The Tower Who Met The Sun

...

Xander shuffled next to Archer, hand outstretched towards where the trapdoor had been, "You watch the ship. I'll watch the door."

"Understood."

He let loose another volley of arrows, satisfied in seeing the enemy ship begin to dip and falter, now drifting slowly towards the ground. There was no reason for Aaron to stay there, in fact, odds were that he had already abandoned his falling ship. Besides that, there was still another ship he could try and commandeer.

Archer turned to Caster behind him, aboard his own ship separate from theirs', "Caster, watch out! There's a rat below deck!"

He remained preoccupied with the ongoing battle underneath them, not even looking in Archer's direction, though he clearly heard and understood.

"Is that so?"

The gold that circulated through the wood of Caster's ship began to flicker: dimming and then flashing with violet. The boards darkened from mahogany to charcoal, and then began to fall away in pieces until it was totally destroyed. Caster remained floating in the air, then moving into a controlled descent, as if totally removed from the chaos around him.

Archer figured that whatever demanded Caster's curiosity was worth his own, but he wasn't allowed a moment more to think on or investigate his surroundings.

"AAAAAAAAAGH!"

A scratching yodel of a yell came from behind him. He wasted no time in drawing his bow, but where the sound had come from, there was nothing. Then, above him, he spotted the flailing body of the Master of Rider, splayed out against the skyline, a black box in front of him, almost pulling him through the air and making him seem like the most pathetic Superman one could ask for.

...

"AAAAAAAAAGH!"

He charged like a madman, hoisting his metal munitions box into his arms then, as he reached the railing, flinging it out with as much force as he could, priming his mana to fire-

'No lightning, no lightning, no lightning, please!'

He let loose a burst of polarity, repelling the box with as much force as he could manage- enough force to send him flying with it, a pain shooting deep into his shoulder as his right arm was nearly yanked from its socket.

-But he got the air he needed. He looked down and saw, past the dizzying fall to his death, that his trajectory was straight onto Archer's ship. In the same vein, he saw a bow and arrow aimed up towards him.

Step one.

He pulled his arm and the black box down, using just a small bit of magnetism to aid the movement, and let loose another burst directly at Archer, but not without letting go first. The box shot towards him like a cannonball, not to hit him directly, but to intercept the arrow flying towards him.

Step two.

He punched out with his left hand, four grenades netted by the pin between his fingers, and let another burst loose. The grenades flew off his fingers, pins left behind, and he closed his eyes, maintaining a constant, powerful repellant pulse.

Step three.

-BOOM!-

The box burst in a blast of metal shrapnel and phosphorus, the flash grenades inside all being detonated at once, bringing a miniature sun into the night sky. Bits of jagged metal flew up towards him as well, but were just guided off course by his magnetic pulse. In a similar way, one or two pieces that had been sent towards Archer bounced off his force field and went towards Xander instead, who, although he had been smart enough to block his eyes, still took a chunk of metal to the head.

Step four.

He got his legs under him to try and land on his feet but, being no acrobat, and not even athletic to begin with, he realized too late that he had been leaning too far forward, planting only one foot before catapulting his chin into the deck.

He forced himself up as fast as he could- he couldn't waste a moment!- and cast a hand out to send another burst, but saw that man, Archer's new Master, looking him dead in the eye as a thin trail of blood dripped from under his hair.

'Shit! He knew about the flashbangs!?'

He couldn't relent, not without skewering himself with his own frags, but as he struggled to react, the foreign mage was himself casting out a hand, an orange bolt of energy beginning to form in his hands. Without anything else to do, Aaron let loose his mana with everything he had, the energy burning his arms with the effort, and saw a bolt of lightning strike out from his palm, piercing the man's chest and sending him reeling.

-But that wasn't all.

As the electricity crackled around his skin and clothes, Aaron found his own rifle lurch from his chest towards him- he seized it, although it dragged him halfway to his feet with the effort. The grenades, too, leaped from where they had been, sticking to the mage's body like burrs, two on his back and one on his stomach before-

-BANG!-

Each one burst at point-blank, and time seemed to slow. At first, Aaron was confused, but he then saw why. A bolt of orange light, like a stake made of fire, was flying straight for his face, and was now less than a foot away. If it hit him, he was dead. In the same way, there were fragments of metal littering the space between the two men, like a cloud of man-o-wars drifting towards him.

