If we ever meet again…” The vampire eventually answered sympathetically, “I’d rather free you from this darkness than kill you.”

The next moment, Jen found herself hunched over and clutching at her face, but her ears were also assaulted by the roaring laughter of Sun Wukong, who’d found her actions and resulting predicament quite hilarious. Looking down at her hands, she realized that the transformation she’d gone through in the mental world of absorbing Harpe had carried over into the physical world. In fact, everything about her felt a little different. Her body, her mind, her understanding of her identity. She felt that she was closer to deciding who and what exactly she would be, but also like she had been born again.

And for a new birth, she decided that she needed a new name. Thinking on what could be fitting, she recalled something she’d heard when Anne helped Koko and Suzaku search for information on the palace-structure to the north in the city. The Edelfelt Master had asked them to search for images of a few different palaces from the Eastern Mediterranean, and the one that Anne was confident was that structure was notably lacking a famous cathedral that had been located near it. The name of that cathedral was…

“You didn’t self-destruct from eating his Spirit Core? Color me surprised!” Wukong commented, interrupting her train of thought.

“You’ll have to put up with me a little longer. At least until I make you pay for what you did to Anne and Perseus.” She replied with a frown.

“Haha, that’s the spirit! Let’s take this outside.” Wukong said confidently as he dissolved his staff.

Once they’d gotten out, the vampire examined the unconscious Truvietianne. She was still breathing, and her spine was intact; looks like Wukong pulled his strike enough that she shouldn’t have permanent damage from it.

Addressing her opponent, the woman noted, “I guess I should thank you for letting me check on my friend, and for being a good sport to fight me bare-handed.”

“It’s a privilege of being strong: I can give allowances rather than be on edge lunging at every opening.” Wukong answered, “I also said I’d play with you, though before we start I’m curious: what exactly are you? I’ve fought plenty of gods, demons, and monsters in my time, but what you just did was novel even by my standards.”

Thinking for a moment, she replied, “I’m not sure myself. People have told me I’m a vampire or Dead Apostle, but I’m not sure I fit the bill. The most I can give you is a name.”

“I picked up that you were called ‘Jen’.” The monkey king replied.

Surprised at his attentiveness, the vampire responded, “Well you’re not wrong, but that was a placeholder. The name of a woman who died at the hands of a ghoul last night. Put simply, I was born into her body as it was transformed.”

“Faaaaaascinating.” Wukong droned sarcastically as thunder crackled in the clouds overhead, “So did you pick a new name just now?”

“I did indeed.” She replied as she brandished her claws, “Sophia. The name of the one who will kill you.”

***

If you're skeptical of the power-scaling: the Gorgon that Jen fought in the mental world was a lingering malediction in Perseus' reiki to serve as a personal trial and opportunity for the character to develop. If Sophia fought the Gorgon who was summoned as an Avenger-class Servant like in FGO, she would get squished.

>>5680366

Soooo she's decided at last on Sophia. Will say she's gone a different characterization I was expecting, more quickly realizing "Perhaps I can still stay with people" as a monster than I'd imagine.

>Spoiler

Yeah makes sense what it was. And I suppose havimg eaten the Core there's gonna be a similar sort of experience each time?

>>5680781
>more quickly realizing "Perhaps I can still stay with people" as a monster than I'd imagine.
Well, the solution she eventually reaches is still up in the air. She just decided that the path of being a malevolent, walking calamity like Gorgon isn't for her. Kind of fitting that Sophia happens to be confronting yet another inhuman creature, but one whose outlook has far less animus directed at humanity when compared to Gorgon's.
>I suppose havimg eaten the Core there's gonna be a similar sort of experience each time?
Possibly... it may depend on the context.

>>5681167

I do wonder how this relates back to Anon in what he actually is. So far I'm leaning on the idea of him being some sorta being spawned out of something going awry with the Grail here

Figured I ought to notify you all in advance that I've been pretty busy with IRL business so the next update won't be for a while. I'll aim to get something out no later than Saturday, hopefully sooner.

>>5682627
Progress has been made, but I procrastinated. Hopefully it will be ready tomorrow.

Describing things in detail when a bunch of things are happening simultaneously is more difficult than expected.

>>5685081

It's understandable, I'm struggling with similar writing at times because without visual stimulis you gotta make sure the kinetic energy energy of battle keeps at it without over or underwriting it out.

LONG overdue, but the update has arrived!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIEk0U782rM

You really hope Rushorou is on the same mental wavelength as you’re on, because you can’t afford any hesitation in assisting Kuro no Archer to land his attack on Sun Wukong. Tapping his shoulder, you quickly advise, “Have your Servant break Wukong’s guard so that attack lands, I’ll handle Diomedes.”

He simply nods in assent, and his Servant breaks away from Diomedes right after and heads toward Wukong, who’s bracing his staff against the imminent attack from the flaming chakram. Lancer of Red draws several runes in the air, which both augment her physical parameters and cause the ground around Wukong’s feet to start freezing. Icy claws emerge from the floor, gripping at his feet, and the monkey king curses as he’s forced to move his staff to guard his back from a flurry of spear-thrusts right before Kuro no Archer’s attack bears down on him.

As that happens, you tell Avenger through your telepathic link, “Force Diomedes onto the defensive, no need to hold back.”

She replies as she splashes a potion onto her wings, “I have a workaround for his Magic Resistance: we’ll see how he likes poisoned feather-tips.” Flinging her feathers at Diomedes by twirling her wings, the Lancer opts against driving Rushorou’s Servant away from Wukong, instead using his shield as cover both against the feather-tips and Avenger’s other, renewed attack-spells.

His helmet and weapon both enveloped in raging flames, Kuro no Archer finishes his chant and invokes the True Name of his Noble Phantasm, “Now piss off: Sudarshana Chakra Yamaraj!” Kicking the flaming wheel toward the monkey king, the Archer followed right behind it as it bore down on his foe. As the whirling chakram begins grinding into Wukong, who was just a hair too slow in parrying it with his staff, your attention gets pulled back to Avenger and Diomedes.

“Goddess of Battle, guide my hand.” Diomedes recites as flames began erupting from his helmet and shield, burning away Avenger’s poisoned feathers and briefly overwhelming her other spells with the burst of intensity.

“Most beloved, fear neither man nor god, for I stand by your side once more.” A feminine voice said, and you realize an owl that just landed on Diomedes’ shoulder was morphing into the form of a woman of nigh-indescribable beauty: her hair a silvery blonde, eyes a shimmering blue, the features of her face displaying keen perceptiveness and focus, and she was clad all over in radiant white armor. Her awe-inspiring presence was different from that of anything else you’d encountered; no magus, undead monster, or Servant that you’d seen could hold a candle to the palpable tension her manifestation made you feel, though you felt that she was less fixed to the world than the Servants. You could tell that she was more than a heroic spirit; that she had to be a goddess.

