Chapter Text
Jaune stared at the hodded man on the raised altar, one fist buried in Saber’s fluff. It looked like he was holding the growling lion from jumping the man but he was mostly using Saber as a crutch to keep himself standing than anything else.
There was only silence in the whatever this place was, only interrupted by Saber’s growls. Neither man moved from where they were, both sizing the other up. The only thing of note that either could make out were scant details about each other.
“Master!” Morgan’s voice reverbrated in his mind, fear and worry shooting through their connection. “Where are you?”
“Don’t really know. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell happened, but I think I can get some answers.”
With that as the only objective he could have right now, he questioned the man staring at him from the altar, “What do you mean with ‘job interview,’ mage?”
For some reason, the man chuckled. Though it felt more like it came from annoyance than any amusement. It was short-lived though, with the man saying, “Mage. That’s not the best way to describe me. Something more fitting would be…”
“Fracción, Matou Kariya.”
Jaune frowned, feeling like the Fracción expected him to know the term, but he was almost completely lost. He did relay the information to Morgan, though, asking her, “Any idea what a Fracción is?”
“No, why the hell would- Wait.” She paused, clearly remembering something, and he felt a sting of anger coming from their connection when she spoke again, “That’s spanish. The brat that attacked me at the forest used another spanish term to refer to herself. It would be too much of a coincidence.”
Before the two could continue, the hodded man spoke up, “Are you just going to just stand there and make iddle chatter with your Servant?”
Jaune glared back slightly, a little miffed at the atittude. He shot back with some snark of his own, “It’s not every day that I get kidnapped in order to be offered a job. Can you really blame us for the caution?”
“It wasn’t my first choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.” He shrugged, though one shoulder rose much less than the other. “Now, let’s get to bussiness.”
Jaune tensed further when the man descended the altar, stepping back to keep a safe distance from someone he didn’t know the abilities of. “What do you want, Fracción?”
In response, the man lifted the right sleeve of jacket all the way to the forearm, twisting his hand to show the three glowing symbols in the back. The proof of being a Servant’s Master. After that, he began to speak, “I entered the Holy Grail War for a very specific reason. The Moonlit World was something I never wanted to be involved in, much less this blasted ritual, but circumstances changed for me.”
“I have a… a niece.” The man’s face contorted at the word, almost like he wanted to call her something else before forcing himself to say the word. “Matou Sakura. She was adopted into the Matou Family recently, about just a year ago. I want your help to get her out of there.”
Jaune raised an eyebrow at how seemingly mundane the request was. In the middle of a Holy Grail War, there was someone planning an escape from home? “If you wanted to run away from home with your niece, couldn’t you just use your Servant to force whoever gets in your way to stand down and let you two leave?”
Kariya released a long breath, his eyes hidden as he lowered his head. “It’s not that simple.”
Right after, his skin began wriggling and contorting, as if something was moving underneath. It was revolting enough that Jaune couldn’t help but step back in discomfort at the sight. A discomfort that turned into shock when Kariya’s limb suddenly burst with blood in multiple places, and strange looking worms crawled out of his flesh, dropping to the ground and curling on themselves, going inert.
“This-” Kariya spat out a thick wad of blood with some smaller versions of those insects in it- “Is the Matou Magecraft. These worms invade our bodies, devouring parts of our flesh to use as nutrients, and acting as artificial Magical Circuits. And for the past year, Zouken has been throwing Sakura inside a pit filled with these worms.”
“Every night, thousands of these worms invade her body, raping her and defiling her, all to develop her Magical Circuits, all so Zouken can keep vying for the Holy Grail and his damn immortality.” “Please, help me kill Zouken and free Sakura.”
Jaune glared at the unmoving insects, bile rising in his throat at he mere idea of something so revolting being done to a child of all people. He had seen many atrocities in his adventures, especially the victims at the Legion’s hand across the Mojave, but this!?
Both Merlin and Morgan had told him before that mages were the type to disregard any conventional morals if it meant getting closer to their objectives, be it reaching the Root or improving their magecraft. But he, in all his naiveté, had thought that would extend mostly to indiscriminate murder if it was beneficial. He had never expected this.
It was obvious what choice he was going to make even before he made it.
“I’m willing to help,” Jaune finally said, his face nauseous but his eyes filled with determined anger, even as he dejectedly said, “But the situation I’m in right now is complicated. I need some ti-”
“I’ll help you.” Kariya wobbled forwards, lifting the hand with the Command Seals and speaking with the little strength he had found when dealing with Ladre’s posse. “An alliance with you to protect your team from the other Servants is simple work for me.”
“And also… I know someone…” Kariya glanced upwards, something Jaune caught and made sure the man didn’t notice, filing the information for later. The Matou still hesitated for a moment longer before eventually blurting it out, “Someone who could help you with your problem.”
Jaune’s eyes sharpened at that. His instincts were flaring up, warning him of the twists in the man’s words “Now that I find hard to believe.”
Kariya could only grimace, his skin pulling painfully. His situation had gotten worse since that night, but he was still miles healthier than when Zouken had finished his “training” for the War.
“I’ll help you.” The sudden declaration had Kariya looking back with earnest hope, and just a little surprise. “I’ll kill this Zouken and save Sakura. But first-”
Jaune pointed a thumb at the abyss of pitch-black darkness that had spread behind him, cold blue eyes staring down the frozen Master as he demanded, “You’re gonna have to tell me what happened to Velvet.”
“What?”
“Ever since I got here, I’ve been feeling a hateful glare at the back of my head.” Jaune turned to look at the mass of shadows, feeling more than seeing a pair of eyes lock onto his own the moment he did. “And as for as much as I may not have known Velvet as well as I first thought, she’s not like Agravain. She wouldn’t blame me for what happened after I disappeared.”
“So, tell me,” The knight half-turned to the mage, one eye boring a hole through his skull as he sarcastically asked, “Why do I feel her hatred directed at me?”
Almost as if responding to the question, the heavy clang of metal greaves forcefully striking the ground came from the darkness as the Servant within made just to her title as a Wolf. From within it, two objects glowed; the Ether Cartridges planted in the head of Ira Lupus and the demonic poison circulating the blade of Crocea Mors.
“No! Stop!” Kariya shouted, dashing forwards with his Command Seals glowing red, “This isn’t the time for this-!”
TWING!
But the moment he stepped forward, another door opened under him, hurtling the mage downwards.
“Crap!” Kariya just barely managed to grasp the door for support, but he could only hold up for a few seconds before his fingers started slipping, all while he cursed in his mind. What does he think he’s doing!? This will put Sakura in danger!
“We’ll talk more later,” Arc’s spoke, his eyes on the oncoming threat even as the Fracción fell to another part of the distorted reality of the Infinity Castle, that voice ringing in his ears as he fell into the dark, “Matou Kariya.”
