Pardon, are we interrupting something awkward?

“Yes, but if you allow us a boon we wish to at least try to sort this out peacefully. Hopefully, we can reunite you and your Ma. . . your Shirou along the way and hopefully fix this dilemma before it is too late, Gods and Goddesses willing!”

”That . . .would be very agreeable,” Saber allows, wanting to actually sort this out actually without violence. These three sisters HAD rescued her from that evil mud . . .whatever and they did truly seem to be honorable. That and willing to help her and her . . .this version of her Master.

Nothing else she could think of could reasonably fit without involving a bit of unhealthy paranoia on her part, anyway. Therefore, she agreed with the odd warrior triplet’s theory, for the moment, did seemed to fit so talked Shirou into having a temporary truce with the Caster sisters.

Besides, it gave Saber the chance to have Shirou to discretely check her over. And yes, according to what Shirou detected (by his virtue of being a Master) showed that Saber was still under the auspice of one Shirou Emiya. Just . . .not him, by the looks of it consider just how OVER powered this Servant before him now appeared to be to his eyes.

Whoever this version of himself was to THIS Servant Saber must have had some rather INCREDIBLE upgrading in power to be able to supply so much mana to Saber. While he had managed to summon (supposedly) the most powerful Servant for the Holy Grail War, his Saber wasn’t as . . .powerful as she could be. Mostly due to the rather odd and incomplete nature of her Summoning to him. Due also in no small part that . . .he really wasn’t much of a Magus truth be told…

He only had a few really GOOD spells to his name, honestly. “Structural Grasping” being one of them. It did him well enough in fixing things (finding out what was wrong with broken items), and told him all sorts of ODD things about the magic red shroud he’d found wrapped around his one arm he failed to recall ever seeing before. It was a magic item called the Shroud of Martin and his Grasping said it was useful for ability to seal a certain event or return it to normal.

Maybe that one Caste sister who’d done first aid on his wounds had put it there for whatever reason? It surely had nothing to do with his arm itself, since nothing he could detect was amiss when he unwrapped his arm to examine it. Odd. Maybe he’d get a chance to ask her about it here sooner or later.

Moments later….

Indeed, a truce had been reached between the Caster sisters and the others here at the temple. Shirou himself was more or less left to his own device for the moment. He was opting to stand something at guard at one of the doorways, just in case something unexpected should come through while the others were busy. He wouldn’t be much to STOP anything, but should be good enough to slow it down for the others to come and . . .handle it.

Still, Shirou has to glance every once in a while back at toward’s Saber and the Caster sisters. It was odd that he had failed to note it before, but besides the obvious differences between the Servant Caster Saber had described earlier--magus woman wearing a purple cloak that was almost assuredly a magus from olden times so of COURSE leaned HEAVILY upon relying upon her might in magery and nary almost anything in the way of . . .more mundane means of combat. THESE Caster sisters wear armored and armed much like how knights would be (their war hammers vs Saber’s sword being the obvious difference). Well, that and their armor being more of the traditional styling of knights armor vice the . . .er . . .armored battle dress that Saber.

What stands out NOW is the fact that these warrior women? They are wearing armor that gives off a “whirring” sound once in while when they move. Their warhammers give off a soft humming noise. And besides the odd, crooked dagger so much like the one that Saber had described Servant Caster having been armed with, also on their hips are . . .some kind of fire arms. LARGE fire arms which look rather. . . .like the kind one might find in high end scifi anime movies.

These Caster sisters were armored in POWER Armor and had ENERGY pistols! He’d eat his own shorts if that wasn’t what was going on here!

Saber had noted the pistols (and frowned upon seeing them, being the traditionalist), but Shirou doubted she realized the NATURE of what those things were. The . . .knowledge provided by the Grail to make Servants from others older times and places be able to . . .fit in with the world of today wasn’t all inclusive. Basically, Saber knew about handguns, but wasn’t aware enough to know the discrepancy between the modern day fire arms and the anomaly before Shirou’s eyes.

The Casters sisters had mentioned something about being reborn, somehow. Mabye they’d been reincarnated into a future time? The Grail was able to take all Heroic Spirits from both past AND future, according to what he’d been informed earlier by his friend/ally, Rin….

The Caster sisters had gone off to do three things. Two were going to try to contact somebody that would be needful for their “Goddess given” Quest. One would be trying to do it by using a more mundane radio (or probably something higher tech than mere 20th century radio. . .mabye something scifiy or whatever) to reach out and make contact. The other would be trying to use her magic mirror to contact their “mentor Champion” by mystical means.

Meanwhile, the remaining Caster sister would be handling a burning curiosity that Saber had which came about when the “taint” that she’d been cleansed of had to be transferred into this Caster sister’s magical mirror. It was secured and safe for NOW, but the “taint” meant that the mirror was pretty much useless to this sister and needed to be destroyed, just useful in showing a faint image of the corrupted version of herself just moments earlier.

Of course she wanted to see it, if only to assure herself of . . . something. Maybe on how much she owed the Caster sisters? Maybe she wanted to assure herself that she hadn’t been THAT under this “taints” influence. That too changed? Whatever the case, she already trusted them quite a bit, having dropped her armored dress and slipping into her “civilian” outfit. She still had her sword ready, but . . .it wasn’t like the Caster sisters were unarmed (and armored). Point for point, the sisters were more ready for causing a bit of mayhem than Saber. But whatever the case Saber wasn’t going to let it go.

So, soon enough Shirou is witness to a somewhat odd scene that gets even ODDER with one Caster sister trying to find their contact (or whatever) for their quest in one side of the room while another is trying to broadcast on openly upon . . . multiple MUNDANE I>radio channels.

Nope, these folks are NOT the run of the mill (HAH!) magi, who look down upon modern tech. They actually are looking into so ODD radio signals that they found hither and yon as a starting point, just to cover bases before going more . . .exotic.

And halfway through the third signal that is where things just go odd indeed!!

Saber is looking aghast, wide eyed, at the image of what she’d looked like (and silently apologizing to Shirou for having reacted badly for having seen her that way earlier).

Medea 1 has coordinated with her sister and is scrying the location of the docks and is seeing a rather frantic looking blue haired young woman in familiar armor shouting something o others outside of view of the magic mirror she’s using. IN the background is the sound of shouting and screaming for Berserker to stand down while a man is shouting himself in shock (mostly stuff along the lines of “what in the hell is going on” and “who are you”).

Medea 3 is wincing at the sheer volume of chaos she’s hearing through her communication device and it is LOUD enough to cause Medea 2 (who’d been in the process of trying to comfort Saber’s shock) to look over at her sibling in askance.

“Dad?” Shirou whispers, recognizing the male voice in the background.

1. But that was impossible because his father was DEAD and buried in the grounds of this very temple he stood within!

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