Fate/Reverse Part 1.50 – What Must be Done

Aimon began to walk his new ally towards the church while Natasha let out a single, tired laugh.

“How inspirational, Lady Pendragon,” the older woman said with a touch of bitterness. “Ah, I suppose I should call you Alter since you don’t seem to have a proper class vessel like Caster. I have to say, you aren’t quite what I expected from the stories of Morgan le Fey.”

From the side, Aimon could see under her veil. Alter’s expression held a bit of bitterness as well. The emotion looked strange on her elfish features.

She was as beautiful as the legends might suggest, but not quite in a human way. Rather than Marissa’s dark and solid beauty, the woman reminded Aimon of a twilight forest. She looked somehow both fresh and ancient, with wide, deer-like eyes shone in the darkness and hid the fangs beneath. Something to be admired from a safe distance.

“I am rarely what people expect,” Alter sighed. “Though I can’t claim it’s always intentional.”

She shifted her weight against his wounded shoulder, and Aimon flinched involuntarily. He steadied quickly and scolded himself in the quiet of his mind since the wound wasn’t even deep.

But Alter sprang off of him with the grace of a deer. “Oh, that was thoughtless of me,” she muttered. “You bore it so bravely, I almost forgot you were injured, Master.”

“It’s not critical, I can wait,” he said with a shrug. The bleeding had already slowed, thanks to the magic that was filtering back into his body. “And you don’t need to call me that either. I’ve no identity to hide, so Aimon is preferable.”

The curves of her elegant eyebrows rose beyond the top of her veil. “Well, a surprise for each of us then.” Her hand disappeared into the folds at the waist of her dress and she chuckled to herself. “No sense wasting time beguiling the likes of you, is there?”

“One more thing that might surprise you,” the woman said to Natasha beside them, “Is that I am quite a skilled healer. No doubt you lot will make use of that talent…”

Alter produced a vial of greenish ointment, dripped some on her finger, and traced a line over Aimon’s wound. Immediately the pain became muted, overshadowed by a twinging, tickling feeling.

“There we are,” the woman crooned. “That should stop the bleeding. It will close soon if you rest your shoulder.”

“We could all use some rest,” Natasha said, surveying the singed grass and her battered allies. “While we have the chance to catch our breath. But your wounds concern me the most, Alter. You need treatment.”

“And I shall provide it.” The Servant lifted her chin and tucked her wounded arm into her sleeve. “My body may not be completely spiritual, but it should be easy enough to regenerate, provided I have food.” Her eyes gleamed from within her veil. “You do have food here, correct?”

Natasha’s smile was both baffled and relieved. “There’s a kitchen on the first floor of the church. If that will really, help then let’s go see what’s left in the fridge.”

“Ahh, you have one of those Frigidaires. To be able to interact with all the technology I’ve watched build up over the years… How exciting!” Alter gathered up her dress and hurried after her, apparently unbothered by the gash across her left breast.

Aimon’s own chest ached and it wasn’t even injured. He felt sore from all directions, bruised in both body and soul. He did need rest. Badly.

But as the four of them wound through the white hallways to the little tiled kitchen in the basement, his mind burned with questions.

The group that sat on familiar folding chairs from the nearby gathering room included a witch of legend. The being he had summoned out of thin air rested elegantly next to him, gnawing at a cold turkey sandwich. So many new threats, allies, and pieces of information, all being turned over in the back of his mind… It felt surreal within the simple church walls.

In the heat the moment, and with monsters and magic flying about him, Aimon didn’t have time to think about more than was necessary. But away from the icy clarity of battle, his mind became a burden.

He had really summoned a legend and fought alongside her. Against another legend, centuries or millennia old. The world he knew had truly disappeared, swallowed by more magic he didn’t understand. And below it all, pulling at his heart, was the knowledge that Marissa really was…

The sandwich tasted like ash in his mouth.

Aimon handed it to Alter, who had been eyeing all of their food greedily, and watched as she wolfed it down. The sight was absurd enough to lighten his mood a bit.

