2 Prologue Part 2
Arthur returned to the room he had been In several years ago. The familiar man was sitting at the same table.
He motioned at the chair opposite himself.
Arthur felt different this time around as he sat down. He had something he wanted. Something to work towards. He had loved ones once again.
"Look at your status" Mr. Black said to the king.
Arthur didn't respond and pulled it up on his tablet. Everything was the same, except his Will and gone up to [ C ] from [ D- ].
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Alexander Penn (Arthur Pendragon)
Strength [C+]
Endurance [C+]
Agility [C-]
Mana [B-]
Will [ C ]
Luck [ C ]
Passive Skills:
- Magic Resistance [ C- ]
- Riding [ B ]
- Charisma [ C ]
- Instinct [ C+ ]
Active Skills:
- Mana Burst
- Strike Air: Hammer of the Wind King (Requires Invisible Air)
Equipment:
- Noble Phantasms
o Excalibur [Anti-Fortress] C – EX
o Invisible Air [Anti-Unit] C
o Rule Breaker [Anti-Magecraft] C
- A King's Armor [ C+ ]
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"It seems you found what you were looking for?" Mr. Black asked.
"Yes." Arthur said with a smile.
"You did good work. Check your rewards." Mr. Black said.
Arthur pulled up his tablet's interface and searched through the various windows. He came to his 'points'. He had some unclaimed from the 'mission' he had just accomplished.
7,850 points were added to his previous count of 4350 which gave him a total of 12,200.
"You did well, you stopped Percy's mother from being captured by the minotaur and you gave him a decent childhood when it would have been all bad memories otherwise." Mr. Black said.
"While I don't understand how these things transfer into points, I thank you for the compliment nonetheless." Arthur responded.
"Its complicated, i'll explain it at a later date." Mr. black said, waiving off his concerns.
"So, whats my first job?" Arthur said with rare vigor. A flame had been reignited inside of him.
"First, we should talk about a future job." Mr. Black said.
"Think of it like your company presentation. It's a bit further down the road and you will need to prepare for it." He added.
"At the moment, you are still too weak. Even at your peak you would probably still die." Mr. Black explained.
"I'm a bit curious to who I would be fighting." Arthur asked curiously.
"For now, it's a secret. I want to see how you work under a bit of pressure." He mused.
"So until that decisive battle, you are getting a bit of hand holding and when we find out if you can stand up by yourself, you will be left to your own devices and missions will come in through the tablet." He said.
"That brings us to the first world you will be going to, and I think you will enjoy it" Mr. Black said, sending a message to Arthur's tablet.
Arthur pulled it up and stared at it for a moment before smiling.
"Fate/stay night, unlimited blade works." Arthur said with a smile.
"What's my enter strategy?" Arthur asked, kinda hoping to be a servant. He always wanted to say a certain line of dialogue.
"You're going to commandeer a master position. I'm leaving it up to you to choose which servant you summon. other than Saber. I'de advise you to summon yours early, the summon ritual will bypass the predesignated conditions set by the grail, so you can summon it a bit early but still be connected to the war." Mr. Black said.
"It would be a bit awkward, but why couldn't I summon saber?" Arthur asked curiously.
"We're already skirting the line with how much Gaia will tolerate. Imagine if you were a manager and your boss came down and started to shit-talk you to your employees. Well, Gaia may do something stupid as a result. Having two 'Arthurs' connected through the ritual and sharing a dream cyclone could cause too strong a paradox."
"That reminds me, be careful how much you connect your invisible air to hers, they may try to devour one another since they're both 'real' and Gaia may not know how to respond to that situation. A bit different than Shirou's situation where he creates fakes. Two of the same noble phantasm will definitely cause a paradox with some unseen side effects." He explained.
"I take it our Excalibur's are different enough to not have the same issue?" Arthur asked.
"Pretty much, maybe if you kept them together for a very long time, like hours sitting next to one another. But otherwise you're good" He said.
"A few questions before I begin" Arthur stated.
"Shoot" Mr. Black said.
