And As the Dawn Breaks and the Red Giant Sun Rises over the Horizon…

Rin Tohsaka

”I am a priestess of Hecate,” she continues, finishing. “I am the Princess of Colchis, Medea. Pleased to make your acquaintances. Now, how about your group, if you would please?”

. . .

A priestess of Hecate but NO mention of being a Magus, much less a legendary one? Well, I see that this must be an alternate version of Caster I fought in MY version of the Grail War: a Heroic version who concentrated more on the clergy side of magick instead of Magery as it were I suppose.

It was enough to be able to get her to the Throne of Heroes by the look of things, even IF she an her friends call themselves Champions (for whatever reasons Archer will reveal her shortly if HE knows what is GOOD FOR HIM)!! Ah, yes he had been struck intoxicated by what he’d seen in these Champion’s weapons and that had accounted for his increasingly bizarre comment/insults he’d thrown out while bein Astralized (enough that I’d just ignored him for the moment instead of concentrating on more important things).

Rain or shine there is MUCH to speak about with him over that…

This said…

That the Heroic Spirit before me is claiming to be seems to be some alternate version of Caster (one which LOUDLY objects to be associated with being called the “Witch of Betrayal” I may add) is. . . .still somewhat alarming. But not enough that I fear for my life.

She and her friends here MAY have something up their sleeve, but then again while MY Servant was down for the count (as well as the sudden surplus of Servant Sabers) I severely doubt that they mean us harm (or at least immediate harm).

But besides every OTHER shock that has happened today—the fact that I’m reliving that God damned Grail War again being ONE of them—that is nothing but small potatoes. At least I am not alone here in this situation, like Saber (all of them) Shiro . . .and Ilya (the twins).

…

Ilya, who in MY timeline had died soon after her Servant had been defeated, her very HEART torn out of her body as we watched. Too late to save her…

Shiro, a version of MY boyfriend who apparently in his version of the Grail War fell for his Servant by the look of things. Something I am NOT jealous of at all, thank you! My Shiro is out there somewhere else in town and besides, I’m not going to try to force this Shiro to become MY boyfriend while his Saber is around again. I mean I’m not into harems and the like…

Wonder what it would be like with him and Sab. . ..

Bad brain, don’t do that!!

I don’t know how Ilya’s mother is here, alive and well. I thought that she had died some time before the Fifth Grail War but the House she came from? Closed lipped about the events surrounding her death since it involved something in the Fourth Grail War, I gather. But apparently I am wrong since if she is here, somehow allied with Saber from yet ANOTHER version of my Grail War? Obviously she somehow survived. Not like Saber somehow served in both the Fourth AND Fifth Grail War, right? Of course not! The odds are SO against it that as to be laughable and I don’t have to be a genius (though I AM one) to figure that one out.

But let’s not leave these “Champions” waiting and . . .

Oh my God!

”The Sun,” I find myself whispering in shock. “What the Hell happened to the Sun?!”

Similar shouts are heard all over from my group (as well as one from Medea as well).

Oh right, she was supposed to have been a descendant of Helios or some such from Greek Mythology. Must be worried about what happened to her kin and all that, what with the Sun gotten all read and fat like that…

My God…

John Quatermain

And we have yet ANOTHER delay as the monstrosity that this Earth’s version of the Sun has become finally manages to rise above the horizon and make it’s presence known to us.

Oh, right! You wouldn’t know about that little detail of our Quest we got during our briefing before being teleported to this part of this . . .enclave.

Well, in good time because that’ll be touched here with Rei who’s taken the reigns of the conversation, opting on not delaying any longer. Medea’s kind of looking a bit taken aback by the Sun’s appearance even though she’d been forewarned and all that about it’s condition, what with this Sun being in the last phase of it’s life since it’s now burning hydrogen since it ran out of any helium to fuse within it’s core and whatnot. But I will tell you this one for free, the Sun has already swallowed up Mercury and Venus and in about five years if left alone will swallow THIS Earth and the enclave under the environmental domes/enclosures protecting the remaining humans of this world from the monster Sun’s heat and all that.

Fucking thing’s pretty much turned anything not protected by the environmental shields into molten rock and blasted all the air off into space and whatnot. Shields (however they’re being produced and powered) are keeping the folks here alive and NOT sinking into the molten rocks beneath them. Good and all that but that’s not going to stay like that forever, what with the Sun swallowing and all that.

So, Kinda want to get everyone remaining here safe and away before that happens, by whatever means we can manage. That is the Validation Quest that Medea’s been tasked with here and WE are going to help any way we can manage, thanks!

. . .