Velvet roamed in the shadows, her gait slow and eerie, like a patient recovering from a coma and having to relearn how to walk. Even then, the glow coming from her eyes and weapons was unmistakably her. Out of all the Servants in the War, only she wielded both a lance and a sword.
But the feeling he got from both was different from what it was the other night. Back at the docks, from the little he had managed to watch her fight, he had had the distinct feeling that the sword was a cursed sword, while the lance was something like a holy weapon tainted after missuse.
But the sensation he was feeling from her now was the same as when he fought that Hell Baron back in Hell.
Finally, she took the first step out of the harsh shadows, almost as if it was a portal of some kind, and when she stood in front of him completely, he immediately realized that things had gone even worse than he expected.
Her armor was no longer cracked like before, now whole and bulkier, but seemed as black as Alduin’s scales, with a stark white, furry collar sprouting from beneath her chestplate. Her boots, as black and red as the rest of her armor, now had three thin claws of white marble on her toes, scrapping against the floor with each step.
Twin yellow eyes, hidden behind a bone white mask vaguely reminiscent of a wolf, were locked onto his form, no sense of emotion behind them other than an urge for violence he had never felt from Velvet.
She paused a few feet away. Jaune frowned, sliding a few inches back.
The mentor and squire stared each down for a time, one questioning the choices made that led to this situation while the other only focused on the current state of her prey.
No weapon. No armor. Relatively low mana for him.
An inglorious death.
A wave of killing intent radiated from Velvet’s suddenly wild eyes, her body lowering as her body tensed in preparation. Jaune barely had the time to curse and focus whatever Aura he had recovered before she was already upon him.
He just barely managed to dodge her initial thrust, Ira Lupus passing by his head close enough he could feel the heat coming from the mechanisms within. She stabbed at him with it three more times, and the last two needed him to slap the cumbersome weapon away with his own reinfoced hands. Even then, it hurt like hell to just touch the Noble Phantasm.
Saber lunged for Velvet’s left leg, just barely missing as she jumped and tried for a kick at Jaune’s head. He ducked beneath and grabbed the over-extended limb, but quickly let go and rolled behind her when she stabbed down with the cursed sword. The thing nicked his back when he passed, but his limited Aura held against it.
The two landed with their backs to each other, their positions quickly changing when Velvet slashed backwards with the sword. He ducked under the swing and tried to elbow her in face but she leaned away from the hit and chambered a thrust with the lance, only to stumble backwards when Jaune jumped up and smashed her head with a two handed down slam.
She would have recovered fast but Saber took the chance to pull her down by biting on her cloak and dragging her with it’s weight. She slammed against the hard wood floor, and barely took a moment to breathe before she was rolling sideways to avoid the follow up.
Only to stand a little confused when that follow up never came.
A little ahead of her, already climbing one of the gravity-defying stairs that made up the impossible structure her Master’s bussiness partner’s domain, her mentor rode the Liar King’s mount, eyes focused on something else up ahead, ignoring her. Denying her existence.
Her eyes narrowed into a seething glare behind the wolf’s mask while black smoke exploded out of her body, a second before she followed them in hot pursuit.
Jaune looked back for a moment, flinching when he saw Velvet already ascending the same stairs they had just left behind. Did she somehow get even faster in the last minute? At least she wasn’t catching up to them anytime soon.
Saber huffed loudly, drawing his attention to the nauseating path ahead and Jaune held even tighter to the lion’s mane as it jumped from one impossible platform to another. Just as they barely avoided a rough tumble with the landing, the sound of shattering wood echoed behind them.
Looking up, he saw Velvet almost floating in the air from how high she had jumped, rising even higher thanks to the lack of ceiling in this damn place. Though, when she tucked her lance under her armpit and something started to happen to it, he yelled at Saber to full throttle out of her sight.
With the push of a mental command, the sleek head of Ira Lupus split in three parts, each carefully sliding down the haft and revealing the three short barrels hidden under, with a line of small ether cartridges connected to each of them. She pulled a small lever in the haft, making a long metal circlet detach from it and lock around her right shoulder, while a small metal fork rose near the head.
As she neared the peak of her ascension, she pulled the trigger under the haft.
Jaune yelped as hundreds of bullets rained down on him, each one detonating like a mini-grenade. They came in fast, faster than even Saber could dodge despite being faster than most Servants, and the two were hit by dozens of them. Even with their protections, those bullets were part of Velvet’s Noble Phantasm; the sheer Mystery behind them had the two being rattled with superficial wounds.
As three more rounds hit him in the back, Jaune bit his tongue and did his best to gamble his out of the situation, an idea coming to his head. Tightening his hold on Saber’s mane, he expanded his Aura to the lion, and the immediate boost that came with it was enough for Saber to outright dodge the next hail of bullets.
With the little time they had bought by surprising the Servant, Saber flexed his muscles and gathered as much of the abundant energy before releasing it in a violent burst of mana strong enough to launch the two up high, quickly reaching what one could guess was the center of the Castle.
Velvet kept her gaze on them even as gravity finally exerted itself on her once more, her boots cracking the wooden floor she landed on. The two just barely reached the large and overly-decorated main square of the Castle, Saber holding onto it with his teeth and claws while Arc pulled it up by the mane.
Her hold on her mecha-shift lance tightened to the point the shaft groaned under the pressure. A moment later, she was already running after them.
As for Jaune, he struggled with Saber’s weight for a moment before he managed to drag the big cat up, the two panting in exertion and no small amount of pain. The holes in Saber’s hide were shallow but the sheer amount of them had blood leaking out of the magical beast and staining it’s fur, and the only reason things weren’t worse was because of Jaune’s Aura.
A had his head snapped to the source fast enough to crack his neck. His wide eyes landed on a blonde man sitting on his knees, wearing a yellow buttoncoat big enough to splay out around him. His arms, what little he could see out of the large sleeves of his coat, were thin enough to look malnourished, and held onto what looked like a
“If you don’t mind me asking,” The man tilted his head to the right, a calm smile spreading across his face as he stared directly at the tensed blonde, “How did you realize I was here?”
Jaune didn’t answer. Instead, he raised his hand, the red markings at the back of it already glowing bright. As pain laced up from his arm, Jaune bit his lip before reciting; “By the power of my Command Seal-”
“Rude.”
As the pain reached a crescendo, his arm and voicerose and he couldn’t help but shout the last part, gambling a little;“My Servants, come to me!”
There was a bright flash for a moment, almost enough to blind him, before a sphere of light appeared in front of him. Dispersing in a burst of wind, the sphere gave way to Morgan’s figure, kneeling before him for a second before she rose and pointed her weapon at the kneeling blonde.
Jaune smiled for a second, something Morgan caught, before he scanned near her and cursed. “Crap, did it fail?”