“Athena, you cheat-!” Avenger cursed, tipping you off to the goddess’ identity.

Diomedes and Athena both gripped the former’s spear as they leapt forward together, simultaneously invoking the name “Kathodegese Athenas!” as they bore down on your Servant. She isn’t able to evade their sudden onslaught, and her staff is sundered through the middle as she raises it in a desperate defense. You run behind her despite the pain of your wound, and a flash of light blinds you as Diomedes and Athena follow through their strike. A feathery form slamming into you, you realize without the use of your eyes that Avenger was knocked back. Trying to cushion her fall, you catch her as best you can and stumble backward, rolling onto the ground. As your vision returns, you look around her wings to see a wound in the center of her chest, no doubt from Diomedes’ and Athena’s spear-thrust.

“Avenger?” You whisper, unsure of the severity of her injury. You had suspected that it was at least worse than yours; her white dress was now in tatters and stained red with her blood.

“I’m not done… just yet.” She replies defiantly, but the fact that she opted to use telepathy instead of speaking led you to believe that she wasn’t in a condition to be doing much at this point. Her tenacity struck you as beautiful, though her vulnerability contrasting her usual bearing was what mainly held your attention.

“I’m here for you.” You find yourself whispering in reply as you shuffle around to make her a little more comfortable as she leans back against you. She doesn’t voice a response, but you feel her relax a little.

“You think this is over? What a farce…” You hear Sun Wukong spitefully grumble at the Archer whose Noble Phantasm had shredded his main body, which was already beginning to fade. Rushorou’s Lancer and Kuro no Archer kept their distance from each other as the former darted between you and Diomedes toward her Master, who had been fending off the lightly-armed wight while all this transpired. She swiftly slashed the wight’s body asunder with her spear, and the monster’s shrill death-rattle echoed briefly in the air before it passed away. Truthfully, you hadn’t been able to pay much attention to Rushorou as your Servant’s predicament had taken priority, but now that the dust had settled a little you could see that he’d made a decent account of himself. Now Kiara and Fyodor were… did they somehow slip away in the chaos? They can’t have gotten far in their condition.

“How’s your foot, king of Argos?” Avenger asks, drawing attention to the fact that one of his feet had been mangled and bloodied.

“You think you’ve earned yourself respite with that?” He asked as he leaned all of his weight onto his unscathed foot and his spear. At the same time, Athena silently returned to her owl-form, and you could hear a chariot getting driven up from the subway tunnels.

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“You seem to know better than to tempt fate.” Avenger replied, right before informing you telepathically, “In life, he had to withdraw from battle after his foot was sniped with an arrow. I managed to hit him from below right as they lunged at me.”

“Hmph, construe this as a victory if you like, provided you live long enough to relish the satisfaction.” Diomedes replied as he and the surviving, more decorated wight mounted the chariot that he’d kept in reserve.

“Don’t think you can… just leave…” Avenger began to answer as she lost consciousness. You’re going to need to be careful about moving her, the wound in her chest isn’t stable and she didn’t have time to stem the worst of it with one of her potions. If only you knew some kind of healing spell to alleviate it the way she eased the pain from your wound practically effortlessly. In fact, there are so many things you wished you knew how to do.

“Who says I don’t chase you down and off you too, hotshot?” Kuro no Archer asked as he brandished his chakram again.

“Though not eloquently, he does.” Diomedes replied as the Servant who’d been making quite a racket outside crashed through the wall of the lobby: Aka no Berserker. Wielding a large spear, he stood taller than any of the Servants you’ve seen so far, his raw strength was nothing to scoff at, and it didn’t help that he was fresh to the battle. A cloaked and hooded figure was also riding on the Berserker’s shoulders, who perked up when Diomedes addressed him, “Do as you like with them, Mathers!” before withdrawing in his chariot.

“Leaving us with clean-up duty?” The Master laughed as he dismounted from his Servant’s shoulders, “That’s fine! Tear them into bloody ribbons, Berserker!” It doesn’t strike you as a complex deduction to determine that this Mathers fellow isn’t interested in negotiation at the moment.

“Guess you’re first then!” Kuro no Archer roared as he leapt toward the Berserker, but the larger Servant is able to meet his charge and hurl him back with little effort.

“Oh, just the Servants!” Mathers corrected before his Servant got too carried away, “I want to make sport of the humans, so don’t tear them into too many pieces!”

“Graaaahhhhh!” The hulking Berserker shouts in response, though whether it‘s an affirmation of his Master’s command or simply a brutish roar is anyone’s guess.

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This is getting ridiculous; it’s as though no matter how many incremental steps forward you take, a winning scenario dances that much further out of your reach. You seem to have finally defeated Sun Wukong, but Avenger is down for the count, you aren’t in great shape yourself, Rushorou and his Servant are both fairly fatigued or injured from their respective battles leading up to this point, and your unofficial ally is quickly running out of gas against an enemy that more than matches him in strength and endurance. What are you supposed to do?

“The weather is about to get much worse here, it would behoove you to depart, friend.” A high-pitched voice chirped into your ear. Startled, you turn to find a small bird had landed on your shoulder.

“As much as I’d like to, I doubt he’ll let us take our leave.” You reply as you crane your head toward Aka no Berserker, who was now engaging both Kuro no Archer and Lancer of Red simultaneously and holding the advantage due to his strength, untapped stamina, and lack of coordination of his opponents. You’re not thinking twice about the oddness of a small bird giving you a weather forecast. He must be a familiar of some sort… and perhaps the storm that had started gathering overhead around when your confrontation with Sun Wukong began had done so by someone’s design rather than random chance.

“He shall not hinder you, Master of the forgotten name, for soon he will face the wrath of the king of the storm.” The bird chirped, catching your attention especially by how he addressed you. Did Ryuuta’s Caster send him?

You want to believe that this bird knows what it’s talking about, but can you trust it? It doesn’t sit right with you to take someone at their word and go with the flow like this, but the situation has gotten fairly dire. Glancing down to your wounded Servant as you cradle her in your arms, you decide to….