"Gate of Babylon, it costs 750,000 points for the full thing. What If I want it without all the stuff inside?" Arthur asked with a smirk.
"Hmmm, we didn't consider that since it would basically be just a storage space" Mr. Black thought.
"Let me send a ticket." He said as he tapped away at his tablet.
Several minutes later he got a response.
"10,000 points for an empty gate of Babylon. Since it will still have its auto repair and retrieve function available." Mr. Black said.
"I would like to purchase it." Arthur said.
Mr.Black raised an eyebrow and tapped away to send the 'object' over to Arthur's device.
"You're up to something." Mr black mused.
Arthur didn't say anything but turned his tablet around to show the other thing he just purchased.
"HA, never considered that before. We'll probably not sell an empty gate of Babylon anymore after this." Mr.black said with a laugh.
"It should probably work, but you'll need to time it right and you will probably only get one chance." Mr. Black said in amusement.
Altogether, Arthur spent 10,100 points. 100 were spent on the mystery purchase. He had 2,100 remaining.
"The dream cycle, will my servant see all this?" Arthur asked.
"Nope, no one can forcefully acquire information about this 'company'. And don't go around blabbing about it." Mr. Black responded.
"Will language be a problem?" Arthur asked.
"Nope, you are a heroic spirit in the flesh, you have a good understanding of most languages" Mr. Black said.
Arthur thought for a few more moments and decided to end it there.
"One final question, why do I need to interfere, shouldn't they be able to handle the situation by themselves?" Arthur asked one last time.
"The plot will play out almost exactly as you would expect, except in the end Shirou fails to defeat Gilgamesh. This world diverged slightly somewhere along the line, he has a few less circuits here so his reality marble will end before he could cut off Gilgamesh's arm. So, your mission is to ensure the destruction of the grail and defeat Gilgamesh." Mr. Black answered.
"I'm setting you up with six months to prepare, consider it a newbie perk. Good luck to you." Mr. Black said as Arthur began to dissipate and transfer.
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Arthur regained himself as he was once again in a modern world setting, if only a few years down the road from his previous one.
He quickly made his armor go away and donned some regular clothes. He needed to get his bareings. In his pack, he had a few thousand dollars in cash and some gold he kept in emergencies. The town he appeared in didn't look very large, the chance there was a place to change dollars into yen was relatively small. It was easy to deduce the nationality as everyone walking around were Japanese.
It was easy enough to muddle his way around, a magic ID and some story about being a student tourist that was wandering the country. He spoke good enough Japanese to even get compliments with how foreign he looked. Blonde hair and green eyes were not exactly common in Asian countries.
He found a gold buyer at some backwater alley, some simple hypnosis and he was able to get a real price for the gold he was selling. It didn't feel right to actually steal from a normal person even if they were pretty scummy.
Arthur was feeling relatively good as he just wandered around. For the first time in years, it felt like his thoughts had finally settled in. It no longer felt as if two personalities were flaring up from time to time. He wanted to go see the kid again, he already missed the hyper boy flying into his apartment and wanting to play.
It didn't take long to figure out he was in Fuyuki city. His first stop would be taking care of a certain family. That poor Sakura girl deserved better than the hand she was dealt. It wasn't hard to find her, purple hair at a school in the city. He followed her home one day to figure out where those monsters lived and waited until she left again for the day.
The Matou residence. He would burn it to the ground and kill both of those bastards. At night, when Sakura left for some reason or another, he made his move.
He did not enjoy killing, but he would not hesitate over cutting down these monsters. First he needed to help the girl, he didn't know what would happen if he killed Zouken while Sakura still had the worms inside of her. He purchased an item previously, 'jewel of purification'. It was a one-time consumable that purified the body of foreign entities, it was mainly used for poison and disease but he figured it would work in this situation as well. It cost 1,000 points, but it was something he felt he should do. He couldn't remove any of the 'grail pieces' from inside her, but without the worms acting as a catalyst, they would remain dormant and forgotten by the world.