“I told you already, there are no Command Spells to use on Pretender.” Morgan chastised him on reflex, knowing what he was talking about, but she was quick to flash him an appreaciative nod. “But good work on summoning me. For a mage of this era, I shall be enough-”
“Should you really say stuff like that?” The man in yellow cut her off, his voice suddenly harsh as he rose from his kneeling position, “After all, despite being a mage of this era…”
His smile grew wide and mocking, directed entirely at the royal woman and infuriating her just by looking at it. “I bypassed your protections and kidnapped your Master all on my own.”
“This brat…” Morgan seethed, gripping her staff tighter as she prepared her Circuits for a lesson the kind she hadn’t needed to dish out in a while. “Are you trying to anger me?”
An explosion violently ripped apart the wodden floor, though it was just far enough neither lost their balance. From the hole left open, Velvet jumped through, soaring high before landing near the duo.
Jaune’s jaw clenched while Morgan jumped in surprise at the clear difference between Velvet’s earlier appearance and this one, the Master muttering, “No. He was just buying time.”
“Look, Velvet.” The man called out to the Servant, slightly surprising the other two at just how casual he sounded when saying her name. “Even though we only invited him, your mentor brought an unwanted tag along.”
“Do keep her company, will you.” He snapped his fingers twice, as if telling her to hurry it up.
In response, the maddened knight stabbed the butt of her lance into the wood beams beneath her before ripping out one of her armored gauntlets. With her other hand, she stabbed her claw-like fingers into her own flesh, before carving out chunks of her flesh and scattering them on the floor, black tar oozing from each one.
Jaune and Morgan stared at the display with shock and confusion, but they didn’t even have the time to question what was going on before the black blood expanded upwards, taking on forms familiar to the blonde knight.
Black fur and skin, white masks and claws and red eyes with putrid yellow irises. Angry growls left maws that snapped with the innate desire to rip and tear at the flesh of whatever unsuspecting humans were stupid enough to not run at the mere sight of them.
“… What- what are these things?” Morgan stepped back from the monsters, her magical senses going haywire at the presence of things she recognized as hunters of humans worse than Phantasmal Beasts and Dead Apostle. Those she could understand, always acting either in instinct or desire, but these creatures were completely alien to her.
All she could see was the desire to kill that glittered in their eyes.
Jaune, on the other hand, stared at them with a calm face that hid the now unlocked sea of anger that raged within him. Almost unconsciously, the name of the wretched creations of the Brother God of Destruction slipped from his lips.
“Grimm.”
“Saber.” The descendant of the Nemean Lion flinched when called, surprised at the hateful malice hidden under his long-lost companion’s tone. “Stay with Morgan and help with moving around the Grimm. The two of you should be enough to kill them all, but don’t engage Velvet under any circumstance.”
He turned while the Queen of Orkney mounted on the king of beasts, sharp eyes glaring at the bastard with a lopsided smile on his face. Only one thing left Jaune Arc’s mouth when his reddening eyes settled on that thing; a declaration made not with the authority of a ruler, but with the certainty of a weapon made to slaughter.
“I’ll kill that one.”
The man in yellow only responded with a smile.
This was being harder than it had any right to be.
Morgan used one spell to generate water under the feet of several of the Phantasmals, then sent a bolt of electricity through the small puddle between them, her sister’s pet lion not even bothering to jump to avoid the electric discharge. It’s hide was of the Nemean Lion’s lineage; Mystery so weak wouldn’t be enough to wound it.
But the same held true for the Grimm.
They were struck by the spell and, sure enough, only spent a few moments stunned by it, their bodies twiching for a second or two before they were already painstakingly moving again. This time, Morgan had already prepared a secondary spell, with impossibly sharp pieces of metal stabbing directly through their heads and destroying whatever it was that acted as their brains.
Even then, the others beasts came after her with unrelenting speed. If it hadn’t been for Saber Lion, she would have been caught and ripped to pieces by now.
It didn’t make any sense. She was a Servant, one from the tail-end of the Age of Gods, when Mystery still thrived despite humanity. Only Phantasmal Beasts of the highest caliber should have been able to even dream of giving her trouble.
But some of them were easier to kill than others. She could only theorize it was because some were made directly from Velvet’s black blood and the others from canisters filled with a different black liquid.
Speaking of, she had gotten that lucky that Velvet had seemingly underestimated how much ripping out chunks of her own flesh would take out of her, kneeling in place while holding onto her lance, just barely managing to take out a cartridge filled with black sludge out of her new Noble Phantasm and throwing it in her direction. And whatever that Noble Phantasm was, it angered her to no end.
It had been a long time, and nothing more than a passing interest, when she aided her daughter in crafting Ira Lupus. While she had told Velvet it was based on Rhongomyniad, Morgan, still in stuck in her mad envy for the throne, had inplemented a few extra features she wasn’t proud of remembering. Even then, it shouldn’t have the power to summon any type of magical beasts, much less ones form another world.
Seeing the weapon she had built alongside her daughter, the child she had failed so horribly, be defiled by whatever it was that that bastard in yellow had done infuriated her to no end.
She spared a glance to the fight Jaune was having with the bastard, teeth gritting as she saw just how badly it was going. They had both underestimated him, and Jaune was paying for it, having only small to counter while constantly dodge the flurry of attacks from a clearly Servant-grade fighter.
She looked back at the Grimm as one of the enhanced ones reached her, and she immediately pointed her weapon at it’s head. Even as the slightly smarter wolf creature tried to dodge, she managed to track it’s movement and blast it with a gout of flame that snaked it’s way into it’s eye socket, before detonating inside it’s head.
Even though it was an efficient way to kill it, there were too many of the things and her mana wasn’t exactly abundant at the moment. She needed to clean the area of the black sludge
The memory of a brat with more power than sense flashed in her head, specifically, the way she had revealed herself.
Her hands tightened around her staff, taking a second to process the plan and hammer out any glaring mistakes, before taking the plunge and jumping off of Saber’s back. As a Magus, that would have given her a nasty fall and a few broken bones.
As a Servant, she landed with all the force of a meteor, carrying a spear that exploded out of a lupine Grimm’s torso.
Once on the ground, she twirled her weapon and stabbed it into the floor, the shapeshifting shadows that covered her Noble Phantasm moving and expanding until it just about reached the black . Every time another of the monsters stepped on it, a lance of shadows would sprout and pierce through their throats and spines, leaving them to die incapable of even moving to continue their rampage.
All the while, another part of her brain was already working overdrive to prepare for her idea.
Analyze the rift left behind by the Command Spell. Analyze the black rift opened that night. Recreate and experiment. Change the formula. Change secondary entry point.
Blood streamed down her nose, which Morgan easily ignored with the practice of thousands of hours of experimenting with other projects that would have killed anyone that wasn’t her. She only had focus for the task at hand, and no distraction could be tolerated.
