The First Step

Emiya awoke feeling… tired. As if his body was recovering from being torn to shreds and stitched back together. He forced himself to sit up regardless of the many sounds of steel shattering and metal bending, stretching out his arms above his head until his spine popped and more steel grinding together echoed from within, he sat boneless and relaxed for a handful of peaceful moments, something he'd been quite short of even before his… employment.

When the steel eyed man opened his eyes, he finally bothered to remember he wasn't alone. Right across from him, just about every possible 'alter' of Arturia Pendragon sat diligently across his knee height table, impassively staring at him as his torso fell back to slightly lean against his silent junior, too exhausted to do much else at the moment.

"Why are you here?" He didn't bother to mince words, this needed to be over soon so he could gather his family and allies to set off somewhere far away from the area they were all summoned. This place was a minefield of old grudges and natural enemies waiting to be made, a powder keg ready to go off at any moment and he wanted no part of it. Emiya's retirement, the life he never bothered to actually live, it was all set to begin here in this strange new texture of reality that felt so achingly familiar to his very soul, and he wouldn't allow that to be jeopardized by anyone, not even the first woman he'd ever truly loved.

His beloved, his king, his servant, his lover, his friend, his equal, the once and future king of Britain, the woman who wielded the untainted Excalibur was the one who chose to speak first.

"Shirou-…"

Faster than he could think to move, a white falchion blade was in his hand, broken and fragile like a swan's wing and long enough to slice ever so gently into Artoria's throat.

"The boy is dead." Emiya whispered gently, making sure she was looking him dead in the eyes as he tried to make his point, hoping that she of all people would understand what he meant. "He died like a dog in the gutter, chasing something so far out of reach that not even he understood why he fought." He chose not to acknowledge the loaded stares he felt digging into the back of his skull as he continued in a somewhat louder tone, never once changing his expression nor his tone, his sword nor the small wound drawing any expression from the ruler as he continued. "And with our appearance in this… reality, so too is the guardian laid to rest. If you must call me something in our… short time together, Archer will do."

Archer was sure the expressions of her alternate selves were much the same but didn't bother to study them out of the corners of his eye. 

She deigned to nod after a full ten seconds of tense unbroken eye contact between them, acknowledging the reminder of their current allegiance, or lack thereof, so he allowed his blade to fade to nothing as she continued.

"Archer, I wish for a pact between us two."

He scoffed with a tired smirk and closed both of his eyes, reassured that the king wouldn't have a chance to attack him now that his senses were attuned enough to once more feel his adoptive father sitting in the corner, watching them all like a hawk with his Thompson Contender and field knife both poised and ready for violence. No one would be able to so much as twitch before his father unloaded enough origin bullets to dismantle a wyvern into them.

"And what would be the goal of this so-called pact?"

"Avalon's image still rests within you."

"And what of it?" He scoffed, pulling himself out of Okita's sudden hold and relaxing into himself, his circuits slowly coming to life within him as he traced his body down to the cellular level in the hopes of unraveling why everything felt so… contradicting.

He felt weak as a kitten, but his scans showed his body operating at an even higher level than even his servant's container could withstand. His mana reserves felt simultaneously empty while being bigger than he ever remembered having outside of his deployments where he had a direct link with Alaya itself, and rapidly expanding; his circuits were being slightly strained as they produced more and more power that disappeared as soon as it came for some reason that he needed to know yesterday. His traced blades were both more active and pulling against his consciousness, while somehow helping to anchor his reality marble to this texture even with the ley lines deep beneath the surface taking the brunt of the strain off his body.

It was all so… confusing and novel. When was the last time he'd explored what he was truly capable of?

"I propose an alliance, between my knights and your people. A true pact between us two with the sheath as the conduit."

Archer smirked as he stopped his introspection, opening his lids to look the short woman in the eye and chuckled lightly.

Until the woman straightened up with red cheeks and glared death up at him.

Then Archer lost it, laughing until tears almost escaped his tightly closed eyes. He didn't quite know how long he laughed, but by the time he was done, the poor woman was shaking with rage while her face was a shade of angry red the steel eyed man hadn't seen in many, many years.

"And why would I accept such a proposal, your highness?" He made sure every word was spoken with just enough empty mockery and false conceit to push every button the proud woman had. "Not to mention, the connection the two of us would have to forge for Avalon to even do that much is… rather intimate for a king such as yourself, don't you think?"