This, he reasoned, must have been the moment before death. A final second stretching into as much time as he needed to contemplate his own demise. And yet-

He felt alive. He felt as if there were a well of energy within him trying desperately to burst. Blue static crawled across his body.

This was it. A last ditch effort on behalf of his body to keep him alive by using whatever powers of the storm he had been given to accelerate his perceptions and, hopefully, his body.

He leaned out of the way of the bolt, and felt as if he were swimming through molasses. No matter how much strength he used, he was never going fast enough. What's more, his body was heavy, like there were dumbbells tied to his feet, and yet, when he looked ahead, he could see that he was making progress.

He grit through the effort, and found that each step, slow and painful though it may have been, was stronger and steadier than the last. Each step increased his resolve. Each expanded nanosecond brought new life to his heart, to his soul, to his courage. He felt the energy around the bolt tickling his hair as it passed less than a centimeter by his head. He strafed to the left to avoid a piece of metal shrapnel, though all in slow motion. He had a small infinity to plan out his next move, but each moment only assured him of his own righteousness, the necessity of what would be done. He readied his rifle, brought it up and, as the force of his running brought the barrel naturally under the man's chin, pulled the trigger.

Time reasserted itself in a spray of blood as weight and momentum fell upon him, leading him to trample the dead man, charging past him towards Archer, his supernatural sight blinded by the flashes. He raised his rifle like a club and, with a yell of defiance, struck Archer across the face with the barrel, feeling the full force of the impact-

Archer's leg sprung out, landing straight in Aaron's gut and sending him flying back to trip over the dead Master and plant him on his back.

Taken off his feet, the physical exhaustion came all at once, and his body protested as he, slowly and with cracking joints, pushed off the deck once more, his feet slipping in the slick, fresh blood while a trail of his own leaked from his nose. He wiped it away and turned to Archer.

A rush of flame seemed to overtake Archer's shadowy form, and, when it cleared, he was staring at Aaron with as much clarity as his eagle eyes had ever had.

"I suppose that even a rat can be dangerous when cornered, but what was your goal, exactly? Were you attempting to avenge your Servant- that obnoxious Rider?" He sighed, seeming more tired than annoyed, "Go on, then. A life for a life is fair game. You've done your damage. You can jump off the side. You can wait for the end. I don't care what you do. There's no pride in hunting rodents."

Aaron's eyes drifted to the dead man. He knew nothing of him, but, seeing his lifeless, violet eyes staring into nothing instilled a sadness he couldn't explain.

"Don't you care about him at all? Your Master?"

He raised an invisible eyebrow, "What does it matter to you? I'll find another."

An anger rose in him, "Come on! Avenge him! I'm right here!" He readied his rifle, "I'll kill you, too! Don't you hate me!?"

Archer scoffed and averted his eyes.

"I'm no more bothered by you than by any other fly." A certain mockery played in his tone, "You're no longer a Master, and so, as long as you leave the war, you're no longer my problem. You should be grateful: your Servant's single-minded stupidity has bought you a second chance at life."

He grit his teeth, but found his anger slipping away regardless. He wanted to avenge his friend, his Servant, the only one in his whole life who had believed in him, who had trusted him, who had stayed by his side. He wanted to cause Archer all the pain he could, to take away what was important to him, to make him suffer.

-But he couldn't.

Archer was stronger than he was. There was nothing he could take that Archer couldn't replace. He had no hope of killing him, or even injuring him. That single strike was all he was capable of, and it made him only a "fly", not even earning him the rank of "pest".

His gun began to slip through his fingers. Archer watched him with a vague, dispassionate interest.

'That was never the point.'

A thought, one he wasn't even sure he could call his own, rang through the haze of despair.

'You didn't come here for revenge. You came here because good people needed your help.'

That was right. He was buying time for Saber, making sure they didn't have to fight three Servants at once. Everything else was secondary at best. He was doing this for them.

He went to move forward, but couldn't.