One of the smarter Grimm, an Alpha Beowulf constantly standing in it’s hindlegs, eyed the floor with a frighteningly calculative look on it’s eyes. It took the monster minutes of watching it’s kin die to the shadowed ground before it finally moved.
Grabbing a recently spawned Ursa and a fellow, smaller beowulf, the Alpha sped towards the shadowy substance and slammed both of the beasts on it. The lance that shot up pierced both of them, but just before they dissolved, the Alpha used their corpses as a stepping board to leap from.
It’s leap was powerful, taking it over the entire ground covered by , and it’s jaws opened to swallow the woman whole-
Only for the much larger lion to bite it’s head so hard, it’s entire skull was crushed.
And that short little spectale was enough to buy the time needed for Morgan to enact her plan.
Teleportation was magecraft on the realms of True Magic, and she had no chance of performing a miracle like that without at least a month of preparation. But the mana satured in her Territory was always within her reach, able to be accessed at any time. And considering just how much Aura she had strongarmed Arc into transfering into the Territory, she would have at least one shot at this.
And the miracle of teleportation had already once been done tonight.
The first sign of it working was the horrible screech that rung out, like the incoherent roaring of a beast, before a hole in the world appeared above Velvet, near the place Morgan herself had been summoned. It was spotty and malformed, barely able to exist because of the remnants of the Command Spell used earlier, but it was still there.
As well as what came out of it.
Rushing down the dimentional portal, hundreds of gallons of water slammed down on the injured Servant and her summoned Phantasmals. While Velvet was slammed on the ground, the beasts around her were quickly crushed from the pressure, even the hardier ones simply being washed away along with the gunk that birthed them. Morgan buckled when the tide hit her, but she had placed the shadows around her feet just before the portal opened, along with Jaune’s and Saber’s.
She had no idea how that yellow peacock managed to stay standing against the tide, but he did.
At the aftermath of the spell, the entire floor was covered in a few inches of water, continuously pouring out of the sides of the wall-less platform, taking the black sludge with it and being refilled by the hole she had made, connected to the bottom of the Miongawa River.
Velvet trembled as she fought against the water’s current, but the pressure was too much. Even with her strength as a Servant, she was still affected by the laws of physics and, short of going into Spirit Form, which was hard to do when you were already near incapable of thought even before being crushed with the weight of a river, she couldn’t get out of the trap.
Morgan frowned at the sight but told herself it was the best to be done at the moment. It was unlikely that the yellow-dressed peacock was her Master, the mana a Berserker consumed would have rendered him incapable of doing any fighting on his own.
Turning to the afformentioned bastard, she prepared to rush him from the back, intent on increasing the pressure on him just enough to take him with them. She needed to interrogate him, to know what he knew. But when she did, she froze.
He was looking at her. Rainbow eyes staring at her with a sharp glare that made her muscles lock up and her budding battle instincts scream at her.
He glanced at the black portal, the water pooled at their feet before looking back at her Master, whom dashed in with a raised guard in a basic brawler’s stance.
One free hand rose towards Arc, the man with kaleidoscope eyes muttering a spell under his breath;“Hado Number 4; Byakurai.”
Lightning gathered at his fingertips, swathes of mana gathering into the spell a second before he fired it directly at the wet ground. The electric spell did not disperse among the liquid but lunged directly for Jaune, bypassing his protections and making his muscles seize and twitch, locking him in place.
Something the man in the raincoat took full advantage.
Slapping his wrists together while his hands stretched in opposite directions, blue energy gathering at his fingers before he thrusted both hands forwards, yelling the spell’s name;“Hado #73; Sōren Sōkatsui!”
“JAUNE!” She shouted alongside Saber’s roar, the two barely having the time to move towards him before the two massive arcs of light raced to him, the energy in them magnitudes stronger than the last, nearing the level of Anti-Unit Noble Phantasms.
The Kido spell reached Jaune in a flash, the light hiding his body from view-
“Lo Gein, Fau-X-Calibur.”
In the wake of the Kidō spell, only a burrow of charred paper and wood remained, smoke covering everything inside it. The only thing that gave any sign of life was the faint light peeking from inside the holes in the smoke.
It bunched like a bubble around something as-
As something slammed against Ladre, moving too fast for any of the three to see, and launched the shocked man tumbling backwards, a sheen of rainbow-colored energy flicker across his body, shielding him from the impact.
When he managed to get his feet under him, Ladre groaned in pain from the hit, his face contorting as he clawed at his chest for a second before getting up to glare at the knight.
A knight with an interesting addition. One that made the three perk up. “Oh.”
Covering the entirety of his right arm and up to his shoulder, connected by leather latches on his biceps and forearm, pure white like marble with two horns protuding to the front, was an enormous skull in the shape of a Dovah’s head, much bulkier and thicker than what it imitated, with a pair of blue orbs shining in it’s eye sockets.
While Morgan and Velvet gazed at the new weapon in awe and surprise, Ladre whistled in amusement. “What an unusual shape for a Zanpakutou. Are you sure you used the correct name, boy?”
But Arc wasn’t focusing on his words, only on the energy that had emcopassed him but a minute ago. His eyes were wide as he shook in place, acting as if he had seen a ghost come to haunt him. His voice was shaky like it hadn’t been since his first days in Beacon, “You- You’re from Remnant?”
The word made the three jump in surprise and, in Ladre’s case, excitement. His hands loudly clapped together as he let out a sharp bark of laughter. “HAHAHAHA! You actually figured me out!? I thought it would take a few more encounters at least!”
“However-” He raised his free hand, a swirl of green-tinted blue light gathering into an orb on the palm- “Now that you know such sensitive information, we should get this over and done with.”
When it was ready, he cast the spell with his hand directed towards Velvet, her injuries healing to the point where she could just about fight. She looked surpised at it for only a second, and then, she was already hefting her sword and lance.
Arc spared her a glance before rushing the man, stabbing forwards with speed that belied the Shikai’s weight, only for the man in yellow to duck and slide his right arm underneath the dragon’s head. With a heave, he pushed the weapon to the side and threw Arc off balance, and immediately capitalized on the opening by rushing forwards with his left hand-
Only to back away when a mass of flames rushed for him. They engulfed him for a second before his Magic Resistance kicked in and cancelled the low level spell, a shimmering shield that revolved him which didn’t go unnoticed by the caster.
When he landed, his gaze was drawn to the outstretched hand with a bright orange, sizzling palm. The air around it wobbled due to the heat, a testament to the sheer mana that Arc could dish out even in a weakened state thanks to that unbeareable Semblance.
Neither man had much time to ponder on it, Velvet stabbing towards Arc with heavy thrusts and wide slashes, focusing on using Ira Lupus as a distraction and trying to catch him with the poison of Crocea Mors. But, despite how obviously tired he already was, Arc simply blocked the lance with his Zanpakutou and leaned away, abandoning the fight with the Servant when Saber pounced on Velvet’s back.