For once, she didn't rise to the bait, even going so far as to relax ever so slightly at the normal one sided banter he'd established between them over the course of thousands of summoning. Archer narrowed his eyes and filed that piece of information away for later.

"I am more than prepared for such an event." She was fairly… calm at the reality of making such a contract, yet another interesting bit of information. "And the terms we should abide by shall be laid out in time, but a tentative non aggression pact shall do until our immediate concerns are dealt with."

He met her impassive stare head on with eyes that watched over the birth of humanity and saw its last breath, noting the way her palms were placed in his full view, the way she tilted her head ever so slightly and exposed more of her neck and her half lidded golden eyes, all signs her phantasmal heritage was pushing itself to the surface of her subconscious without being suppressed by her contract with the world, Merlin, or Avalon itself.

He scoffed and closed his eyes again, crossing his arms as he fell back and laid down once more, he'd seen enough. 

"How much do you remember?"

The silence that pervaded his projected home was rather telling, if he was being honest.

"The memories of my summonings are… rather mixed." She admitted shuffling closer to the side of his prone form when the table between them reached the end of its projected lifespan of two hours and faded away, good to know how long he'd been asleep, it gave him an idea of how long the peace would last before pandemonium was wrought outside his little slice of reality. "But I know you, and just how deeply tied our fates truly are."

Archer huffed lightly, not protesting when a small yet strong hand pulled his head onto a soft pair of thighs, the half remembered image of Avalon pulsing in the back of his mind and sending shockwaves through his soul at the contact. When he opened his eyes once more, there were no more alternates of his first love, they'd all somehow come together to form the vision of the woman who cradled him in her lap.

Her hair was long and bright glowing gold, flowing freely in a breeze he couldn't feel on his skin but knew was running through his own short spiky hair as well. Her eyes were spirals of gold and green that would have broken a weaker man with their weight. Her body was that of a woman in her prime, filling the simple but sweet summer dress every Shirou Emiya gifted their Arturia upon her summoning, no matter her class, perfectly. Her mana was slowly funneling itself down his abused circuits, quickly saturating his mana pool and forcing the blurry image of the ever distant utopia into the forefront of his mind, just enough to manifest an illusion of the sheath over his chest, drawing forth a partial manifestation of the king's blade too in a ray of golden light just to his right.

This was Saber alright. It was every saber, every lancer, every alter, and every goddess. Just as he was every broken child, every foolish boy, and every dead man. They were both amalgamations of countless failed versions of themselves, both equally pathetic in their own ways.

It just wasn't his Seiba… but pretending was something the old magus was fairly good at, all things considered. Surely she wouldn't mind, right? Technically, this wasn't cheating… Yeah no, she was going to murder him.

Archer-… Shirou sighed and finally chose surrender over defeat, just this once.

This was the king, not the woman he'd been chasing since he'd list her to Avalon and that blasted Merlin's words.

He'd chased after her endlessly, and he was sure she'd waited eternally… So where was she? Where was his wife?

"I'm too tired to fight anymore."

"You don't have to."

"I'm leaving, getting as far from ground zero as I can."

"Then my knights and I shall accompany you."

"I'm thinking of a beach home, somewhere warm, with plenty of room to grow."

"Then we shall make it a keep, worthy of my subjects."

"Still an altruistic martyr?"

"Ever the self sacrificing fool?"

"They're the same thing and you know it."

"Are they now?"

"Yes you greedy servant of gluttony."

"You'll have plenty of time to teach me then, over many nights of good stew with drink and better company."

"I can do one of those things, pick your poison."

"That's fine, I can provide the other."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Dinners with dignitaries and zealots were rather dull when the two were not warring with their every word, someone was forced to keep the peace when they reached for blades instead of cutlery."

"One thing you're glad to be rid of?"

"And soon to be forced to bear once more."

Shirou opened his eyes in confusion, meeting her amused eyes until it hit him like one of Primate Murder's bites.

"Galahad."

She smiled down at him.

It wasn't a nice smile.

It was all teeth and smug pride at war with genuine warmth, so rarely expressed by the blonde woman.

"All those who've sworn themselves to my cause and ideals, all incapable of reaching the throne yet lingering on in spite of the wheel of reincarnation."