“Well then,” Natasha said as she sipped at her second cup of black coffee. “We had better plan our next move.”

“Do we have a next move?” Magdalena asked quietly, perhaps to herself. But all their gazes coalesced on her and the girl started in her chair. “No, I just mean— How do we even come back from this? Everything’s gone.”

“Leave that to us, dear.” Alter popped the last bite of sandwich in her mouth and her veil materialized back over her face. “If Lady Natasha still has temporal anchors in the old world, we can bring drag it back onto its proper timeline. Such a spell will be simple for me, like directing a flooded stream back to its natural course.”

“I do, but there’s something blocking it.” The mage ran her fingers through her hair, pale white amidst grey and black. “Something powerful. I’m sure it’s the other faction, the Servants of White.”

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“I’m sure,” Alter said gravely. “I could feel them from Avalon, many in number and immense in power. And what Assassin let slip has confirmed my suspicions. Ruler has taken control of the Servants of White and now stands in our way.”

Aimon frowned, thinking back to the power of the swordsman that attacked them. “I don’t understand. If there are already enemies we can’t hope to face directly, how does one more change the situation?”

“Ruler is not like the other Servants,” Natasha explained. “They stand—or are supposed to stand—above and apart from the others. They are the culmination of the Greater Holy Grail War’s balancing system, a defense mechanism to ensure the wish-granting device is not misused.”

Alter gave a dark chuckle. “Foolishness. Even Rulers used to be humans. And it is a rare human that can resist the temptation of power.”

“That may be,” Aimon said, “But it’s still one hero out of many.”

“Ruler has power over the seven Servants summoned on each side.” Natasha held up her hand so Aimon could see the jagged red line on the back. Two more marks smudged around it like fading bruises. “Similar to our command seals. If he is truly our enemy, he could simply enslave our own allies when we face him.”

Aimon glanced at Alter in concern. He still didn’t quite trust the woman’s intentions, but they had fought together and even saved each other. The thought of facing her, and her black flames, shook him. “Then…”

But she put her hand over his and laughed softly. “Not to worry, dear partner. Such seals don’t work on me. I saw to that when I prepared my rather unique summoning.”

Natasha and Magdalena both glanced at her sharply, and Aimon was inclined to agree with the concern on their faces. That meant one less failsafe for them.

But he had already decided to put his life, at least, in Alter’s hands. So he said, “That’s good then. We have one weapon we can use to fight back.”

“Isn’t it?” Alter’s voice was a low croon. She slipped her hand from his and ran a finger down the hilt of the sword at his waist. The one Marissa had left behind. “Though you have quite the weapon here. Where oh where did you get a Noble Phantasm, my human partner?”

Gently, but firmly, Aimon moved her hand away from Marissa’s keepsake. “I found it on the battlefield. Among… Among the dead. It let me face the Assassin, at least for a few moments.”

He drew the curved blade from its lacquered sheathe and laid it across his lap. “I can feel power in it, but I don’t understand it.”

He heard Magdalena gasp, and at first thought he thought the girl was also admiring the blade’s beauty. But then she said, “I knew that looked familiar. That sword! That’s what Caster made, before…”

She looked over at Natasha’s dark expression and trailed off.

“Before I wasted a summoning on his replacement,” the older mage finished for her. “But if any Noble Phantasm could persist after a Servant’s death, it would be that one.” A fragile smile pulled at her lips. “Of all the blades on that battlefield, you chose well, Aimon. You hold the Musashi Masamune, the masterwork of Japan’s greatest smith.”

The breath fled from Aimon’s lungs. He ran a single, reverent finger down the blade. No swordsman had not heard tales of Masamune’s blades and the warriors that wielded them. “So this is a Noble Phantasm too… Not a technique or a spell, but a solid object?”

“Noble Phantasms are variable, for they represent a Hero’s legacy.” Alter’s voice was soft and felt far away. “They can be a blade that made their legend possible, a technique they perfected, or even an idea that they spread around the world. They are our crystalized impact on the human subconscious, the greatest tool at our disposal”

“My Noble Phantasm is the cursed blood I bear, that of the Morrigan and the Dragon mixed together. I can use it in many ways, but my legacy renders it is most powerful when I use it to devour heroes.”