> Tell Rushorou that you all need to get out of there, and defer to the bird if he doesn’t believe you (choose to retreat either into the subway tunnels or back onto the streets, you’ll figure out what to do after you’re at a safe distance).
> Screw it, the Master is basically alone while his Berserker is busy fighting two other Servants. You may be injured, but you’re going to break him nonetheless to neutralize him and his Servant. You’ll leave Avenger with Rushorou for a few moments in the meantime.
> Try to convince Rushorou to fight Mathers together with you.
> Something else (write-in)

>>5687516

Holy shit this battle has been just numerous sandbaggings for us to avoid fucking doing what we were meant to do. If we run into Wukong again I am going to turn the fucker's head into a soup pot so I can eat his brain

> Tell Rushorou that you all need to get out of there, and defer to the bird if he doesn’t believe you (choose to retreat either into the subway tunnels or back onto the streets, you’ll figure out what to do after you’re at a safe distance).
>Write in: "As much as I'd love to die and get my corpse probably humped by your master Berserker. I gotta take my leave." Have Avenger launch a smokescreen to cover our escape

I guess Odin is finally gonna pull something off so I suggest we scramble in case he is breaking out some Authority related bullshit to annihilate the dudes

>>5687799
Now that the dust is settling, it's mostly safe to say that you probably aren't going to see Wukong again outside of an interlude. I figured I wouldn't have done Wukong justice if it didn't take an unreasonably long time to defeat him and his endless cheat-abilities.

Also, it sounds like FGO's getting Bhima as a 5* Lancer and Duryodhana as a 4* Berserker. Interesting stuff. I stopped keeping track of the JP plot, apparently they finished exterminating the lostbelts but Earth is still a bleached wasteland for the forseeable future.

>>5687799
>Have Avenger launch a smokescreen to cover our escape
Fug, I forgot to mention, Avenger is kind of incapacitated at the moment. Stab wound near her heart and all that. Lancer of Red might be able to do something similar though.

>>5687516
>Tell Rushorou that you all need to get out of there, and defer to the bird if he doesn’t believe you (choose to retreat either into the subway tunnels or back onto the streets, you’ll figure out what to do after you’re at a safe distance).
>>5687799
Thankfully, gods in class containers can't use Authorities without self-destructing. But maybe he got help from Thor? If any god can pull tricks with the Reverse Side it's probably an expert in magecraft.

>>5687516
>> Tell Rushorou that you all need to get out of there, and defer to the bird if he doesn’t believe you (subway).

>>5688213

Yeah forget I brought that up as I glazed over on Avenger being OUT out. But since Lu Bu, Diomedes and Hot Wheel are in battle against eachother we do have an opening for escape

>>5688235

You know that is true, I feel you may have a correct idea of things and Odin's nudged Thor or one of his kids to provide us with a tactical Mjolnir

You decide that trusting the bird is the best option available, and tell Rushorou, “We need to get out of here. I’ll take the bird at his word that the storm will cover our escape. Maybe we could slip into the tunnels to shake them off.”

“I’d prefer to stay on the surface and either commandeer a car for my Servant to drive or use her fast-travel ability. We should get back to Edelfelt-san and find out what happened to her ASAP.” He replied as he helped you steady yourself and looked into the subway facility, “This station should have a rear-entrance, let’s go there before we decide on which route out to take.”

As you carry Avenger and start moving away from the Servants’ melee, you ask the bird perched on your shoulder, “Would staying underground be safer than going to the surface?”

“Safer, but likely also slower.” The bird chirped.

“I’d pick speed right now, personally.” Rushorou said, voicing his opinion.

“Stop right there! We haven’t even gotten started-!” Mathers shouted as he stretched his hand toward you, but a lightning bolt broke through the ceiling of the subway station and fell in front of him, blasting him back. It was swiftly followed by a barrage of lightning strikes all about you, beginning to tear the station apart and breaking up the Servants’ battle as all three of them sought to avoid getting hit. The booming thunder makes it difficult for you to hear anything over the chaotic cacophony.

Lancer of Red quickly reunites with you, acting as a rearguard in case one of the other Servants decided to try to chase you down, though the lightning-storm seems to have occupied their attention. Before long your group finds an exit to the city near another point to access the tunnels.

“Lancer, when we get outside can you quickly transport us back to where we left Truvietianne?” Rushorou asked his Servant.

“It’s possible, but the storm may make that method risky, especially given his Avenger’s injuries!” She answered, notifying you of a potential danger to your Servant’s wellbeing.

“I’d like to ensure my Servant’s injury is stabilized before we try something like that! Could you help me with that?” You ask her.

“We need to get some distance from the enemy and this storm first!” Rushorou firmly argued over the background noise of the booming thunder, as the lightning strikes showed no sign of letting up, and while they were concentrated on where you’d left the enemy, a few seemed to go off-course every now and again and landed relatively near you.

You’ll reply:
> “Then we take refuge in the underground tunnels to stabilize Avenger before getting back to Truvi and the others!”
> “Let’s board one of the abandoned vehicles outside and have your Servant drive us away! We’ll treat Avenger once we’re clear of the storm!”
> A different suggestion (write what it is)

A shorter update, but I think I should offer this choice again with more context.

>>5690198
>> “Let’s board one of the abandoned vehicles outside and have your Servant drive us away! We’ll treat Avenger once we’re clear of the storm!”

>>5690198

> “Let’s board one of the abandoned vehicles outside and have your Servant drive us away! We’ll treat Avenger once we’re clear of the storm!”

>>5690198
>“Let’s board one of the abandoned vehicles outside and have your Servant drive us away! We’ll treat Avenger once we’re clear of the storm!”

“Then let’s board one of the abandoned vehicles outside and have your Servant drive us away! We’ll treat Avenger once we’re clear of the storm!” You say.

“Fine by me, let’s go!” Rushorou answers, with his Servant leading the rest of you out of the station. On the nearby street, you spot several vehicles, the most promising of which appears to be a plumbing contractor’s van. You suppose that it should have enough space in the rear-compartment that Avenger could lie down in it, and when you open it up you’re pleased to see that you supposed correctly. With Lancer of Red driving and Rushorou in the passenger’s seat, you clear some floor-space of the various tools that were lying there initially and gently lay Avenger down.

As the van begins moving, you switch on an overhead light and decide to examine your Servant’s wound in more detail. For a few moments you’re a little hesitant since you’d need to shuffle her upper garment around to get a clearer look, which may be a violation of her privacy, but you figure that since it’s an emergency it’s better to assess the damage now and endure her ire later, if she’s even bothered by it to begin with. You don’t expect that she’ll be all that angry given the circumstances.

In terms of bleeding, it’s not as terrible as you expected, but it’s worrisome nonetheless that there’s still constant blood-loss. You yourself feel that the amount of magical energy that gets fed to her through the Master-Servant contract has increased significantly since she was stabbed, and in combination with your earlier exertion fighting in the south, against Wukong and his clones, and own wound, you’re starting to feel rather enervated.