Ladre rolled his shoulders and met Arc’s charge halfway, sliding under and slicing a hidden blade drawn from his other sleeve across the knight’s torso, only for the simple combat knife to skirt on the ribs and fail to draw any blood. Ladre spared it a dissapointed glance before ducking beneath a series of laser-like shots of boiling hot water. Even when he tried to block one, the force behind the shot was enough to rip the knife out of his hand, and he just barely brought his real weapon up to block a heavy slam from the other Zanpakutou in the room.
As he bled his momentum while sliding backwards on the floor, a loud thud behind him had him looking back to see Saber bouncing on the floor after Velvet slammed it down, the beast roaring in pain as the crazed wolf stabbed it in the back with her lance before she was forced to abandon the kill when several razor-sharp blades of wind fell upon her, a gift from mommy dearest.
With a shrug towards the charging knight, Ladre turned to the lion while brandishing his sword, Reiatsu gathering at the tip and forming into a spinning ball of fire. With a heave, he roared the Hado spell’s name,“Kongōbaku!”
Before the giant fireball could incinirate the lion, an ice wall sprouted before the beast, intercepting the attack and showering the room in sparks. But when he looked over to Morgan, she was busy with Velvet, using her weapon like a whip to keep the other Servant away.
His mind rapidly jumped form one theory to the other, or at least it attempted to before being forced to refocus on the fight when a lance made of ice stabbed for his head from behind. It was a brittle thing, though, easily dodged and broken, but the giant dragon head that slammed from above wasn’t as easy to destroy, and he just barely managed to get away from it with just a graze on his clothing.
A wave of ice spikes erupted from the ground and rushed for him, easily dodged but leaving him exposed enough for Arc to rush him. He hopped over the thrust, somersaulting on top of it and landing at Arc’s flank and strike with the sword on his hand, only to slip on a sheet of ice that pushed his right foot back.
He’s inexperienced with controlling the elements so directly. “His” mind informed him a second later, when he had to show his hand and use a Sonido to dodge a vicious backhand that would have broken at least a few bones. But he already managed to learn how to use them to his advantage.
A master of elemental magecraft or Destruction magic would have been able to overwhelm him with a barrage of powerful with only milliseconds of charging time, though they would have fallen to his Magic Resistance. Arc was focusing on the enviroment instead.
It was a simple trick when you got the hang of it, but Magi and Caster Servants preffered to just bet it all on their magecraft and analysis of their enemies to win any confrontation they found themselves in. To notice and pounce on this loophole the moment it was seen for the first time took more than just experience and good intincts.
It took desperation.
In his mind, I’m already a being he can’t beat without clear strategy. Someone currently stronger than him. Rainbow eyes peeked out for a moment before hiding once more, their need already complete. Then, the time for the curtain call is nearing.
In the time it took for him to process that, Arc had already reached him, swinging the Zanpakutou down like a sledgehammer and with all the force of a speeding train. Ladre just managed to dodge to the side, keeping his face calm and his senses focused on the other hand that oscillated between fire and lightning, before the latter shot towards his face in a thrust.
His movement was well-timed, ducking under the arm stabbing where his head had been. Electricity singed him a little, jumping from the extended limb to him, but this was already a good enough position for him not to care about being mildly injured.
The moment he sunk his sword into Arc’s liver, he noticed the mistake he had been led into making.
Ever since he had invoked it’s name, Arc had only trusted or swung the giant Zanpakutou. He had assumed that was because the thing didn’t allow him to bend his arm, the skull covering the elbow and preventing that movement.
But, as the still sparking hand held him in place and the snout of the Zanpakutou slammed him down on the wooden floor and cracked it like a cobweb, he realized he had overestimated himself.
The moment the Zanpakutou lifted a bit to hit him once more, Ladre spat out a wad of blood while crawling backwards to escape. He would probably take one more of those slams but it would inevitably give him space-
His rainbow eyes snapped open when he caught the maw of the Dovah-shaped Shikai open wide, before Arc use Mana Burst to reach him faster than he could react, and the jaws snapped close with his body stuck between the two halfs.
“GAH!” He gasped in pain as the bladed teeth threatened to rip him into pieces. He choked on his own blood; even if his Aura was strong, it wasn’t enough to avoid his organs being pressed together from the sheer presure of those jaws.
This- this was fine. Arc didn’t have the strength to pierce his flesh, this wasn’t a Divine Construct even in his hands, he just needed a bit of time and focus-
And then he felt the heat.
Ladre looked down, craning his neck to see a light growing brighter inside the mouth, and even if it was blocked from his sight by the large teeth, he could still feel the heat from the large gathering of Magical Energy, growing hotter and stronger by the second. Sweat ran down his neck and he pumped everything he had to his defenses, knowing damn well this would hurt.
He wasn’t wrong.
With all the strength of the Cero of an Espade, the blue flames that spat out of the Zanpakutou melted everything in it’s path, shooting far and away enough to vaporize one of the walls at the end of the Infinity Castle.
Surprisingly, the man in the yellow raincoat wasn’t dead. His body was rocketed on the ground amidst the flames, almost covered by them but protected by some sort of spell. Even then, the laceration and burns across his whole body were visible even through the large coat. But, isntead of screaming at the pain or at least groaning from one of his clearly broken limbs, the man instead did something unexpected.
He laughed.
Jaune stared at the crazed bastard, genuily shocked there was someone insane enough to be laughing in the state that he was. His worry only grew when the man began muttering, “Basic control and understanding of destruction spells, pintpointing one’s presence through their Reiatsu, a budding shikai…”
That snake-like smile only grew when the man managed to lift himself up, words of awe leaving him. “Rebellion really went above and beyond.”
Arc’s eyes widened a fraction before his lips drew down in a furious sneer. “So it was you. The one who brought Rebellion into this world, and tried to turn me into that monster.”
Ladre chuckled at the visage, one hand over his mouth as he deliberately riled up his fellow Foreigner. His voice almost rankled on the ears, like nails on a chalkboard, as he joked, “Tried? My friend, I succeeded. Better than I expected in fact.”
“Velvet.” Ladre jumped at the name, looking confused for a second before the question followed, “What did do to Velvet?”
His smile evaporated for a fraction of a second, especially at the way the woman in question stopped in her tracks at the angry concern in her mentor’s voice, before coming back in full force, though even a monkey could see he was forcing it now. Even so, he had a part to play, and his theatrics were second to none; “Aww, look at you, getting all protective over your student. But you know, you really should be angrier with her.”
Rainbow eyes peeked out in a cold stare as he ultimately stated; “She is the reason Camelot fell.”
