34. Left Hand of Ruin

===Mordred===

As her eyes opened, Mordred found herself inside the castle she used to call home. The halls were dim, and the rooms were cold as if they had been abandoned for many years.

The cracked stone walls and floor told of the castle's neglect, which she didn't understand.

She walked through the halls calling out people's names, but no one responded.

Soon she found herself standing in front of the large metal doors that led to the lavish throne room. With a heave, she pushed the doors open, their creaking making a loud whine to announce her entrance.

What she saw in the throne room horrified her. Bodies littered the ground, men, women, and children alike, all piled on either side of a blood red carpet that ran down the center of the great hall. The carpet led to a dais where a figure was seated on the royal throne of Camelot.

She slowly approached, looking at the faces of the dead on either side of her.

She knew many of the men, soldiers in her mother's army. The women and children must have been their families, or just normal citizens.

She finally reached the dais, and stopped as she saw the figure that was sitting on it.

It was herself, but… different.

The figure looked down on her with mocking and scornful eyes, then began to speak.

"Who are you?"

Mordred just looked at herself, not knowing what to say. The Mordred sitting on the throne was clad in the same armor as her, but it was black, and had red veins running through it. Her eyes were Golden in color, and she lacked any trace of the original Mordred's mischievous nature.

The feeling Mordred got from this… Alter version of herself, was that of a cold blooded killer.

Finally Mordred found her voice, and answered the question with one of her own.

"Did you slaughter all these people?" She asked.

Alter just sneered at her. "Of course I did. A King must be ruthless after all." She said as she brought her left hand up, and chelched it into a fist. The tips of her fingers were more like that of dragon claws, then that of humans, but Mordred didn't care as she looked at herself in hatred.

"What did they ever do to deserve this…" she paused as she looked across the sea of bodies. "Massacre!" She finished.

"They opposed my taking the throne. So I invited them all to a feast where I would hear them out, then I slaughtered them." Alter said in a light tone.

Mordred looked up at Alter with a disgusted look on her face.

"You slaughtered the people of your kingdom because they were dissatisfied and opposed your rule?" She asked.

Alter just gave a mocking laugh as she looked down at Mordred.

"You would have done the same in my position, after all… we are the same." She said.

Mordred reacted as if she had been physically struck, her head whipping back and forth in disagreement.

"I would have never slaughtered my people! I would have been a just and good king for them, not this!" She shouted as she gestured to the bodies on the floor.

Alter just gave her a knowing smile as they looked into each other's eyes.

"That's what I said in the beginning as well, but then I actually became king, and it all changed." Alter replied to her.

"And what about Mother, Godrick, hell even Morgan? They would have never let you get away with this!" Mordred shouted.

"Of course they wouldn't." Alter replied as if they were talking about the weather.

"They tried to stop me, but they fell as all the others did." She said, gesturing to the left of the dais with her left hand.

Mordred looked, and saw two bodies in the corner impaled by a broken sword.

Excalibur lay in two pieces, it's handle laying on the ground, while it's blade was buried in the chest of her brother, his arms encasing their mother who's throat was cut.

"What did you do?" Mordred asked in disbelief as she saw the two bodies.

"Ambition has a high price, but at least I got what I wanted. Mother was easy enough, believing I was harmless, and the stupid brute was even easier. He just let me kill him as he held her body." She said as she laughed.

"And now you rule a kingdom alone." Mordred retorted, still looking at the two bodies.

Alter's smile disappeared as Mordred spoke, replaced with a cold fury.

"At least I am a King. What are you? A bastard born out of spite. An experiment for someone else to use?" Alter asked coldly.

"You rule a kingdom with no subjects. You are no more a king than I am." Mordred replied.

"If this is what it means to be King…" Mordred said as she looked about her, and gave one last look at her mother and brother.

"You can have it, because this is not what I wanted. I would never strike Godrick down. Ever." Mordred said as she shook her head and started to back away from the dais.

"What are you doing?" Alter said as she sat up straighter in her throne.

"This is what you wanted! You wanted to be King, and this will be the result! It's Glorious," Alter shouted as she stood up, pulling her sword from her scabbard and motioning around her as she spoke.

"NO ONE WILL OPPOSE YOU!" She screamed at Mordred.

"But that's what I want." Mordred spoke quietly as she turned around.

"I don't want to be worshiped. I want to feel something biting back."

She reached the end of the great hall and turned around to the alternative version of herself.

"You must have forgotten who you were," She said, her voice echoing down the Great Hall.

"We thrive in opposition. For you to take that away, means you are stagnant, and I pity you for it." She said before turning and walking through the Great doors.

=

Opening her eyes she found herself laying in the rubble of a broken wall, Chiron, Fran, and Astolfo laying next to her, in similar situations.

A great hole was carved into the wall and ceiling around them, telling of some unforeseen attack they had not seen.

"Well." William said.

"That certainly didn't go as planned."

"It doesn't matter." Shirou said as he looked at the hole in the wall.

"If it didn't kill him, he won't be much of a threat anymore. Now we need only mop up the rest of them, and we will be finished." He said.

"No!" Jeanne said as she got to her staring out of the hole.

She turned back to Shirou, and with her spear in hand, took a fighting stance.