As she was walking down the empty street, he knocked her out and used it. The worms did not stand a chance at the jewels power. He quickly wrote a note and carried Sakura towards the Tohsaka residence. He left her on the doorstep with the note and left.
It was only polite that he warn the second owner of the city to what he was about to do.
He quickly made his way to the Matou house. He summoned both his armor and invisible air.
He swung his invisible blade towards the mansion. "Strike Air: Hammer of the wind King". He called out as a torrent of wind propelled itself forward and shattered the bounded field around the mansion. The residents of the house were quickly alerted, but Arthur spared no time to infiltrate and start taking out anyone present. There were no staff, no maid or butlers. There were only the disgusting members of that family and no one would survive this night.
He was quick as he cut down Shinji, he would not relish in the pain others felt. There were 'guards' and safety measures in place inside the mansion, but they were never meant to stand up to a 'heroic spirit'. Various Homunculi and spells bombarded the Knight, but he pushed through with ease until he found Zouken's hiding place. He didn't let the man so much as utter a word as he cut him down. He knew that you don't give a magus time to prepare.
He was able to start a fire with his magecraft easily enough, even if he wasn't talented in any fire arts, a simple combustion wasn't too difficult.
He grabbed any material on magecraft as he left the mansion and it started to be consumed in flames. He was quick to burn any 'disgusting' books and just kept the more mundane but rare ones.
Rin found Sakura at about the same time as the fire was raging at the Matou residence.
She read the note and started to cry at the revelations. Her sister was abused and used by those disgusting people. She was ready to attack them until she read the final piece and saw smoke rising in the distance.
A smile formed on her teary face as she pulled Sakura inside. She wouldn't let anyone hurt her sister ever again.
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Since Arthur decided to save the girl, he would have to summon rider in her place. He didn't want the plot to change too much, he wanted some amount of control over the situation.
He felt like he was cheating a bit…..he didn't need the normal summon ritual, just a few taps on his tablet and he could select 'rider' as his summon.
A glow of light and a figure appeared before him.
"As per your summons, I have come forth. I ask you, are you my master?" The woman said.
Arthur stared for several moments. He was not quite prepared even after mulling it over. The shows did not do it justice. She was way to beautiful.
"Um…yes, sorry. I was just a bit stunned, I didn't expect you to be so beautiful" Arthur said, embarrassed. The show didn't do any justice to her beauty.
A smile formed on her lips.
"Servant Rider greets master." She stated.
Rider was looking around, she was in a secluded location and didn't see the ritual circle, nor did she see any object that would correspond to her summoning.
"Master....how did you summon me?" Rider asked.
"Oh, I did it a special way. No ritual here" He said, waiving off her question.
"But how did you specifically summon me, I see nothing that would tie me to you, nor do you seem like a person that shared similar experiences to me." She reiterated.
"Well…..i may have specifically chosen you?" He said hesitantly.
"I have come to despise a certain Sea god, so I figured we might get along a bit better than if I summoned other servants." Arthur said with a smile.
Rider was a bit confused at his statement.
"You….know my identity?" She asked in surprise.
"Yes." He replied.
"And you still called me beautiful...." Rider muttered to herself.
She started to inspect her new master. He seemed odd…..it felt like she was standing before another heroic spirit.
"Master, you have some explaining to do." She stated towards the king.
"I guess I should introduce myself...I am Arthur Pendragon." He said as he materialized his armor.
Heroic Spirits were given knowledge about the world when they were summoned. Rider knew about the Arthurian lore.
"But how?" She asked. She could feel the strength he radiated, it was a bit lower than the average servant, but it was far beyond a normal human.
"I'm a heroic spirit in the flesh, it's a long story." Arthur explained.
"We have time, seeing as you decided to summon me months before the grail war is supposed to start….." Rider said with a bit of annoyance. She had knowledge of the grail war she was supposed to participate in, she knew that she was summoned much earlier than she was supposed to be.
"Ah, well....i guess I'll start off after I died in my last battle as King Arthur. But I can't tell you everything, I was told to keep some things to myself" Arthur explained again.