"The shield is a fucking Ark." He groaned out at yet another thing he didn't know despite having said boy knight's shield well within his arsenal. It would explain the rather ridiculous drain of using such a simple defensive noble phantasm, in truth it was almost as bad as Excalibur itself as far as mana inefficiency was considered.

Shirou resolved to himself that he was not going to tell that overeager water puppy about this, and he would do everything in his power to keep this tidbit of information away from said grand servant rider for as long as possible. Poor son of Lancelot wouldn't ever be left alone…

"And now I am whole, my blade in one hand, my spear in the other, and my sheath well within my grasp." Her sharp nails dug deep enough into his altered skin to draw a drop of smoking blood while the green in her eyes vanished completely, gold overtaking it while black veins crept up her neck.

His hand slowly reached towards her face, careful to not initiate anything that her newly awakened instincts would deem a threat, as fang and scale began to spread across the dragon goddess' visage, a possessive and pure smile twisted in a demented caricature of what could be, until his fingers touched her skin and she shattered like glass and there was (LIGHT).

XXXXXXXXX

"Being an amalgamation isn't so easy, is it?" The words were meant to be a genuine question, he just couldn't keep the utterly amused smirk off his face if he tried. He really shouldn't be poking a bear who's pride had been struck in such a way, but he just couldn't help himself.

All of that build up into something only possible through this gluttonous king's sheer charisma, ruined because of a lack of experience in the one thing Archer excelled at: being a collective existence made up of many different versions of oneself.

The many groaning certain blonde haired women scattered around the newly projected table were far too amusing to the steel eyed man, the utterly lost looks his younger 'siblings' were giving him were even better.

His pupils narrows into pinpricks as his eyes snapped towards the wall facing the epicenter of his battle with Gilgamesh, a presence he'd done everything in his power to hide away from made itself known as a hole was torn into the walls of his reality marble, allowing a few familiar prescenses to enter before the tear was closed once more, almost as if it didn't happen, but he knew EXACTLY who would have the audacity to breach his soul in such a way not even gods had managed in previous deployments, not without him being able to at least resist in some way.

He got off his knees and was back on his feet in a heartbeat, his armor returned and reinforced to the absolute limit in the next, and the entire house was gone next.

His hands were shaking, he realized in the back of his head as his favored blades appeared in his grasp before he could even think of them, both radiating… something in a way they shouldn't. They weren't the originals, just empty knock offs that couldn't hold the heavens, they shouldn't be able to… He shouldn't be able to…

It didn't matter.

Pillars of demonic and holy power wafted off his traced copies of Excaliburs and Rhongomyniad as his world shuddered in place, the blades linking its upkeep to the ley lines disappearing as his body took on the strain once more in preparation.

The moon was high once more, no longer waxing and waning with his breathing as he rested. The broken gears that littered the ground gave a shuddering groan in remembrance of millennia of endless battle but remained in place, their purpose fulfilled even as his little squad of former counter guardians took the opportunity to slip behind him and ready themselves, not bothering to ask why he was gearing up, experience telling them each to prepare as Archer did.

The knights skinning some kind of large feline the size of Archer's garage stopped what they were doing and formed rank behind the stone-faced quintuplet kings, each readying themselves behind him but he couldn't quite hear them over the sound of blood roaring in his ears.

Death was approaching on silent heels.

The evening bell tolls, the small world holds its breath.

The king of Assassins approacheth.

[Get thee gone, else offer thy head, sinners and murderers alike.]

King Hassan-i-Sabbah offered the older/younger killer a nod of courtesy, perhaps even a hint of respect, from the bottom of the sacred hill that bore the weight of Emiya Shirou's broken ideals.

"I have come, bearing the message of the lord's holy prophet."

An armor clad hand reached within the shrouded man's robe to retrieve a humble scroll inscribed with but a handful of sentences, but Archer knew exactly who they were from. Just as he knew Jeanne knew, Artoria knew, and Perseus knew. The holy power wafting from the texts was more potent than anything he remembered smelling, the divinity practically overpowering his sense of smell.

[Hail, weary warriors of humanity. Noble Kings of times long passed. Hearty knights in arms. The downtrodden and the forgotten, the exalted and glorious, I call all thee to lay down your arms for but a moment.]