Mordred didn't know what had happened, only that her brother was no longer here, which told her everything she needed to know. She stood up, pushing the rubble off of her, took Clarent in both hands, and readied herself. Fran and Chiron did the same, pulling themselves from the rubble, before readying themselves.

Shirou Just smiled as he placed his helmet on his head, and reached behind him to take hold of the long handle of his katana.

"sixty years of planning you've wasted. Sixty long years." His distorted voice said as he began to unsheath his massive katana.

An oppressive aura filled the chamber as he did so, and a red hue enveloped his body as he held his katana out to his right side.

"I did not feel the Juggernaut die from the blast earlier, so that means he still lives." he said as he looked the small group over.

"And he owes me a debt, which you shall pay before he gets back."

===Godrick===

Pain greeted Godrick as he opened his eyes. He had crashed into the ground leaving a huge crater where he landed.

Pain erupted from his left arm, as well as his entire body.

His left arm was burnt black, leaving it unfeeling from the power of the Holy Grail. His chest was also severely damaged, the raw red and black skin signs of burns covering a good size of his left pectoral.

Then, he felt the power.

The power of the Grail he had absorbed, and adapted too. Looking over the rest of his body, he assumed that his left arm had taken the brunt of the damage, which he was grateful for. If the beam had hit him directly in the chest, he was sure that he would be dead now, but fortunately he had reacted fast, and had been able to mitigate the damage to his left arm.

He tried to move the fingers of his arm, but pain was its only response.

Holding his charred left arm close to his chest, he sat up carefully, before getting to his knees, and finally standing.

Each and every move he made sent pain and shock coursing through his system, causing him to stop all movement for a moment until he got used to the pain.

Godrick grit his teeth as he thought of what to do, but nothing came to mind. All he could think about was the power he had absorbed from the Grail.

Godrick had never thought that he had a limit to the amount of energy he could absorb, and maybe that was true, but this was the most energy he had ever held at any point in this "second life" of his.

'Maybe…' He thought to himself.

With pain shooting through his entire body, he lifted his damaged arm to the sky.

He began to channel all the energy he had absorbed into his left arm, causing him to fall to his knees in pain, but it didn't stop him from continuing the transfer.

If he could, he would scream from the pain, but all he could do was grin and bear it.

Soon after beginning the transformation, Godrick had the feeling he needed to raise his magic stat. He had never done it before, but now understood that for him to succeed, he needed to do it.

With the energy split between raising his Magic stat, and his left arm, he used up all the energy he had stored, but he succeeded.

His Magic stat raised from E to D to a split Instant, but that Instant changed everything.

The energy enveloped his left arm completely as he turned his head away from it, as if doing so could somehow lessen the pain.

The pain started to decrease somewhat as Godrick looked back down at his arm. He stared in releaf as before his eyes, his arm healed to what it had been before the attack. He felt his left arm was now different however, as a strange energy seemed to radiate from it, leaving him in wonder of what had happened.

Godrick didn't know it at that moment, but he had just taken his first step into unlocking a divine power that would change everything for him in the future.

Breathing in deep gasps, Godrick looked at his arm, relief and disbelief on his face. His left arm was now completely pitch black in color, with red veins running through it. His Command Seals were still visible, looking like blood red tattoos that seemed to glow, covering his forearm and bicep.

Taking a few moments he calmed himself and regained his breath.

No matter how much energy he used, though he didn't have very much, he couldn't materialize the armor of his left arm. He could repair the armor on his chest, but it stopped just at his shoulder where the pitch black skin started.

Clenching and unclenching his fist, he finally stood up, as the pain was no more.

He could feel his connection with Jeanne, but it was becoming weaker every moment.

'Just hold on a bit longer.' He thought as he leapt into the air.

===Jeanne===

Jeanne wiped her mouth of the blood that was leaking from her lips. Shirou stood in his original position unharmed, while the rest of them were severely injured.

Fran was missing her right arm, wires And tunes dangling from her stump like some sort of robot.

Chiron was unconscious, laying under rubble that had fallen on him, making his head bleed profusely.

Astolfo was kneeling and breathing heavily, his face pale from blood loss as well, though he had been able to evade most of the damage.

Mordred's left eye was swollen shut, thanks to the handle of Shirous kitana, and she had a deep gash on her left side, but she was fine.

Jeanne herself was hurt in a couple places, but she could, and would fight on.

She and Shirou immediately perked up as they felt some sort of energy signature far off in the east.

Jeanne's heart lifted, while Shirous tightened a fraction, causing him to grip his sword more forcefully.

"It will change nothing. He will come here and die like the rest of you." Shirou said as he looked around him. William and Semiramis were completely unharmed, as they stayed in the back, letting Shirou fight all four servants by himself.

"You know, if there's one thing I know about my Brother," Mordred said as she stood and ripped Clarent from the ground, holding it out in front of her with its blade towards Shirou.

"It's that he's one tough bastard to kill. And even if you kill him, he'll be sure to take you out with him!" She said with a grin on her face.

Jeanne readied her spear as well, it's tip pointing at Shirou.

"I have seen the depths of his strength, and I can assure you, if you underestimate My Juggernaut, you will regret it." She said as she felt Godricks energy signature rapidly approaching, causing a grin to grow on her face.