"Very well, tell me what you can" She said with an aggressive tone.
He opened up to her about his life. When he died originally, his wish that had been granted and how he died again in his second life. He was vague with the details until he got to the world with Percy. He made sure she was calm before he explained the whole situation. She got a bit angry when he mentioned the son of Poseidon. She calmed down she he started to berate his father, saying he would 'kick that kelp-heads arse". There was no point in withholding anything, the dream cycle would start eventually.
"That is…quite the story." She said, still trying to process.
"But you also didn't answer why you summoned me 6 months early." She said towards the king.
"Um….well…..I thought it would be a bit lonely having to wait 6 months by myself." He said with a bit of awkwardness.
She smiled at his statement. She was starting to like this master.
"I would like to see the world then." She stated, leaving no room for negotiation. She had always wanted to travel.
"Yes Ma'am." Arthur responded.
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It wasn't too difficult to get Rider a proper ID and even a background for himself. Finding some shady dealer and a bit of hypnosis….suddenly they were real people.
Alex Penn, and Melissa Rider. Alex was quick to buy her a certain pair of glasses that negated the effects of her mystic eyes so she could actually see the world. And hiding the mark on her forehead with magecraft wasn't difficult.
They essentially went on vacation. Rider only has passing knowledge of the world, she had never left her island when she was alive, so all these scenes were new to her.
They traveled all over the place, Sydney, New York, Moscow, Paris, Egypt, and they even went to visit Greece. Their last stop was England. She wanted to see the land that Arthur had grew up in, even though it had changed drastically in the years. After a few days into the 'vacation', the dream cycle started. It was a bit heavy on both ends, they each saw the other's lowest points. It was from this that her desire to see England truly sprang from.
Arthur was having a good time all things considered. He slowly came to care about rider as they spent the months together. If he was being honest, he had developed feelings for her. She wasn't the most talkative, but she wasn't afraid to speak her mind. She apparently liked to tease him, jokingly being seductive towards the king who had never actually be intimate with a girl. She would laugh when he suddenly got flustered at her antics. His 'marriage' in his previous life was just a sham. He was friends with Gwenevere and he was being pressured to marry. She shared the burden with him when they get married for the public. They were never intimate in private and in public they only showed the bare minimum that a married couple should.
The duo pulled up to a hotel in a cab.
"I'll get the luggage, you check in" Arthur said to his companion.
She proceeded to the frost desk to the awe of the staff that were staring at her.
"I would like to check in, the rooms should be under Penn, Alex." Rider stated.
"There appears to be an issue Miss, there is only one room listed under that name." The receptionist stated.
A smile crept up on Rider's lips.
"That's fine" She said ad she grabbed the key.
Rider didn't say anything as she led Arthur to the designated room.
"Where's the other room?' Arthur asked.
"They only had one." Rider retorted emotionlessly
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Arthur sighed, she probably did this on purpose to get a reaction out of him.
As Arthur set all their stuff down and started to unpack, Rider left the restroom and stood by the door.
Arthur turned around to see her in very revealing lingerie.
"Um….Rider, what are you doing..?" He asked hesitantly. She had never taken her 'jokes' this far before.
"I'm going to show you why I was summoned as the 'rider' class." She said with a seductive smile as she threw him on the bed.
Arthur's eyes widened and he let out a 'meep' as Rider turned off the lights. There would be several noise complaints the following morning.
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When Arthur woke up the next morning, he was staring at the thing wrapped around him. He freaked out for lack of a better word. He had never in any of his lifetimes woken up with another person in his bed. It was something completely alien to him and so his body reacted on its own as it shot up and broke away from her.
Rider, who had woken up at this point, saw at how his reaction when he saw her. The girl was already self-conscious due to her sisters always bullying her when she was younger. And here Arthur was acting like he was disgusted that he was even touching her.