Regarding the wound itself, it’s a largely horizontal slit in the left-side of her chest. There’s no doubt in your mind that Diomedes aimed to destroy her heart with that attack, but it looks like it ended up off-angle and not quite as deep as intended. Though with that said, you aren’t entirely sure if you could do anything to help her as you are now, aside from trying to not let her be disturbed. In spite of your amnesia you can recollect the broad strokes of where a person’s organs are, but you lack the detailed knowledge that someone like a trained surgeon would have. You speculate that it should be possible to use something similar to the reinforcement spell you learned to optimize her body’s natural healing or perhaps mend the most vital arteries, but between the gaps in your knowledge of anatomy and your inexperience in practicing that spell you know the risks would be too great. It’s damn annoying. Were your circumstances reversed, Avenger would probably have you conscious and able to move about already.

The van suddenly swerves a little, but fortunately you don’t hear anything from the drivers’ section about an attack or emergency. However, you grit your teeth in pain as after you steady yourself you find that your own wound had broken open again at some point, probably from your efforts to carry Avenger to safety. Maybe you could test your theory on alleviating wounds with the spell that you already know on yourself?

“Nnnh… won’t… nnnh…” Avenger groans as she flitters in and out of consciousness. You won’t try talking to her, instead just trying to keep her steady as the drive gets a little choppy.

“Could you drive more smoothly?! Her injury shouldn’t be disturbed!” You say, directed toward Rushorou’s Servant.

Her Master replies to you from the passenger-seat, “Don’t worry, we’re pulling into a parking garage now; we’ll be right there to help with Avenger’s wound.”

True to his word, his Lancer soon stopped the van and the two of them joined you in the rear-section. After a brief examination, his Servant reported, “Her Spirit Core sustained minimal damage. It is within my capability to close her wound, though I am unsure as to when she’ll fully regain consciousness.”

“Do what you can, please.” You say. After her Master quietly nods in assent, she conjures several runes into the air and begins whatever treatment she had in mind. You don’t know the details.

“I suppose we’re lucky that’s all the damage she took, considering the power of the attack that Diomedes threw at her.” Rushorou noted.

“I don’t think luck had much to do with it.” You reply, “I could tell she was fighting like hell the whole time. I didn’t expect that taking Wukong down would be so costly to us.”

“If he is really down.” You ally answered, “His main body’s definitely dead this time, but I’m concerned that he may have some last reserve hiding somewhere.”

Feeling your blood start to boil, you retort, “I really hope you’re wrong, because if you’re not I’m going to turn his skull into a pot of monkey-brain soup even if it kills me.”

“Your own wound is not insignificant.” Lancer of Red interjected without looking away from her work, “I would advise you avoid strenuous exertion as much as you may.”

“Well we can’t always afford the safest option.” You grumble, displeased by the idea of seeing Wukong again and not immediately beating him to death. Perhaps it was vice to dwell on a wrathful craving for revenge, but it just felt… comforting, somehow. You don’t know why, maybe you should think on that when you have a little down-time later.

“Anyway, I think we should drive toward where we left Edelfelt-san once Lancer’s finished her treatment, but not too quickly.” Rushorou suggested, “Both to avoid disturbing your wounds, and also so we don’t run headlong into an enemy Servant again without much warning. I’d like to avoid further battles if at all possible until we can regroup and recover.”

“You may be right.” You reply. It sounds reasonable on its face, at least.

About a minute later, Lancer informs you, “I’ve stopped her bleeding; the rest may come down to you providing her with magical energy over time, unless we find that Caster can further expedite her recovery.”

“Do you know of a method where I could speed things along now?” You ask, hoping that there’s a way that you could substantially contribute and get Avenger back to health sooner.

“Hypothetically, you may increase the amount of magical energy that you provide her by administering some of your saliva, a blood-transfusion, or insemination.” She answers as casually as though she were patiently giving directions to a lost tourist, without an iota of either bashfulness or disgust.

“Insemination?” Rushorou echoes involuntarily in surprise.

“The bodily fluids of a magus contain magical energy.” She explains, “In men, blood and semen have the highest concentrations. Breast-milk in the case of women has a significant concentration as well.”

You learn something new every day. While you’re not going to entertain the prospect of having sexual intercourse with your Servant while she’s critically-wounded and unconscious, if you’re bleeding anyway it may help to give her some of your blood. You’re hoping this doesn’t become a habit for you; you already did this song and dance with Jen. But it may prove expedient, though the downside is if you become incapacitated as well then that’s two people down in your group as opposed to just Avenger. It may be better to simply ask Lancer to treat your wound as best as she can and head toward Truvietianne, though you’re also unsure if you want to risk further delay.

In the end, you decide to:
> Ask Lancer to give Avenger some of your blood before closing your wound.
> Ask Lancer to quickly close your wound.
> Just head toward Truvietianne without further delay.
> Something different (write-in)

>>5691797
>> Ask Lancer to give Avenger some of your blood before closing your wound.

>>5691797
>Ask Lancer to give Avenger some of your blood before closing your wound.

Sorry to go silent as long as I have, this week has been packed. I have an outline for the update and the last part of the Wukong clone vs. Anne/Perseus/Sophia interlude coming along well.

>>5691797
> Ask Lancer to give Avenger some of your blood before closing your wound.
>Then head towards Truvietianne

Gib her sum of our vein sauce

“You’re one slippery bastard.” Sophia noted after she finally scored a hit against her opponent, who’d been evading her attacks and taunting her for several minutes before that.

Looking down at the fresh cuts across his chest, the copy of Sun Wukong came to a realization as he asked, “Did you incorporate the ability of his spear into your claws after you ate his heart?”

“I guess I did.” She responded as she licked his blood off her claws, “Is that a problem?”

“So that’s why my immortality...” He quietly muttered to himself, and his earlier easygoing demeanor shifted into cold menace as the monkey king continued, “I’m giving you one chance to dispel it before I start taking this seriously.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” She answered, adding defiantly, “and I wouldn’t help you even if I did.”

“Playtime’s over then.” He replied, and rushed forward with far more speed than his opponent thought he’d be able to muster given the amount of blood he’d lost over time from his wounds. He wasn’t showboating anymore: it was a keenly-focused and overwhelming onslaught of punches. Simple but effective, as Sophia’s reflexes couldn’t keep up with them as she tried to dodge, deflect, or cut into his fists with her claws. Peppering her torso and head with crushing blows, Wukong finally threw a palm-strike into the center of her chest, launching her against a wall.

Giving her no reprieve, the monkey king closed his left hand around her throat while pressing her against the wall at a rising angle such that her feet dangled above the ground even though she was a little taller than him. As she dug her claws into his arm to free herself from his grip, he used his right hand to relentlessly punch her arms and face to stop her regeneration ability from being able to keep up with the damage he was dealing.