[This world you've awoken to, is not an accident. It is not a punishment, nor is it a mere fantasy.]

[I invite you and all those still weary to a feast. With bread and wine, I offer you sanctuary and healing, I offer peace and protection.]

[Invoke the name in peace, the name of my Father in heaven, and you shall be granted prosperity and safe passage, this I swear to you as a son of my Father's teachings.]

[Solomon of Israel.]

"Has the message been received?"

Archer's eyes snapped open, useless frustration gnawing at himself for not realizing he'd closed them. 

"It has." He couldn't quite keep the edge out of his tone any more than he could stop his grip from almost breaking the  married blades in his hands. The grand assassin bowed deeply at the waist and promptly disappeared from Archer's reality marble entirely, leaving not even a hint of his presence behind, as expected of humanity's greatest murderer.

The married swords fell from his slack hands as his mind raced, trying to put his eons of memories to use but ultimately failing due to a lack of critical information.

It wasn't just servants and divine spirits that were incarnated…

Even the grand servants were gathered…

Just what the hell was going on here?

"Archer?"

His eyes snapped back and met Jeanne's as the war maiden fumbled gently with her armored skirt, the hopeful eyes of the only sane person in his entire entourage of misfit guardians pleading silently up at him to accept the invitation to meet with the prophet of her god and his students on earth.

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaassssssseeeeee!!!!!!!"

Archer… sighed, letting out a groan that did nothing to dispel the sinking feeling of 'this is a bad idea you fucking idiot' in the back of his mind and held out a hand in the King of Knights direction without looking at her, and pulled.

The moon fell below the endless skyline above them, the grass filled plains beneath him erupted in geysers of mana and broken earth as twenty seven metaphysical lines of power were made manifest beneath the surface of his world, in reflection of body and fractured mind, heedless of the panic that spread amongst his peers. 

He slowly ran through the seven steps, taking his time in a way he hadn't been able to in millennia.

JUDGING THE CONCEPT OF CREATION

It/He was a sheath, designed wholly to act as both a bridge to another realm, the Ever Distant Utopia, and the greatest protector of the Once and Future King, to act as the great Dragon of Victory's scales where she had none.

HYPOTHESIZING THE BASIC STRUCTURE

It/He wasn't made of any type of metal, nor was it/he forged in the truest sense, but rather it/he was woven from countless enchantments, and shaped to match the Sword of Promised Victory perfectly.

DUPLICATING THE COMPOSITION MATERIAL 

It/he was made of light, of false matter and the collective prayer of countless humans, not the very Prayer of Glory humanity so adored and sung its praises of, but an ideal to strive towards, but never to reach.

IMITATING THE SKILL OF ITS MAKING

The world had no idea what a prayer was, not what it truly meant to humanity. How could it, when it's very 'desire' was to eradicate all human life in the name of self preservation? The prayers and faith of an entire species was gathered in one place, at the center of its very being, and squeezed, relying wholly on its enemies' concept of the ideal weapon to stave off its destruction, that was how the sword of promised victory was forged, and that too was how the sheath came to be.

SYMPATHIZING WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF ITS GROWTH

It had been with him, always. Constantly changing, adapting and growing to become more than what it was made for with age just as he did, its very heart could be found in every fiber of his being.

REPRODUCING THE ACCUMULATED YEARS

It had been there all along, within the fiery depths of his very soul itself. Constantly changing, constantly growing and adapting with every summoning, every convergence of EMIYA Shirou, every deployment had all been used as fuel to fan the flames of creation at the core of his soul, reforging and tempering the Ever Distant Utopia into something truly unbreakable.

EXCELLING EVERY MANUFACTURING PROCESS

Now was the time. The time to see if an imitation could truly surpass the original.

Archer opened his eyes and felt a small smile tug at the corner of his lips. His world was resonating with his mind and body in a way it hadn't since he was still just that small empty child who knew nothing of heroism nor of the grander cosmos, and his place in both.

The Blade Works was feeling competitive, practically vibrating between the ravines where his circuits manifested into his world. It… Archer wanted to challenge the world itself with this one projection, this one illusion.

The basic composition would be the disassembled pieces of Excalibur, Rhongomyniad, and even Caliburn, all used to give something that was more light that mass a true physical form.