Oh who am I kidding?! With this group it’ll probably be almost time for the Sun to swallow this world by the time we get to the part where we tell themy WHY we are here! What our Quest is and what Champions are!

Our Quest? Well, it happens that this place? This city where the Grail War is happening? Whelp, it turns out that a long time ago during the days of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Eh, cool comic adaptation I read of it, even IF it was a bit too true the original what with the . . .sigh . . .homo-erotic nature in parts. Hey, I live in California and we’re progressive enough to let different folks do different strokes and all that. Wasn’t going to turn away any help up in the future against Skynet just because the play for the other team and all that. Just as long as they understand I don’t swing that way and don’t try to force the issue with me, okay.

Anyway, look, there was a prophecy made back in the day there. Didn’t see the prophecy in the comic book but that’s not unexpected, that was my timeline’s comic book and this is the Nasu version of my world, you see. It was for the Nasu-verse version of these people’s history or whatever. Long short? It stated that either humanity would eventually reach the stars and becomes more powerful that the entity that was Gaia (the personification/godlike entity) or be destroyed.

Well, in man’s stupidity here they went sometime in the future after the events of Fate/Stay Night they destroyed the Earth’s environment pretty much and killed Gaia in the process. Gaia’s death cries brought down all sorts of super monsters from the other planets of the Solar System (the apex predator/monsters) to go and avenge or death. That and probably to keep humanity from becoming more powerful that Gaia out of spite. I was told in the briefing that Gaia was something like the other Greek gods and goddesses about here which went corrupt and cruel and had been trying to snuff out humanity before they were getting too strong, changing the laws of science where eventually what before would have saved US humans and probably made it possible to reach a mutually beneficial relationship between humanity and Gaia into an all or nothing situation.

Human’s won that race and Gaia was dead, but In the end? In this particular timeline these guys we are talking with here? Well, in the end there was one last Heroic Spirit who’d fought the good fight for humanity, defending it to the last (guy had a dorky name of God Gun of all things). However, the Types won and humanity went extinct. Sad, but it’s a big multi-verse and you don’t expect humans to win and thrive always. Not everyone gets a happy ending.

I should know. Not like I expected in the end to live beyond the War against Skynet, really. I mean, man! I’m supposed to be some kind of great military leader. A messiah figure in the future, right?

How many figures like that in stories live to see old age in the end? Not a lot…

. . .

And then things got worse when some sorta creep/demon with aspirations for being King of all of Reality and his cronies managed something to cause damage to part of the Dark Tower (where the Root is I’m told, a BIG thing for these Nasu folks and Medea). Caused part of the multi-verse to collapse into oblivion. AND when I mean oblivion I mean it! To the rest of the multi-verse, those places ceased to exist. No way to go back in time to visit/rescue anyone who’d not been out visiting other realities. Gone. Nothing short of Higher Management (aka those with “real” god-like or God-like powers) able to fix that.

And why those Higher Management/Top Management types not going about fixing this?

Don’t have a clue, really. Will ask one (NICELY) if I ever get the chance when/if I meet one outside the Dark Tower.

Might have met one. Might have met God for all I know when I visited during my induction into the Champions and being shown around by the Rules and Agents. Too fuzzy and too tripping balls being stretched to being able to meet them without snapping and all that.

. . .

I just mean for a while I was in a “higher state of consciousness” or some zen like shit and able to understand more then than I am right now without going bonkers from the experience.

It wiped out LOTS of universes and caused all sorts of headaches with the various Rules and Agents (and Angels and even Devils) when trying to sort out all the suddenly dead folks showing up all of the sudden from THAT one.

But this city and various other pieces of real estate and folks that are RELATED to the summoned Servants in one way or another about this Enclave?

Rei says it looks like a Time Lord party trick she’d heard about once, just not to this scale. Somebody (or Something) went and grabbed places and people before the collapse for whatever reason and put them HERE in THIS universe where THIS particular Earth is billions of years in the future relative to mine, under a dome. Keeping it safe for whatever reason.

Somewhere here is the means of getting them to safety. Not the Grail, since Rei and Medea’s scrying show it’s plugged into the dome keeping out the dangers of the heat and vacuum, powering it all. That and keeping this cursed thing otherwise occupied and unable to unleash all sorts of bad/nasty crap on what remains of this Nasu-verse’s Earth.

Yep, kind of sad the state of affairs here, this being the last representatives of humanity from a universe that no longer exists. Not the usual run of the mill Quest, which usually somehow (don’t ask me how on some of ‘em) involve preventing things and people from going wrong which would have caused even further damage to the Dark Tower.

THIS particular Validation Quest is more of a Mission of Mercy than anything else: a rescue mission. A chance for Medea to cut her teeth and become a Hero…

And I and the others want to help her succeed.