As her nose and one of her eye-sockets are caved in by Wukong’s punches, a memory surfaces in Sophia’s mind as she struggles to hold on to consciousness.

A girl holding a hunting rifle is waiting in a tree-stand with her father, quietly asking, “Hey dad, why do folks say wounded critters are the most dangerous? Shouldn’t they be weaker if they lost a lot of blood and stuff?”

“Well Jenny, if the wounds aren’t bad enough that the critter can still move, that’s when you gotta worry.” He answered, “Normally they just wanna get clear of danger when you’re huntin’ ‘em, but if you back ‘em into a corner they’ll forget about their safety and put everything they got into tearin’ you a new one.”

“Is a past life flashing before my eyes? Fuck. I don’t wanna die. It’s too early for me to die, damn it.” Sophia thought as she tried kicking at Wukong’s groin, but he simply ignored it in his primal ferocity. She was nearly out of time, and could only roll the dice one more time to get herself out of his death-grip.

“Inflicting pain isn’t enough, it has to sever the tendons in his arm. Do or die….” She thought as she swung both of her legs above Wukong’s head. While experimenting with her abilities early in the morning, she had tried growing claws from her toes as well as her fingers as she was curious as to whether it could be done, and found that, while possible, it required keener concentration to do. One long claw broke through the end of each of her boots, and as they fell one cleaved through his left bicep, and the other slashed through his left eye.

His left arm’s strength waning, the vampire managed to break his grip and scramble away as her opponent momentarily reoriented himself after losing the use of one of his eyes.

“Guess you never… heard of a… Velociraptor before.” Sophia coughed as she decided that when this Holy Grail War thing was done and dusted she’d find time to thank Jennifer’s brother for making her watch Jurassic Park as many times as he did when they were kids, assuming she doesn’t get herself killed between now and then. Shakily rising to her feet, she knew her vampiric regeneration ability would need some time to heal the damage that Wukong dished out to her. Time she probably didn’t have.

“I don’t need both of my hands or eyes to finish you off.” The copy of Wukong spat as he lurched toward his enemy. He continued, “One lucky hit won’t save-” but was then cut off as a bolt of lightning suddenly fell from the clouds above and hit him dead-on.

“Th’fuck?” The monkey king wheezed, his body smoking and paralyzed in shock by the lightning-strike that both he and his opponent guessed was deliberately aimed at him.

Taking advantage of his moment of weakness, Sophia hissed, “You’re done!” as she rushed forward to slash through his right bicep, slip under his arm, quickly pivot, and bite into the base of his neck to begin sucking his blood. She also wrapped her arms around him and dug her claws into his chest and gut to maintain her position.

“You damn…” He growled as he leapt backward to slam her into a building, “Leech!”

He was weakening though, and she knew it. Despite the crushing force of the impact, she stubbornly continued draining his veins. As he flung his right fist against her face in desperation, she unflinchingly bit down harder with each bone-splintering hit. Drinking his blood let her increase her rate of healing to keep up with his strikes, and now that she finally had him on the ropes she wouldn’t let any amount of pain force her off. Even if it killed her, she’d rather die with her fangs in her enemy than back down after everything that led up to this point.

Wukong’s blows begin slowing down as he sinks to his knees. At length, he quits trying to counterattack and admits, “I suppose this is what happens if I forget what I learned in my journey and just fight for my pride.”

File: Kiara-ara SUSsyouin.jpg (71 KB, 579x539)

71 KB JPG

Releasing the grip of her jaws but pressing her claws around the vital arteries in his throat as insurance, the vampire wearily asks, “Do you want me to feel sorry for you after everything you’ve done just because you’re about to die? Not happening.”

“I’m not asking for your pity or mercy.” He responds, “At least not for myself.”

Noticing the implication immediately, she asks, “Then for whom?”

“Heroic Spirits are shadows of the past.” He explains, “Our stories have been written and finished; the living world belongs to the living. My Master and Kiara are holding out as we speak, and of the two, the girl’s the one I’m more worried about.”

“I get that, a little girl on a battlefield like this is going to be in more danger-” She began.

“No, you don’t get it.” Wukong interrupted. Slowly turning his neck enough to see her through the corner of his eye, he continued, “Listen carefully: when I realized you ate that Lancer’s Spirit Core and assimilated part of his Reiki, I was surprised, and kinda impressed.”

“You mean you went berserk.” She rebutted flatly as her face slowly restored its original shape.

“That was because I knew the only way to restore my immortality would be to kill you, but now that’s not in the cards. Back to what I was saying, I broke into a cold sweat when I met Sessyouin Kiara.” He replied.

“What?” She asked, stunned in disbelief that the girl had managed to scare Sun Wukong with her mere presence.

“I could just tell that she has some… hidden quality...” Wukong replied with unease, “with the potential to do a lot of good or a hell of a lot of bad. As she is now, could go either way.”

“Do you expect me to do something about it?” She asked with her eyes narrowing.

“Look, just remember that whatever grudge you have with me dies with me; if you see her or my Master again, try to look out for them.” He replied.

“I’m not making any promises, since I’ve got my own shit to deal with.” She said, but remembered something that had been nagging at her and decided to add, “Although, I’ll agree to put a reasonable effort into helping them out if you answer me this: do you care about what happens to humanity? And if you do, why? You’re a monkey, and monkeys aren’t known to be man’s best friend.”

“That’s it? Yeah, I care about humanity.” He answered after a short pause, “A lot of it comes down to what I learned from them: before I met that monk and went on my journey, I chased after immortality every chance I got. I was a slave to my vanity and desire to extend my life. Humanity showed me how to find that which is beyond life.”

“That which is beyond life?” She repeated, interested but unsure of how to effectively inquire further.

“Perhaps you can learn of it one day as well.” The monkey king hinted as his body began breaking down starting from his extremities, “Looks like my time’s up; you’re not gonna eat my heart too?”

“Tempting, but I don’t think I will.” Sophia decided, “Your blood tasted pretty good, but from how tenacious you are I’m betting you’d use the opportunity to cheat death somehow.”

Shrugging shortly before his shoulders disintegrated, he replied, “Your loss, you could learn a lot about fighting or magic with me tagging along as a voice in your head.”

“Sorry, but I hate backseat-drivers.” She replied with a wry smile.

As his chest and head rapidly crumbled to ash in her hands, Sun Wukong chuckled, “I probably would’ve felt the same way.” A gust of wind scattered the remains of the final clone before they ultimately dematerialized.

With a long sigh of relief, Sophia went back to Truvietianne to see if she could rouse her. Kneeling at her side, the vampire retracted her claws as she gently tapped the unconscious mage’s cheeks, saying, “Anne, we finally got him. It’s over. Can you wake up now? Anne?”