His memories of the source material would serve as the framework for the enchantments that allowed it to act as a proper sheath for Excalibur.

This time, he would do it. 

No matter how exhausted he was, no matter the cost to his body or his mind, he would finally reach it.

He technically wasn't supposed to be able to have access to this just yet, the forge unit AVALON(TRUE) was meant to be gifted to him at the end of the modern era, when it was time for EMIYA to be summoned in full to hunt the aristotle down and kill the ORT and usher in the AGE of STEEL his descendants would be forced to learn to survive in, in spite of the alien TYPE's corrosive blood that killed both Alaya and Gaia, but doing the impossible was the entire reason Archer became a Counter Guardian in the first place. He wasn't going to use it for the intended purpose, i.e. forging all iterations of Excalibur and Caliburn the collective EMIYA SHIROU traced into Caledfwlch, the true form of The Last Phantasm, but if he was going to exist in perpetual in whatever plane of existence they'd somehow been brought to, then he needed to be whole.

His true armor was out of the question and out of his grasp, all attempts at establishing communications with ALAYA or GAIA have been met with utter silence over the last five minutes, not even a pull at his instincts as they usually did when EMIYA SHIROU needed to act in their place, and his countless shards that permeated most timelines in order to monitor them for irregularities were beginning to converge on himself, now that the beacon(sheath) had been lit. He could already feel the mystery practically pouring itself into the space between his cells, reinforcing his existence and the conceptual level and stemming the mana that was leaking through the cracks in his soul.

He would be whole soon, for the first time since reality was broken, and the multiverse was born through the combined efforts of both Alaya and Gaia in order to find any other path to the future that didn't lead to the two's extinction, he would be whole even before he was summoned in his role as the grand saber, unleashing the grain from which the TYPE's are made of, and in turn starting the countdown to the birth of TYPE EARTH and the rebirth of humanity into godhood through its true ether rather than the weaker aether of the Age of the Gods.

The mere fact that he knew all of this information without knowing why he was here in the first place was a huge moon sized neon sign pointing towards absolute hell on the horizon, but Archer was just too damn tired to care anymore.

He didn't know if the thought should scare him, but he would find out soon enough, he supposed.

The sun broke through the horizon of his world as his projection was finished, his reality marble crumbling around him as the world was slowly returned to proper reality. The once peaceful landscape was once again razed, dust blew in an unnatural wind on an open field, bare of any kind of weapon for once, and berupt of even his small hill, the forging process consuming them one and all as fuel.

The flowers were gone, Archer noted somewhere in the back of his mind, ignoring the tidal wave of loss and broken hope that threatened his focus for but a mere moment before acceptance and apathy took hold yet again with a crooked smile. They were gone, and his world was empty once more of even the most common iron blade. The tree was gone, his world was empty, and all he had left was a sheath with no blade empty yet again, but not alone.

And for once, he was perfectly alright with that.

XXXXXXXX

She watched in amusement as humanity's eldest guardian stepped out of his crumbling world, bearing his sheath in full view as if he hadn't just sacrificed millions of millenia worth of of painstaking effort in the form of his entire armory, albeit temporarily, to craft what amounted to a true miracle. 

A divine construct, let alone that specific one? No human being should be able to comprehend their innerworkings, let alone be able to create one.

To think, that old soul had one last surprise in store for her to witness even before his legend was recorded… How vexing. Her calculations were slightly off, but this was still salvageable. 

She turned around and allowed the shadows to devour her presence once more, that horny flower virgin was getting a little too close for comfort now. She grit her teeth and held her temple as her skull began to pound, her alter ego violently rampaging against her control until the enchantments took hold once more, forcing the dutiful Lady back to the bottom of her soul.

She would not become that thing, a mere tool meant to buy time to end this man's legend. 

Just as that man did, she would change her destiny.

She refused to die as a sacrifice to others!

Before she left, she turned around one last time, her blue hair dancing behind her in a nonexistent breeze as she looked one last time at her… next targets, all gathered in one place just for her, she supposed, letting out one last frustrated huff as she dissolved into pure shadow.

Truly, humans were such fascinating monsters.

XXXXXXX

I've been rereading Fateless… sue me, its a great story, and I'm jelous that I can't make something like that so I borrowed a few ideas.

I'm a filthy casual, I know, if you can get a hold of the author and he wants me to change it I will.