There was a pause, and Aimon thought he heard her whisper “Heroes like my king.”

Natasha pointed at the Masamune, her face thoughtful. “It makes sense that Caster’s Noble Phantasm would persist like this then. He was a smith renowned for making swords that were sturdy enough to be passed down through centuries. You are just the latest one to wield it.”

A legacy, Aimon thought to himself. Marissa carried this, and many great swordsmen before her. Perhaps that is the power I feel deep in this blade.

But that was something to explore later when he had rested. Carefully, her slipped the sword back into its sheathe. “Two weapons then, though I’m not sure I’m worthy of wielding either. That’s not enough to fight eight heroes, though.”

“We shall see,” Alter chuckled. “Though I think I’ll wield myself. To deal with this Ruler, we’ll need our own to counteract his command seals.”

“A second Ruler?” Magdelena asked. “Is that really possible?”

Alter raised an eyebrow. “We’re dealing with monsters, heroes, and the end of the world and that’s what you ask?”

The girl turned bright red and looked at the floor.

“Don’t tease her too much, Alter.” Natasha ran a comforting hand down the girl’s shoulder. “We’ll all need time to adjust. And it is a good question. Will the Grail manifest another Ruler to keep the balance? Is the Grail even operational at this point?”

“Oh, the Grail is most certainly operational,” the witch hissed. “It will remain until one side or another is eliminated. I can sense that it’s changed, but it’s still in use by our misguided Ruler. Somewhere out there, I suspect he’s using its power to dissolve our history into the void.”

“Due to this Greater Grail War you’ve organized,” Alter continued, “the wish-granter wants balance. So if we coax it a bit, It should manifest a Ruler devoted to stopping our enemies.”

Natasha nodded slowly. “So there is hope. But we need two things to summon a Servant: a Master and a catalyst.”

“We have a Master right here.” Alter gestured at Magdalena, and this time the girl’s face went pale. “The catalyst will be trickier. There is no place left to provide a relic connected to a Heroic Spirit. We will have to seek one in enemy territory.”

“What do you mean?” Aimon asked, frowning. “There’s nothing out there but void.”

Alter shook her head. “The world is merely being held prisoner. I could see glimpses of a jumbled history from Avalon, a land unshackled from time where Ruler keeps the Grail. It’s out there. We merely need to save it.”

“And to get to it,” Natasha sighed. “Not everyone can travel as the faeries do, my lady.”

“And why not?” Alter chirped. “Give me another Frigidaire of food and a few days preparation and I can whip up a temporal bridge. It’s really not that difficult.” Her veil shifted as she wrinkled her nose. “Even that bastard Merlin can manage it.”

“Ah, forgive me for being unable to match the greatest Magus of myth,” said Natasha with a dark chuckle.

Alter turned to her and for a moment a chill passed over the room. They all shivered. “Second greatest, my dear,” the witch crooned. “Second greatest.”

“W-well,” Magdalena stammered as she shot out of her chair. “If we have a few days, then I’m going to bed. Alter, um, I might be able to help after I’ve rested, so…”

The woman lifted her veil aside to show a soft, almost motherly smile. “Thank you, dear. I will call on each of you when the time is right. No rest for me, but then I’ve lazed about on Avalon for long enough.”

“Well we have a plan,” Natasha said, easing out of her chair. “That’s enough for me to keep going, so I suppose I’ll make us some actual food.”

Aimon nodded and stood to go as well. Just that was enough to make him lightheaded, but he noticed that after the meal, the wound on Alter’s chest had already vanished. A bit of hope pushed through the numbing weight in his mind.

“We are not finished yet,” Alter told them before they separated. “With a Ruler we can fight.”

Her shimmering green eyes narrowed to slits and fangs appeared when her smile widened. “And, if we are clever and tenacious, if you brave humans keep your courage up… Maybe we can even win.”