”Pardon, the name’s Rei Takahashi,” the blue haired clone interrupts Rin’s staring at the blotted thing the Sun had become by coughing right before taking one of Rin’s hand and shaking it in the tried but true Western tradition of greetings. “Sorry for interrupting your shock and I’d hoped to have gotten around to getting the meet and greet over before the Sun rose and all that, but such as life!

“And your name is?” she continues, shaking Rin’s hand like she’s pumping for water from a old style water pump. “I know Princess Medea asked you but . . . ?”

”Rin Tohsaka,” Rin says, blinking at the inanity of anyone insisting on shaking hands at a time like this.

They were not in some sort of Bounded Field and no illusion had been cast upon them. The Servants were too high in magic resistance for that to effect them, the later and Rin was familiar enough with Fields (and Reality Marbles) to know when she was within one. Indeed, she’d had experienced that one Reality Marble of Shiro’s earlier during the frantic battles with Berserker so she was well aware of what that felt like.

This wasn’t that. Whatever it was, it was something seriously wrong here so why is this blue haired woman acting like this?! At least she’d finally let go of her hand after getting her name

”You’ve already met Illyasviel von Einzbern,” Rin goes on dully, gesturing to one of the young silver haired homunculi next to Beserker who’d introduced herself to the Champion’s earlier out of politeness sake before things had gotten side tracked. “The other one is also Illyasviel von Einzbern, but you probably already knew that.”

”I did,” Rei agrees offhand as she quickly mimes a curtsey toward the pale skinned, silver haired girls in question (who blink at her a bit in consternation when finding their eyes not drawn back towards the forbidding Sun in concern).

And concerned they bloody SHOULD be, considering that this particular version of the Sun is no longer the friendly yellow star they’d grown up and lived under all their lives. NO! This version was in the last part of it’s life. A red, swollen ugly thing that was no longer the life bearing star of their memories.

Yes, in five years it would be their deaths. Not that they knew that on a conscious level, but on a subconscious level….it was concerning. MOST concerning concerns that demand answers to disturbing questions…

And with a waver and distortion of the air, the red giant the Sun had become becomes masked by illusion, again appearing as the yellowish star of old. The holographic filters now having reset after being temporarily disrupted after more than a few hypersonic boulders (and cars) having travelled beyond the battle the Champions had with Berserker and into the force field wall.

But the beans had been spilled and the sleep walkers (now awakened) are now aware. They want answers.

“And the red headed boy?” Rei barrels on, halting questions for the moment by simply raising a hand and mouthing the words ‘in a moment after this part’ to even some of the strongest of egos in this group: the Heroic Spirits.

Yes, as an aside it takes people of strong ego amongst other things to reach the Throne of Heroes in the Nasuverse and these guys? Well, they have ego enough and will wait, but NOT for too much longer. Their Masters (some of them), are not too much better (and worse in some ways), to boot!

Forceful introductions done by Rei finally done when she greets Berserker (aka Herkules).

”You stole my Master right out from under me,” Berserker growled softly, keeping himself between Rei’s group and the one young woman he called Master (and her unexpected twin sister). “And . . . “

”And you were on your way to being defeated and your Master’s heart torn from her body soon after!” Rei said in a hushed voice so as to not be overheard by the girl in question.

Rei seen small bits and pieces of the Fate/Stay Night anime, but had refused to follow up and see any of it despite having a rabid fan of the franchise in one of her teammates back on her last Mission. That one particular infamous scene in the movie version of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Work had soured her to it.

Her friend’s obsession with yuri, what with her having almost mobbed Rei to draw a commission of one three Fate/Stay Night female characters and a gerbil, had nothing to improve her opinion of the matter.

. . .

Hell, it had put a REAL strain on her friendship with her teammate before that got sorted out (with Rei’s final flat refusal being only part of the deal). But that aside?

That lack of knowledge was somewhat playing against her here, but still that said and aside Rei had recognized the scene, even IF the Enemy who’d been attacking Beserker hadn’t been present. Enough was still being played out and the eldritch mechanics of whatever was causing things to be played out here again and AGAIN would have guaranteed almost the scene being played out to the end with Illya’s death. And SHE wanted Berserker to understand her position about this but only speaking loud enough to be heard by the Servant in question, causing him to take a sharp intake of breath at Rei’s words.

It has almost been like Rei had slapped him straight in the face with those words, and the Greek Heroic Spirit took exception to that until….