An image flashed through his mind. He saw a woman he'd never met wearing an apron and saying 'Welcome home.' He saw little children, who looked just a little like himself, running around, hugging him, jumping in his arms. He saw early days and late nights, anniversaries and birthdays, retirement and a quiet death in his sleep. He had never had these dreams before. He had never wished for a wife; he hated kids, or at least had always said as much. Maybe, it occurred to him, he had never wished for it because he hadn't thought it was possible. Something in Rider, something about him had flipped that switch, and now as Aaron searched his heart, he found himself wishing for nothing else than those white picket fences. The glory he had sought, the ambition that had led him to the Grail to begin with, was nothing more than hot air. A good life was one spent quietly tending to those you loved, giving good from one man to another, rather than from one man to all of mankind. He understood that now. He wanted that now. And he could have it now, he knew he could, if he just walked away.

He took a shuddered breath, and realized he'd been staring at his own feet. He raised his eyes back towards Archer, but found that his shadow was stretching, growing into something monstrous. He found himself on a battlefield, surrounded by the sounds of clashing swords and spears, men and monsters dying, crying, wailing and shouting. In front of him was a beast, a giant with a glowing red eye in the middle of his forehead, an eye that seemed to consume his soul, burning him and everything else in the world to the ground.

He knew that if he stepped forward, he would surely die. He could run. He could retreat. Some would blame him, most hypocritically. They would all do the same in his shoes, after all. He could lose his chance to be king, but what of it? Better to live poor than die rich, and he wasn't wrong. And yet, there was a nagging feeling in his chest. His men were counting on him. His friends. His family. All those people who put their faith in him. Could he let them down like this? Could he look them in the eye?

Could he bear to even live with himself?

And he realized. Everything he had ever done, he had done only for himself. He had spent his whole life being selfish, and dragging others into problems he'd created just so he could claim the pride of solving them.

And this? This was no different.

He didn't give a damn about what others thought of him; he hardly cared whether they lived or died. What he knew, from the bottom of his heart, is that he was counting on himself to live a life he was proud of, to do what was right in his own eyes, and to live without regret. He was relying on himself to live and die with his dignity and honor intact; to live and die by what he believed, like any man ought.

"Yah!"

He threw his rifle aside and charged forward, running what was left of his mana as electricity through his veins, forcing his body to move as fast as it could, charging up the meanest right hook he'd ever attempted- a single attack filled with the whole weight of his pride. He launched his fist like a bullet-

There was a flash of shadow. He didn't even see what had happened. All he knew was that he was falling backwards, and he could swear that he saw his own body as he did, as if his head...

-

...But that couldn't be true. He was back on that familiar battlefield. He felt himself cradled in the arms of a dear friend, a young man both beautiful and handsome, his silver hair falling over his face and disguising his wet eyes.

He let out a sputtering, bloody cough, "So, that's how it is, eh?"

"I am afraid so, my friend."

"You knew it would end this way... didn't you? You always did."

"Aye."

"-But you stuck with me anyway. You served under a guy who was doomed to die by his own stupidity... Why?"

"Tis exactly why, old friend. Why should I serve under any man who would not die for what was right? Why should I call anyone 'friend' who hath not the courage to look even himself in the eye, much less his enemies?"

A silent tear fell down his face, but neither would acknowledge it. This was not an exchange between friends, but between men.

He managed a smile through the pain, even as the black cloud of death began to overtake his mind.

"Ha. Haha. What a waste. There was still so much I wanted to do."

"Tell me then, mine Master, was it worth it? Doth thee regret thine own death?"

"I've got plenty of regrets, Lugh, more than I care to count, but y'know what?" He put his red-stained teeth on display in a smile broader than any he had ever shown in the spring or summer of his life, "This sure ain't one of 'em. I gave it my all, and that's a damn good way to go."

Lugh bade farewell with a somber smile, "Fare thee well, my foolish king-"

Shadows took his vision, and the embers of his life went out one-by-one.

"-And let us meet again on a distant shore."

...

Archer examined the body of Rider's Master. He hadn't intended to decapitate him, only to slit his throat. Maybe his hatred for that Servant had been more intense than he realized.

A yell ran through his mind, the voice of Caster ringing in his hollow skull, 'Archer. It's time for you to hunt.'

He looked out into the empty plain and saw the angelic figure of Saber protecting an apparently defeated Berserker.

He seized his bow and readied an arrow, "It's about time."

....