She had her Gorgon Breaker on when she slept so her glasses didn't accidently fall off. If it wasn't on, Arthur might have seen tears in her eyes. She had never opened her heart to someone before. It wasn't just 'hooking up' for a night, she fell for her master. She knew him on a very intimate level due to the dream cycle the past few months and he treated her so well with pure sincerity. She could see the glances he gave her when he thought she wasn't looking. Even when he knew her true nature, he didn't shy away and even got closer to her throughout their time together. She had fallen in love. The monster Medusa thought she had a lover after all these years.
When she saw him act like that….like he was looking at a monster, her heart started to break. For the first time in her life, she was about to cry. She quickly got up and went towards the bathroom.
As she got up, Arthur could hear her mumble "I'm just a monster…" as she made her way to the bathroom.
"Medusa stop." Arthur spoke.
Rider froze, he had never called her by her real name before.
He didn't know the right words to say, so he would just express his feelings a different way. He walked up to her and pushed his lips against hers. It lasted for several moments before they parted.
"It wasn't you, I'm new to this….." Arthur spoke quietly.
Rider knew what he meant by that, she saw his memories regarding his 'marriage'. He never had girlfriend, much less a lover before. Her mood was quickly changing for the better. Her heart started to beat faster at their proximity.
Arthur's smile turned into a frown as he stared at Rider with a serious expression. Rider became confused as the atmosphere turned tense.
"Medusa, by the power of this command seal, I order you...… you are never allowed to call yourself a monster again" Arthur said as one of the command seals disappeared from his hand.
Rider's mouth started to quiver and tears fell past her blindfold. She kissed him again with renewed vigor.
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After an awkward conversation with the hotel staff about the 'noise' last night, the duo made their way around London. Rider grabbed his hand and refused to let go, not that Arthur would complain.
It was an odd feeling, having a lover/girlfriend, his heart would beat faster when he saw her smile. When she looked at him love in her eyes, he couldn't help but get a bit flustered.
They spent the next few days just exploring London. It was a bit different than his last world's version. And they made sure to steer clear of the clock tower, though he wasn't afraid of the organization, he didn't know if he could take on its highest members. If Zelretch wanted to mess with him, he would probably have to call his boss for help.
Arthur and Rider continued to get closer. The original awkwardness they had around each other had almost disappeared. Rider had started to come out of her shell with regards to her self-consciousness, she no longer shied away from large crowds, she didn't hunch over or tense up when people stared at her. Whenever she got a bit unsettled, she would just latch onto Arthur who was more than willing to oblige.
It was a bit amusing at first when they were figuring out each other's quirks with regards to entering a relationship. Rider would constantly tug at the end of her hair when she was nervous. It went back to when her sisters would cut her hair in jealously. It made her feel safe when she could feel that it was still there. She had tensed up the first time he ran his fingers through her hair, but it quickly became something that soothed her.
And Arthur would randomly grab her hand. It was like he was reassuring himself that she was still there and wasn't going to leave. He had found out what familial love felt like with Percy, but this was different, and it was a bit scary. He attained something he had wanted for so long and feared losing it.
It was also a bit awkward when they started to share the same bed permanently. They hadn't romped around since that first night when Rider somehow worked up the courage to go that far. Her natural teasing and flirtatious nature was a coping mechanism to deal with the feelings she had developed. She initially didn't know how handle having a crush at first, so she reacted in the only way she knew how. She also found it adorable how she was so easily able to penetrate that confidant shell he always had and cause him to get all flustered.'
When night came around, they were both excited and nervous. The feeling of having someone you love so close as you drift off into sleep was something neither of them had before.
Arthur was happy overall. The warm feeling in his heart was something that he sorely missed through two lifetimes. He would do anything to keep it at this point. He honestly couldn't wait for her to meet his cute little nephew. IT may be a bit awkward at first…considering she's medusa and all but she isn't a monster like most media portrays her to be.
He had seen several items that he could bind someone to himself take them with him. It would be his new goal after this world.
He had to break the news to her eventually about his separating for a bit. She took it a bit hard, as did he. They didn't leave the room that day, he just sat there and held her. But they had to keep going, it was only a few days before the war would start.