Jaune’s body froze, his muscles locking in place as he both rejected and absorbed the words. “If it wasn’t for her, none of the Knights of the Round would have ever thought to rebel against Arthur. If it wasn’t for her, then Horsa wouldn’t have had the motive to attack Arthur at Camlann.”
“If it wasn’t for her, Agravain wouldn’t have murdered Bedivere and Percival.” Each word was like an arrow punching through his chest, his body trembling even as he couldn’t stop himself from listening to every word. “Beowulf would have never murdered Arthur.”
“If only,” His hands clenched so tight blood seeped from closed fists, patience snapping after the final words; “She had died to the Crocea Mors.”
“Shut your mouth!” Jaune roared, charging the man with the Draconic Shikai ready to crush his body between it’s jaws.
Blue and Rainbow eyes met, and in that single second, Jaune saw-
His body fell to the ground, like a puppet with it’s strings cut, his head lolling as if he did not have the strength to hold it up, blood streaming from his nose and eyes as his mouth fell open. He did not move again.
“JAUNE!” Morgan screamed when she noticed it, and it was so abrupt even Velvet was taken aback, surprised enough to allow the witch and the lio to pass by her entirely, the two rushing towards the downed Master. But in the instant they got close to him, that man’s voice put a stop to her actions.
“It’s quite unfortunate but,” Ladre brought out a small handbook and jokingly flipped through it’s pages, before shooting an apologetic smile down at the hybrid existence, or it would have been apologetic if it wasn’t so painfully sarcastic, “Looks like my alloted time here is over. My agenda tends to be quite full you see, and I now need to prepare a proper bash for some unwanted guests I shall be having tomorrow morning. So, I bid thee adieu…”
His free hand dipped into the darkness of his sleeves, grabbing onto something before dragging it out. Morgan’s eyes widened in fear as she felt the clearly divine energy in the ebony staff with three screaming faces with unnaturally open jaws as the head.
Sheogorath’s Wabbajack shone as dark magic gathered at the space between the screaming mouths, before the red light spread all over the paper walls and wood foundations of the castle, making them vibrate.
“Till we reunite,” That man’s voice was the last thing heard. “Oh Star of War.”
With a flick of the Daedric staff, everything shattered.
“We are here to cordon off the section of the forest!” A loud voice reverbrated within the dreary forest near the former territory of the Einzbern, “We don’t know if it can be destroyed, so until we can get the tests done, our job is to hide this thing!”
The thing in question being the gigantic rotting corpse behind him, sizzling blood wafting with curses and destruction still falling from it’s insides.
The man speaking wore the long robes and golden cross indicative of a priest, but his bare and muscular arms, filled with scars from prievious battles “And under no circumstance can we allow anyone outside of our assembly or whatever group the Association sends to even see it. Even if they’re Wandering Sea or Atlas Academy. Especially Atlas Academy, understood?”
“Yes sir!” A platoon of similarly dressed men and women shouted, as if this was a military parade.
“Yes sir…” One particularly distressed brown haired man with a perpetual frown muttered instead.
Hongou Kinji’s life had really hit the gutter recently. His secretive work for the Church had ruined most of his personal relationships, and he couldn’t even speak to his mother about it because she hadn’t been inducted into the Church.
Oh, he had been warned about how inevitable these issues were. Time and time again had he been told he should never even think of having deep relations if he wanted to entrench himself in this line of work, but he, in his youthful arrogance, had believed he would have been able to perfectly juggle the duties of an Executor and a family man.
And now, with his wife and daughter wanting nothing to do with him and his relationship with his only living parent straining, was it any surprise he was drowning in debt?
That Amou bitch, how was he supposed to bet on anyone other than the Immortal Roach himself? While the crazy fight between them at the Colosseum had been like watching two members of the Burial Agency seriously trying to kill each other, walking out of there knowing he had lost everything in his bank account again after Shiina managed to finally kill El Cucaracho had doussed any flame he felt during their match.
While everyone else started preparing to build some form of concealing structure over the giant corpse, his baggy eyes turned to the thing. Even he knew that Dragons were the rarest and strongest type of unholy beast. Even dead as it was, a single piece of it would sell for a lot…
No one was going to notice if a scale or two dissapeared, right?
Mind set even as his dying morals screamed at him, Kinji approached the Dragon’s body, moving to it’s back while pretending he was going to set up more spotlights in the shadowed area. But when he laid a hand against the thing’s back, his heart stilled.
He stood there, frozen, praying harder than he ever had so the Lord in Heaven would prove him wrong, would give him a sign that it was just his frazzled mind playing tricks on him.
He felt it again.
He jumped away from the thing, turning to the others with a scream already leaving his throat. “IT’S-”
He didn’t even feel the sword that cut off his head.
Sheathing her jet-black ninjato, the woman of silver hair ignored the corpse falling near her and approached her bussiness suit-wearing partner, drawing a glass vial from her coat. With the enchanted silver tip at one end, she stabbed the vial into the Dragon’s corpse, while her partner worked on removing a number of scales with a pair of tweezers.
Cursed blood infested with dormant Argent Energy quickly filled the vial, while the cursed scales were dropped in a glass of holy water, the sacred liquid bubbling the moment the small scales made contact with it. With their parts done, the two left the area in silent movement, neither caring at the sounds of tearing flesh and liquid ingestion behind them. They only spared a glance later, when the youngest of them finally joined them after a disgusting dinner.
With a swing of her impratically large sword, the trio left by way of the Garganta.
“Jaune! Jaune! Answer me!”
He didn’t notice when he woke up. He only realized he was conscious when Yang started shaking him roughly. She really should have learned not to do that after the first time she did that back in Skyrim, and his stomach reminded her real quick when he had to turn away and vomit to the side.
“Damn. This feels uncomfortably familiar.” Yang muttered, any amusement from the deja-vu ripped away due to the seriousness of the situation. “What happened earlier? Who did this to you?”
“He’s awake. Good.” Morgan’s voice came from nearby, and Jaune lifted his head to see her striding up to him with a worried look buried under frustration and anger. “I was starting to think your nervous system had shut down somehow.”
“I think that’s what happened.” Jaune surprisingly agreed, standing up and scooting away from the vomit, quickly washed away by a simple spell from Morgan. “I don’t know how long it’s been, but I wasn’t actually knocked out.”
Neither of the women took more than a moment to demand. “Explain.”
“Hmmm. I don’t really know how to.” He furiously scratched his head, groaning when he couldn’t find the words and settling for the closest he could get, “The best I can say is that I wasn’t paying attention to the world around me.”
“Could have been something that cocky runt did.” Morgan sneered at the memory of the brat, before schooling her features and taking a more pensive look. “However, I did not feel any spell from his Magical Circuits…”
“Mystic Eyes.” Jaune’s sudden words took center stage, the two paying utmost attention at what he said. “He has a type of Mystic Eyes. It attacked my brain directly.”