”The smart move would have been to take your Master and run the Hell away,” Rei continued, well aware of the Spirit’s building anger. “But while as a Beserker is a powerful in strength, they’re too insane to be able to do much in the way of sound strategy and tactics. And Illya strikes me as being too young and inexperienced to make up for the lack, Herkules. We had to get her OUT of there and to safety, and had the BAD sodding luck to nip your attention before we could teleport quietly OUT of there and sort things OUT in safety, for everyone.”

Left unsaid by Rei was her sneaking suspicion that the more currently subdued Illya twin here’s lack of recalling anything beyond the battle they’d kidnapped her from was due to her having died before getting to the end of the Grail War.

Point in fact, it might be the fact for all the people (human and Heroic Spirits/Servants) who were suffering from similar lack of memories was due to the real possibility they’d all died in their various timelines before being brought/reborn here.

It was a working theory, anyway, for Rei and her sisters. One that they weren’t yet ready to just blurt out (and needlessly upset folks if it proved wrong later). And maybe not even then!

As for Berserker and his thoughts?

He . . .had noticed their presence and he . . .had been in the process of attacking the kidnappers. Right up until that hurled artifact--GODS that had almost cost him all but the last of his lives afforded him by his God Hand right then and there—anyway.

He’d spent a good time needing to recover before going off in a frenzy, looking and finding (and LOSING again) his Master, as Medea had teleported all over town trying to find a safe spot long enough for Rei’s group to “sort things out” enough indeed!

Another sharp intake of break by Berserker, one of consternation. It had been damn obvious he couldn’t have won against that golden enemy, whoever or WHATEVER he’d been, but in his madness he couldn’t do anything but keep charging forward to try to crush his opponent mindlessly.

”It wasn’t by choice that I became a Berserker in this War,” Herkules finally said after a moment of silence, gathering his piqued pride about himself. “I . . .agree that a ‘tactical withdraw’ was in order and I WOULD have if I hadn’t been in a mindless gods dammed berserk state and she only training to be the Grail! That and I had I only answered the call to be a Berserker was because Illya had been forced by her family of magus bastards to summon me in a forest that was infested with wolves.”

”What?!” both Medea (who’d been talking softly with Lilith over being a bit rattled over the fate of the Sun) and the older female homunculus shout.

”Wait, wait!” John adds to the mix, protesting. “You’re saying that Illya here is supposed to be the Grail? As in the Grail part of this Heaven Feels thingie which’ll summon that Bigger Grail or whatever the Hell it is for getting to the Root and get access to a Limitless Wish like that Higher Up told us in the Briefing? The part that’ll be consumed? Fuck THAT noise!!”

The other Champions voice similar views on the matter (some in some rather profane and creative manners, with Medea’s cursing standing above the rest).

Oddly enough, the mother of Illya found this . . .heartening in a fashion. She had failed in the quest to help her husband win the Fourth Grail War (somehow) in the end. Indeed, with the Grail cursed like her children and the OTHER Sabers from the Fifth (!) Grail War it was, then her hopes to spare her child from this fate had been doomed from the start and her death had been (would have been?) pointless.

At least these Champions (whatever brand of Heroic Spirits that was), weren’t out for her daughter death to win this Grail War (whichever it was really, Fourth or Fifth). In fact, it sounded like they’d come down on ANYONE who was going to try to win the Holy Grail War before now. More so now that they new what it would cost for her child.

. . .

And her? Did they know about the mix up here with two Grail Wars going on at once?

”I and Shiro were NOT going to use the Holy Grail to make wishes or Get to the Root once we found out about it being cursed where it would wipe out humanity even before we found out about Illya’s heart being the Lesser Grail summoning the Greater Grail ‘thingie’,” huffed Rin, rolling her eyes at the last part and looking at John. “What kind of people do you take us for!?”

”The kind that will fight a secret war in a heavily populated city?” Rei muttered to herself with a trace of chagrin, shaking her head slightly at the latest shouted question.

“There are OTHER Masters in this Grail War I believe,” a quiet voice of the youngest of Rei’s sisters asks softly, suddenly silencing everyone. “Are any of them the kind to grasp for a Wish no matter what it cost others here? Like perhaps a group named SEELE in my . . .Legend attempted to become gods?”

For a moment, you could hear a pin drop from the lack of noise the Servants and Masters give off, some looking quiet pale as they realize anew what “winning” the Grail War really meant for the rest of humanity: extinction.

There were those who’d just let the world burn just to enjoy the show, it was even worse than the young clone’s question asked. Two people came to mind in particular in the minds of the various Saber’s: Blue Beard and his insane Master of the Fourth Grail War.

1. Meanwhile, earlier with a certain Time Lord who liked to wear . . .dark color . . .
2. But before THAT little tibit if information can be shared....

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