Stirring, the Edelfelt Master suddenly gasped and asked fearfully, “Perseus?” Without moving her neck, her eyes drew toward her Command Seals, and she resignedly muttered, “So he really is gone…” before her shoulders started shaking and her eyes started tearing up.

“Anne…” the vampire said, having no idea of what words of comfort would be appropriate here. She certainly didn’t want to go into detail on how she physically ate Perseus’ Spirit Core as Anne most likely wouldn’t be pleased to hear of it.

“Hi, Jen. Looks like you survived at least.” The former Master remarked despondently.

“Don’t just think about survival, we killed Sun Wukong dead!” Sophia replied, ignoring Anne’s use of her old name for the time being, “Perseus, me, you, everyone else.”

“I hope you’re right.” Truvietianne replied, then continued in broken sobs, “But even if you are… it won’t bring… him…”

Quickly leaning over and gently embracing the young lady, Sophia took care to avoid moving Anne’s neck as she held her close and said, “I know… we don’t need to put everything to words. Words can’t describe everything we’re feeling, right?”

“No…” Anne agreed.

“While I hate to interrupt the two of you as you grieve, I’m afraid I must.” A high-pitched feminine voice interjected. Looking up, the two women say a small blonde girl in a red dress holding a submachine gun.

“Kuro no Berserker?” Anne whispered, recognizing the Servant’s class and color-designation intuitively on account of her status as a (now Servantless) Master.

“Why’s that?” Sophia asked the girl warily.

“Personal business, on my Master’s behalf.” The girl answered.

“Could you give some of my blood to Avenger?” You ask the Lancer, “We’ll all benefit if she recovers quicker.”

“Are you sure that’s wise? You’ve already lost a fair amount.” Rushorou reminded you.

“Since I’m still bleeding, we’ll give the blood coming out of my wound to her, then your Servant could close the wound.” You say.

“Very well: kneel there.” Lancer of Red instructed, gesturing for you to move to a position where the distance between your wound and Avenger’s is short. She spends a few minutes using a spell to move some of your blood into Avenger’s body before closing your wound. Your mounting fatigue is exacerbated by this, but Avenger begins stirring toward the end, so you figure it was probably worth it.

“Your Servant may regain consciousness soon.” The Lancer notes, not that you really needed her to tell you since you could see that much yourself.

“We should find Truvietianne now, and find out what happened.” Rushorou suggested as he eyed the driver’s section of the van.

“Agreed, and try to drive smoothly if you can. I’d prefer our wounds stay closed.” You say as you lie down in the back next to your Servant.

Lancer of Red gets behind the wheel and starts driving; after a couple minutes, the van halts suddenly. You ask, “Why did we stop?”

“There’s a Servant ahead, but seems to be leaving the area.” Rushorou explained, “We’re seeing if it changes course to attack us.”

Waiting for the unknown Servant to leave doesn’t sit right with you, but you estimate that your group isn’t in a good position to fight unless the enemy is fairly weak. After half a minute, the young man updates you, saying, “It’s still leaving.”

“Then let’s go; if everyone moved since we left we’d need to track them somehow.” You say.

The two in the driver’s section agree, and soon they inform you that you’ve arrived. “I can see Edelfelt-san. Wait here, we’ll bring her to the van so she can tell us all what happened.” Rushorou says, and shortly afterward the van’s rear-doors open to reveal Rushorou and his Servant each bracing one of Truvietianne’s sides to help her into the van.

“Is your neck alright, Truvi?” You ask, effortlessly noticing her visible discomfort.

“Not really.” The mage sighed listlessly, “I guess Sun Wukong’s going to be a pain for a while, even in death.” she then joked half-heartedly as she stepped inside and tried to comfortably lean back against one of its walls. Spotting Avenger, she continued, “Today’s taken its toll on all of us, I see. I’d hoped we could have chased down Kuro no Berserker and bring Sophia back, but I guess not.”

“Sophia?” You ask, not recognizing the name.

“Right, Jen chose that as her proper name. You weren’t there. She left with the Berserker.” She replied.

“I don’t think we should give up.” Rushorou interjected, “Even if we don’t fight that Berserker head-to-head, Lancer and I could at least figure out where they’re going so we’d have a better idea of where to find them later.”

“Do as you please.” Truvi mumbled indifferently. You’re getting a bit concerned for her mental well-being: this apathy strikes you as out-of-character, but perhaps she’s simply exhausted from whatever’s happened since you left.

“Where’s Perseus? Is he still with us?” You ask her, recalling what Wukong suggested earlier about Jen, well, you guess it’s Sophia now, eating his Spirit Core.

“No.” She exhaled, “We won’t be seeing him again.” She didn’t seem to want to elaborate further. It sounds more and more likely that Wukong spoke the truth.

“Then my Lancer and I will be the ones to get a lead on where that Berserker’s home-base is.” Rushorou asserted as he turned to leave, “We’ll be back shortly.”

Should you stop him? There don’t appear to be any other Servants nearby, but you recall the ones in the Assassin-class can mask themselves from the standard method of detection. And even if it weren’t a Servant, you imagine that there are plenty of other combatants in this city who could give you a bad time if they found you as you are now. But gaining information on your enemies’ whereabouts is of vital importance in war, so it’s not like his plan is totally unreasonable. It may become a problem if he overextends himself, though.

You will:

> Try to talk Rushorou out of pursuing them, and instead suggest everyone drive toward Caster’s territory to regroup. Default argument is the risk of overextending in your current state outweighs the benefit of getting a head-start on where to find one opponent (but you can alter or add to it if you like).
> Ask Rushorou to wait until you learn more about what happened from Truvi (you can ask her up to 3 short questions)
> Let Rushorou leave, and try to learn more about what happened here from Truvi while waiting here in the meantime.
> Let Rushorou leave, but tell him to head right back to Caster’s territory when he’s satisfied with his scouting. You’ll drive the van toward there in the meantime (it can’t be that hard, right?)
> Something different (write-in)

>>5697145

> Try to talk Rushorou out of pursuing them, and instead suggest everyone drive toward Caster’s territory to regroup.We've been bloodied to hell after dealing with Wukong so we're gonna need not only time to recover but to be more properly armed, we've seen that the Servants about are formidible with some still an unknown. If it's harder from here we'll need to steel ourselves and use some down time to heal and rest up, strategize, and engage in more thurough practice. Else we're likely dead already after this

> Ask Rushorou to wait until you learn more about what happened from Truvi (you can ask her up to 3 short questions)

I think that after all this shit that's happened we're gonna need to properly heal up and take a respite. While we DID knock out probably one of the strongest Servants within this War(so far) we had gotten armed, went about strategizing, got Hot Wheels involved.