Morgan’s lips drew into a thin line as she mulled over the reveal. As a finger tapped her arm, she tiredly muttered, almost lost in thought, “Those are rare, especially in this era. And to be able to attack the brain directly means that it likely uses direct eye contact. But I never heard of one that shuts down the body like it did with you.”
“Maybe something that attacks the electric signals sent by the brain?” Pretender theorized, hand on her chin as she looked at the only other person with any knowledge over this type of things. “If Jaune was in a coma state, then that would-”
“I know how they work.”
The two jumped at his voice, how cold and clinical it sounded, looking at him like he had grown a second head. “When making direct eye contact with a target, he can dump information directly into their brain with just a look. This fries the brain’s ability to process information and forces a shutdown of the body’s functions to preserve the mind and avoid deep damage to the psyche.”
The two women shared a worried glance, more at how drone his voice was, like reading something straight out of a textbook. Pretender bristled in worry and anger, muttering. “That’s powerful. Scary powerful.”
“It would also explain why he keeps his eyes closed so much.” Morgan commented, the image of that snake-like face popping in her head for a moment. “I assume the reason you know that is because he used that is the information he inserted into you.”
“Yeah. I don’t think Merlin nor you ever mentioned something like that.”
“Wait, but why would he give you that information?” Yang raised a suspicious eyebrow, head swiveling between the two of them. “Now we can learn how to counter it. Why take a risk like that?”
“Hard to tell. Most of the info he dumped in my head is random nonsense that I can’t make heads or tails of. What’s a shikanoko?” Jaune shuddered at the memory of the weirldy detailed deer before shaking his head, turning to Morgan. “Maybe he’s just arrogant.”
“Or trying to play us.” She countered. “Mystic Eyes are befuddling even in the most simple of cases. If we think the solution to counter his is easy, we may get taken by surprise when he does something unexpected.”
“And bashing our heads against the wall thinking about them isn’t going to be any more helpful.” Pretender spat on the floor, a frown on her face as she growled, “I hate mind games.”
“I’m sorry.” Morgan said out of nowhere, releasing a heavy sigh that drew surprised glances from the other two. She lowered her head, her long hair hiding her eyes but not her shameful standing, or how pale her knuckles were from gripping her staff too tightly. “I didn’t take into account that someone could try to kidnap you from within the Territory. My Bounded Field was too weak.”
“Don’t go blaming yourself like that. There was no way for anyone to have expected someone else to be able to pull off something like that here; You are the Master of magecraft here.”
“I appreciate the compliment,” Morgan glanced away while taking his hand off her head, sparing a glare for Pretender whom was giving her the stink-eye, before looking back to Jaune, “But do not sweep my failings under the rug. I need to keep them in mind for later, when I revise the Bounded Fields around the… Temple…”
Morgan trailed off, eyes widening almost comically if it wasn’t for how clearly worried she suddenly was. Jaune and Yang shared a glance before the former stepped closed to her, hand reaching out as he asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Morgan’s voice trembled as she rhetorically asked, before her body tensed and she stated, “Pretender arrived the moment we were thrown here. Her mana signature surely caught the attention of the more perceptive and prepared Magi. And I don’t have the necessary conditions to teleport us back to my Territory.”
There was a moment of silence after that as the two digested the information, neither willing to be the first to speak. But a minute later, Jaune swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered, “We’re still kinda lost…”
“I’m saying that we have to go back walking!” Morgan finally shouted at the idiot duo, a vein popping on her forehead as she waved her staff at the cowled blondes. “And that we’re being watched! Even if we take public transport, they’ll still be able to tracks us back to our Workshop!”
“We’re not in condition to handle a full scale assault head-on!” She shouted one more time before flinching, glaring to the side and remembering where she was. While her teeth grit, her next words came only through their mental link, “Jaune’s mana will take days to regenerate and the defenses of my Bounded Fields have already shown to be insuficient. Either we stay at a public place or risk getting attacked at the worst time.”
Pretender bit her lip, the severity of the current situation. Without Jaune’s abundance of Aura, he was pretty much defenseless against most Servants, and the entire roster of the War was bound to come down on their heads soon enough. Even with her own abilities and the advantage of Le Fae’s Territory, they didn’t stand a chance-
“Let them come.” The two pale blondes jumped when hearing that, looking at the last member of their trio in surprise. Wiping the dried blood off his face, Jaune Arc stared back at them as he promised; “We’ll get them out of our way.”
The two blinked, stunned for a moment. “What?”
His eyes glared to the side, a fervent anger feeding in them that sharpened into proper tactics, his words heavy as he spoke, “There’s someone, likely a group because I doubt he’s working alone, trying to specifically transform me into a demon. But so long as the Holy Grail War is ongoing, and that bounty on our heads is up, we won’t have the chance to solve the bigger issues before they become even worse.”
“For that,” Sharp blue eyes looked back at them from over his shoulder, a firmness in their gaze that had been missing before, as if just now finding the proper focus, “We’ll get rid of the other Servants and Masters.”
“…” The two were driven to silence by those words,
“Not that I mind the motivation, but…” Morgan shuffled her feet while gripping her staff, teeth grit as she nearly hissed at the man, “Where is all this confidence coming from!?”
“Kinda hot.” Pretender mumbled with a wobbly smile.
Only to get bonked in the head by Morgan’s staff. “Focus.”
“Because they need to be cautious.” Jaune speaking again had them looking at him, “Any assault on us carries the risk of me transforming again, and the Masters and Servants will want to avoid that at all costs. Well, Archer might not care, but I have the feeling his Master has the brains to keep our location from him for as long as possible.”
His eyes turned to the sky, noting the tinge of orange light at the horizon before they narrowed. “The sun hasn’t risen yet, but soon. The rules of the Holy Grail War will prohibit any action until night, so I give it around a day and a half before they attack us. Two full days at the most.”
“You sure they’ll stick to these ‘laws of the Moon world’ or whatever?” Pretender asked, hands on her hips as she stared at the two with a serious look. “This situation should make them desperate enough to ignore any warnings and just try their hardest to get rid of us.”
“You’re thinking like a warrior.” Morgan pointed out, arms crossed beneath her chest as she pointed to the other-worlder. “To magi, nothing is more important than protecting the secrecy of magic, other than attaining the Root. And because they are likely panicking at the moment, it is quite likely they cling to their familiar laws even tighter.”
“I thought you were going insane, but the idea actually holds much merit.” The queen said to him, a small smile on her face and an appreaciative look in her eyes. Straining at the tip of her toes, she patted his head like a puppy. “Good job, Master.”
“Thanks.” Jaune nodded with an embarrassed laugh. Though, I would prefer being called fearless leader again.
“All right, that’s enough heavy talk for tonight.” Yang stretched her arms above her head, groaning in displeasure before grumbling. “When we get back, we’ll probably get an hour or two of sleep before having to deal with everything bout to go down.”
“About time.” Morgan cracked her neck catching his attention, before shooting him a sly smile. “Let’s make haste then, fearless leader.”
Jaune flushed, scratching the back of his neck before the trio walked up to a chuffing Saber and, after much insistence from Pretender due to him being tired, Jaune and Morgan climbed up on the lion’s back, the woman of blue blood cringing at the barely concealed stare that the Extra Servant sent her way. It wasn’t her fault Arc had misunderstood the order of who should get on the lion.
Though, for as much as he didn’t let it show on his face, the Foreigner couldn’t stop himself from gazing at a nearby building as discreetly as he could.
Hidden behind his red hood, the assassin glared back with contempt and surprise before ducking under the low wall and following them.
Fuyuki City had seen better days. While there was little from the outside that gave any idea of the city falling on hard times, the moment anyone paid attention to the people living in it, they would understand.
Where before everyone would move around the city for various reasons, be it for work or to enjoy their free time or joyful occassions, now the populace ran to and fro with hurried steps.
Women looked over their shoulders constantly, older men would hover around their children protectively, the jumpier of them clutching hidden knifes or other weapons in their person, and the young moved in groups for protection.
What had once been a general sense of unease had snowballed into near city wide panic. No one felt safe after the tremors, not when they had felt those tremors in their souls. Even those with no knowledge of magecraft had felt that “sudden earthquake” had been more than the city officials had said it was.
The facts that the crime rate had been steadily rising after a couple of days of Shielder not being seen, and that children and young families kept dissapearing, didn’t help none.
And it seemed that the world agreed with their sullen moods, as the generally sunny sky over Fuyuki had darkened considerably in the last dozen hours. Just as the sun peeked over the horizon did the first drop fall from the sky.
The droplet of water splattered on the ground. Curiously, unnaturally, it created an unexpected shape when it fell before forcefully being absorbed by the cement. A five point star with each arrow connected by a circle.
And after the first, came a downpour never before seen in Fuyuki’s history, to the point where the streets were flooded and the sidewalks were covered by small layer of water all around the city. Even the forests outside the urban areas were filled to the brim, the only thing stopping a landslide being the unique properties of this heavy rain.
As those connected to the Moonlit World subconsciously trembled at the power anchoring itself to the ground beneath them, and those brought from the Throne in order to fight for the wishes of the petty and foolish silently panicked over the meaning of it all, a spell spread over them once more as it once did the milisecond they entered the city, calming their nerves and erasing the very memory of their anxiety.
Atop the tallest of Fuyuki City’s buildings, sitting on the border of the roof and staring languidly at the near pitch-black sky, Votos Ladre released a heavy sigh.
Only he and one other could hear the tolling bells signalling this city’s end.
The bells of Auswählen.
And there it is. Feels good to come back to a more action heavy chapter after all the dialogue from last time.
I don't got a whole lot to say about it, but that's mainly because it's night right now and I am physically, emotionally and just down right exhausted.
Anyway, been a while since I put out one of these, so here's Velvet's new sheet. At least it's better than the last one.
As always, if I don't see you, have a good afternoon, a good evening and a good night.
Class: Avenger
True Name: Velvet (Alter) (Grimm)
A.K.A: Knight of Treachery; The Death of Britain, Princess of Grimm.
Sex: Female
Origin: Britain
Region: Camelot
Alignment: Chaotic Insane
Attribute: Earth
Strength: A++ Agility B Endurance: A+ Mana: B++ Luck: E- NP: A++
Class Skills
Madness Enhancement: Raises basic parameters and strengthens one's physical abilities in exchange of hindering mental capacities and/or in exchange for their sense of reason.
A+: Due to the changes forced upon her Spirit Origin, Velvet’s mind has essentially broken under the pressure. While she isn’t a snarling or howling lunatic, her mind has become too fragile for mutual understanding to occur between her and anyone other than a Master she had the chance to put her trust in. In return, her Stats have increased considerably, and so has her mana cost.
Kingslayer: A mark of one responsible for the death of a monarch. Increases damage done to “King” Servants.
A+: A Skill Avenger embraces more than any other iteration of herself, using it to hunt down the Liar King she betrayed and anyother that stands in her way.
Oblivion Correction: Is a Class Skill of the Avenger class. Based on the fact that people may forget their grudges but Avengers don't, the Skill strengthens critical attacks against targets who have forgotten the user.
B-: When facing former allies in this new form, almost always their first instinct is to deny what has occurred to her. This denial of her new existence and objective grants Velvet a situational greater strength.
Self-Replenishment (Mana): Is a Class Skill of the Avenger class. One's Magical Energy endlessly surges until their revenge is accomplished. Recovers a minuscule amount of magical energy every turn.
C++: Avenger can augment her natural ability to generate mana with her cartridges
Personal Skills
Savior of Nothing: A sign of regret and a testament to the utter futility of one’s desperate actions. A sign of determination and a testament to the utter bravery . The greatest contradiction brought about by a lack of knowledge. So long as the user never acknowledges the truth of their failure, this Skill grants the benefits of “Battle Continuation” and “Unyielding Will,” at a lower Rank.
B: The true reason Velvet of Caerbannog rebelled against Arthur Pendragon was her desire to prevent the return of her mentor, The Knight of Compassion, whom she believed was being enslaved and kept from eternal rest by the Liar King. This was, in truth, a mistake born from her own lack of understanding and ill-will towards the King of Knights and her mentor’s situation.
This desire burns brightly in Avenger’s Spirit Origin, throwing logic and truth out the window for the sake of granting her mentor a true eternal rest. Even if it means killing him herself.
Grimm Ether Cartridges: A new ammunition for Avenger’s Gun Lance, made not from Blue Ether but from the liquid of the Grimm Pools, which the monsters are spawned from. Merely having these makes Avenger grow closer to a Villain than an Anit-Hero Servant.
A+: Due to the increase in the Strength of her Spirit Origin, Avenger can more easily control the weight of her lance through sheer might. For that reason, the cartridges are no longer used for explosive attacks, but instead, to either fuel her with magical energy or break one of the containers and spread it’s contents around the battlefield, spawning Grimm.
Queen of The Grimm: An unique evolution of the Creature of Grimm Skill, allowing for summoning and control of any beings with the Creature of Grimm trait. Grimm summoned directly from the user’s blood carry higher quality mana and are stronger, with the potential to reach the upper echelons of Phantasmal Beasts if the Rank is high enough. Also imposses the same effect as “Mass Hysteria,” but can fail on stronger minded foes.
C: Due to being submerged in a pod filled with the Essence of the Grimm and later direct modifications to her Spirit Origin, Avenger has gained this Skill, though she can only control Grimm weaker than herself.
Noble Phantasms
Anti-Human; Anti-Arc Rank A++ “???.”