And STILL he nearly fucking killed us. I believe this calls for delving deep and we practice and having Avenger gives us a BIG lesson on Magic(maybe ask some advice from Caster as well since hey, he did give us that out and it'd be alright to repay him by a Favor). Given we're down a full Servant and a Vampire, we need to make up for the loss in total power

But for now? Now we deal with what's immediate

>What exactly did Sophia do?
>Why did she run off with Kuro no Berserker?
>Has she heard back from Matsuda?

>>5697145
>Try to talk Rushorou out of pursuing them, and instead suggest everyone drive toward Caster’s territory to regroup. Default argument is the risk of overextending in your current state outweighs the benefit of getting a head-start on where to find one opponent (but you can alter or add to it if you like).
Like >>5697250 said, we need to strategize and accumulate power.
>Ask Rushorou to wait until you learn more about what happened from Truvi (you can ask her up to 3 short questions)
What did Sophia do?
Why did Berserker take her away?
Has Truvi heard back from Matsuda?

>>5697250
>>5697258
So you'll try to talk him out of it, and whether or not he listens you'll still ask Truvi those questions regardless.

“Please reconsider going, Rushorou.” You say, hoping to persuade him against presenting himself as a target to Kuro no Berserker. When he pauses to listen, you continue, “We've been bloodied to hell from dealing with Wukong; we need time to recover and to be more properly armed for the days ahead. We've seen that some of the Servants remaining are formidable, and others are still unknown variables. If it's harder from here, we'll need to ready ourselves by resting, healing, strategizing, and practicing and preparing more thoroughly. Else we're likely dead already after this.”

“I hope Je-, Sophia isn’t in immediate danger.” He responds at length, staying by the van. He then asks Truvietianne, ”Did Kuro no Berserker tell you why she wanted to take her?”

“She said her Master… ‘wanted to see’ the two of us, but Sophia talked her into settling for just her.” She answered slowly.

“Just like that?” You ask. Was that Berserker not taking her Master’s orders seriously?

“She was surprisingly easy to convince.” Anne replied, “I suspect it was more one of her Master’s whims than a serious strategic decision, and she said as long as she didn’t go back empty-handed she’d be satisfied. I suppose aside from saving her some hassle, she also voided the risk of accidentally killing one or both of us if we resisted.”

“Backing things up, what exactly did Sophia do leading up to that?” You then ask, “When we fought Wukong’s main body, he implied that one of his doppelgangers was fighting back here. That seems to have been true, but was that copy defeated?”

“Yes, and he gave us a bad time.” She explained as she gently rubbed her neck, “Knocked me out, so I can’t tell you all the details. Sophia said she eventually finished him off with help from divine intervention, not sure what she meant.”

“Did she say anything about Perseus’ Spirit Core?” Rushorou then asked, briefly flashing you a knowing glance. Indeed, you don’t know exactly what happened between Sophia, Perseus, and the clone of Wukong who was here. She did say that she wanted to taste the blood of a hero, but you’d hope that she wouldn’t have stooped to base treachery to get it.

“What? No, why would she?” Truvietianne said, clearly not expecting a question along those lines.

“Wukong’s main body just insinuated something strange when we fought him, and I didn’t want to take it at face-value. Don’t think too hard about it.” He answered casually. You suppose he wants to table this issue until you have more information to work with.

“Thanks, I don’t wanna think too hard about anything right now.” She replied as she buried her face in her hands.

Addressing you, Rushorou suggests, “If we’re abandoning pursuit, I suppose the best option would then be for us to regroup with Matsuda in his Caster’s territory.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” You confirm, relieved that he decided against overextending himself. If Kuro no Berserker was fresh to battle, you estimate she could have a decisive advantage over Lancer of Red while the latter is fatigued and needing to actively protect her Master.

“We’ll have my Servant drive everyone in the van as before, then.” He replies as he begins going around to the passenger seat. “We won’t go full-speed, so you all can relax in the back.”

“Much obliged.” Truvi exhaled wearily.

It seems you have some time to pass for the drive. How will you pass it:

> Ask Truvietianne if she knows any healing-type magic to help Avenger recover a little more quickly. If not that’s alright, maybe you can help her clear her head by discussing other magic that she knows.
> Focus your effort on comforting/reassuring Truvietianne, since she seems like she’s out of sorts right now.
> Take a seat near the driver’s section and brainstorm some preparation or battle strategies with Rushorou and his Servant.
> Something different (write-in)

>>5698709
>> Focus your effort on comforting/reassuring Truvietianne, since she seems like she’s out of sorts right now.
hey, you are not out till' you are dead

>>5698709
>Focus your effort on comforting/reassuring Truvietianne, since she seems like she’s out of sorts right now.

As Rushorou and his Lancer start up the van again, you check on Avenger and are relieved to see that her condition is still stable. You consider asking Truvietianne if she can help speed up the healing process, but decide that with her mental state being what it is, she might be overwhelmed with the responsibility. Maybe you can think of a way to comfort her.

Sitting down next to the distraught mage, you ask, “Mind if I have a seat here?”

“You already took it, and I don’t have the energy to shove you off. But it’s fine.” She answered as she rubbed her face before letting her hands rest at her sides.

“Not that I’m suggesting you try, but considering how busted up I am right now you could probably manage if you really wanted to.” You joke.

“Your vote of confidence notwithstanding, I’d rather not risk making my neck pain any worse than it already is.” She replied, not terribly amused.

“Wukong did that to you?” You ask more seriously.

“Yes. One chop to the neck, and the next thing I know my brief stint as a Master is over; I guess we Edelfelts aren’t cut out for Holy Grail Wars.” She sighed, but after a short pause she added, “Actually no, my sister would have made a much better account of herself than I have.”

This is the second time she’s brought up her sister, you recall, and both times she’s hinted that her sibling is quite capable as a mage. “You really admire her, don’t you?”

“Well, yes…” She said as she twirled some of her hair in her hands, “Luvia’s a lot more accomplished than I’ll ever be, so it’s only natural.”

“You shouldn’t make that kind of restrictive estimation of your future, in my opinion.” You advise, concerned that she may be discouraging herself by trying to live up to a standard that she’s ill-suited to meet.

“I appreciate the sentiment, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She replied aloofly, “Suffice to say the only advantage I have over her is that I lack the notoriety to scare away potential suitors, not that I have many expectations on that front aside from an arranged marriage purely for the practical matter of continuing our bloodline.”

Wow, her self-image and life-trajectory sound significantly bleaker than you expected them to be. You respond, “I can tell that doesn’t sit right with you; this is why you shouldn’t just assume the conclusion is forgone. I know you can change things if you-”

“What do you think you know about me?” She interrupts you, then snapping, “You barely know anything about yourself!”

That one actually hurt; it even made you forget the lingering pain of your stab-wound for a short while. Gritting you teeth, you decide to tamp down on your irritation toward her and try to stick things out, answering, “I know you’re rather upset right now. I’d hoped talking things through might help, but I guess I’ve gone off track.”

“Look, I’m… frustrated, alright?” She admits wearily, and the two of you sit together in an uncomfortable silence for a long minute before she then says, “I don’t blame you for what happened. You tried to help as much as could be reasonably expected; more than your Servant wanted, in fact. Maybe I could try to blame Sophia because she got herself knocked out right away, but it’s not like we’d planned or practiced how to fight together. As I think about it, the only person who really looks like she deserves the blame is me, and it makes me feel like… garbage...”

“I see.” You mutter. You think for a while about what you ought to say to cheer her up, but the problem doesn’t seem like one with a simple solution. Since you don’t think you can manipulate her emotions with any level of precision, you decide to just speak from the heart and hope for the best. “You’re not the only one who would have done things differently knowing what we do now. Any of us could have died back there, and as you can tell some of us came closer than others. But you’re still alive, and from what I knew of Perseus, I think he’d be satisfied knowing that. Remember, you didn’t choose to fight in this Holy Grail War so much as it foisted itself on you, so as long as you’re still alive, you haven’t really lost.”

“I suppose you have a point.” She whispered, gently sliding her shoulders your way until she lightly leaned against you. You feel her chest expand and contract in rhythm with her breath as she continues, “Though I’ve been wondering, what do you consider to be your win-condition? Or maybe it’d be clearer to ask what your priorities are? Dying is losing, I’m sure, but where are going with all this?”

You’re about to reply that you simply want to recover your identity, but is that really all there is to it? In the past couple days, a variety of developments have arisen that give you pause. Between the civilians you and Anne found, the atrocities perpetrated by the overseer and the Dead Apostles, the thrill of battle in beating down opponents with your own hands, the vast horizons of magical knowledge that you may be able to learn, and the mystery surrounding the purpose of this city of Akeldama itself, there are actually a lot of things that have caught your attention.

How do you want to explain your priorities to her? You can pick a few to emphasize, and/or designate some as short vs. long-term if you wish. A sample of some to choose from:

> Learning the truth of your identity
> Learning more about yourself in the more immediate sense, such as your capability to learn magic
> Discovering the truth of this distorted Holy Grail War
> Ensuring the overseer and any other scumbags you find get their comeuppance
> Seeing the Holy Grail War through to its end (choose for Avenger, for yourself, or both)
> Protecting the innocents that you’ve found, and any others you may find who don’t belong on a battlefield (you may choose to emphasize protecting Truvietianne if you so wish)

>>5701054
>> Learning the truth of your identity
this one doesn't necessarily requires us to win the war though they are probably, if there's a reason to actually win I say it would be
> Seeing the Holy Grail War through to its end (for Avenger)
its clear she wants it waay more

>>5701060
>probably
probably related*

>>5701054
Short-term:
>Protecting the innocents that you’ve found, and any others you may find who don’t belong on a battlefield
Long-term:
>Learning the truth of your identity
>Seeing the Holy Grail War through to its end

By the way, are there any characters that haven't been around in a while that you want to see more of? Accepting interlude suggestions.

>>5701054

Long term:
> Learning the truth of your identity
> Seeing the Holy Grail War through to its end
> Discovering the truth of this distorted Holy Grail War

Short term:
> Learning more about yourself in the more immediate sense, such as your capability to learn magic
> Ensuring the overseer and any other scumbags you find get their comeuppance

>>5701614

Abraxas or our dear buddy being suitor to Kiyohime. I'd even accept an interlude for our Overseer

>>5701762
>our dear buddy being suitor to Kiyohime
It'll be kind of uneventful for a bit, he's in bed recovering from the wound to his stomach. Kiyo makes sure to *cozy up to him* when no one else is watching, then swaps back into spirit-form if anyone checks on them.
>Overseer
I've had some ideas floating in my head regarding him that have wanted to take form for a while now. I think that one would be timely.

Somewhere in the city, a church building was subtly transported above a convergence of leylines around sunset of the first day. In that church, during the afternoon of the second day…

The Servant clad in black armor scratched his white beard as the overseer Triscus Adajio intently concentrated on a spell he’d crafted to monitor the war’s status.

Noticing the overseer sigh in relief, the Servant asked, “What’s the current tally, then?”

“Twenty-three remain, though I was concerned about an abnormality in the Spirit Origins that were absorbed into the Grail just now.” Triscus said, “The most recent two seemed… incomplete somehow. Not enough to appreciably hinder the ritual’s mechanics, but it merits investigation.”

“You mean to say something else tried to siphon them off?” The Servant asked as he manifested his polearm into his grip, “That’s sufficient cause to intervene ourselves, and purge whatever’s doing it.”

“Possibly.” The overseer replied as he cycled through information compiled by virtue of his status as the war’s administrator, “Something of this nature occurring was within my calculations, but it’s happening far earlier than I’d anticipated to be possible. I’ll need a short while to determine what circumstances led to it.”

At length, the man in priestly vestments learned the context, prompting him to laugh in amusement, “Again my expectations are met and far surpassed!”

“It’s difficult to work with you when you speak in nothing but riddles and vague hints.” The Servant grumbled, “What exactly are you referring to?”

“It’s all too fitting: in addition to the Son of Day, this war’s found a way to give birth to a Daughter of Night!” Adajio enthusiastically declared, before remembering his manners and addressing the Servant, “Ah, do pardon me. The short version is the Master of Avenger is indirectly responsible, but it would be out of line for us to censure him given recent developments. The person directly responsible-”

“Spare me, I’ve decided that it matters little.” The armored man interrupted, “If my patience regarding your machinations is exhausted, I’ll simply wipe out the remaining Servants myself and claim the prize.”

In a more deflated tone, Triscus replied, “You do realize that if you were to act so rashly, I’d have to entirely revoke my support for you.”

“As if I need your help to dispose of a few Heroic Spirits!” The old man laughed, “You underestimate me, overseer!”

“Your confidence is laudable, to be expected of the man who discarded his Command Seals immediately after dispatching his predecessor.” Triscus conceded, before shrugging and adding, “Perhaps you’re right. Either way, I suppose you can tolerate my riddles for a while longer?”

“A while longer.” The old man echoed in a low, rumbling tone.

And that's probably as far as this thread goes. I may take a break in writing to put some character designs to paper that have been kind of vague so far. Pictures being worth a thousand words and all that.

Any thoughts/comments on how the story is progressing overall?

Regardless, thanks for playing/reading!