Fate Reverse Part 1.20

First Summoning

Aimon had seen and killed many strange things in service of the church, but the figure that hung in the air above them... He didn’t know if it could be cut with a sword.

Its wraith-like robes fluttered around a man’s body, but its face was completely covered by a featureless white mask. He sensed power from it, a great and fluctuating power.

So this is a Heroic Spirit, Aimon thought to himself. It was terrifying.

He wanted to fight it. To test its blade…

“What is that?” the girl’s high-pitched voice tore him out of the selfish reverie. “Is that what ambushed everyone?”

“I don’t know,” said the older woman, the one who had readied the circle. She turned to him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but the summoning’s started on its own. Can you finish—”

But an unearthly light snapped Aimon’s attention back to the man in the sky. He had raised his arm, and a hazy purple light glowed behind him. Magecraft.

Aimon channeled magic into his sword, ready to cut it down.

“So they are an enemy,” the older woman said. She screwed up her face in concentration and one of her thin hands glowed red. “By my command seal, Caster: help me hold them in place. Now!”

The sky blurred and seemed to crystalize, thickening around the figure and his magic. They both froze in the air.

The girl gasped, looking up in awe. “You stopped time…”

“Only distorted it.” Now the woman was breathing heavily and leaning against the church’s simple white siding. “And only for a short time. Magdalena, help me maintain the spell so we can finish the summoning. Caster isn’t exactly in a helpful mood right now.”

“O-oh, right. Hold on, Miss Natasha.” Magdalena stumbled to her feet and rushed to press her palms against the older woman’s back. Her face tightened in pain, but Natasha’s bony shoulders relaxed.

“Good. That might last a few minutes. Aimon, are you ready?”

Reluctantly, Aimon sheathed her sword. The circle swirled in front of him, rot-black and blood-red mixing together. “Are you sure about this?”

Natasha nodded. “This is no ordinary summoning, but some rules still apply. In order for a Master to call forth a Servant, an oath must be formed between the two. Quickly, repeat after me:” The woman closed her grey eyes and chanted several lines in monotone.

Aimon nodded, glanced up at the figure in the sky again, and then said the words:

“Your self is under me, but my fate lies in your sword. In accordance with the approach of the Greater Holy Grail, if you abide by this feeling, this reason, then answer my call.”

“From the Seventh Clad in Heaven, attended to by three great words of power,

come forth from the ring of restraint, O guardian of the scales!”

The foul markings on the back of his hand burned as he spoke, and the red light spilled over with greater and greater intensity. He thought he saw a figure inside, dark and elegant. Then the light grew too intense for even his eyes to look at and he heard the sky crack above him.

The crystalline look of the air shattered and faded, letting the masked man move again. He pivoted his arm back and forth, as if testing its functionality.

“There we are.” His voice hummed with intonations, as if a million different whispers were crammed into one noise. “What bothersomely subversive magic your Caster has.” He snapped his gloved fingers and three points otherworldly blue flame winked around him. A flick of his finger sent one hurtling towards each human below.

Aimon crouched to leap aside, but his legs were slow. He felt exhausted, as if he had just trained for hours. But he could sense a new presence beside him.

Three vines, dark and crusted in black thorns, whipped past his ear. They intercepted the beams of light, bursting into flame and acrid smoke. Aimon and the others were untouched.

“Just in the nick of time.” A woman’s voice snaked out of the fading light and roiling smoke, low and sultry. “My, my, this heroine business can be rather fun.”

The Servant stepped forward, her lacy black dress seemingly forming out of the smoke. It clung to her curvaceous upper body, then rippled out in elegant skirts from her waist to the ground. A silver tiara circled her long hair, which was as pale and lustrous as white gold. A veil hung down from the gleaming banc to cover her face.

Aimon could just barely see the smile that lurked under it, beautiful but twisted with malice.

“Ah… Once again we are too slow.” The masked man sighed in disappointment and the light around him faded. “And yet more evil seeps into the world.”

“Evil?” The Servant curled her pale and delicate fingers into fists. “Surely, they should be the judge of that, shade of the Counter Force. These humans are at least trying. They haven’t abandoned the history they pledged to save.”

“Then…” the girl, Magdalena, rose to her feet, still blinking away the remains of the smoke and light. She glanced warily between the new Servant and the masked man, edging between them and Natasha. “Then you’re here to help us? Even though the summoning failed?”

It was hard to tell under the veil, but Aimon thought the Servant’s smile softened. Her voice certainly became gentler. “Of course, child. I’m afraid the spirit you sought is fickle and useless, so I have come in his stead. Unlike this traitor hanging above us, I will help you take back your world.”

But the masked figure laughed. “You people would reverse the fate of the world and restore righteous history? You? A pair of mages dabbling in forbidden magic, a sword-wielding machine in the guise of a man, and a witch who would doom her own kin?”

The masked man sighed and shook his head, now looking mournful. His form flickered and changed. The dark robes bled into a long white lab coat below the mask. His black pants changed shape until they looked almost modern, until they ended in the feather-patterned sandals he had been wearing since he appeared.

“History has made its choice,” the figure proclaimed in a new voice. It was quieter, deeper, but more solid and somehow more pained. “And you are on the wrong side. I must erase you.” The air around him began to glow a sickly blue. He held out a hand and chanted:

“Shatter the foundation. Split the indivisible. Shudder what rubble remains.”

The light became blinding and Aimon had to look away. He stumbled back on instinct, pushing the two mages around the corner of the building with him for at least some protection.

But he could still make out the Servant standing in front of the circle. She crouched, unfurled a pair of thin gossamer wings from between her shoulder blades. They shimmered black and purple, releasing little drifts of twinkling scales as they spread out behind her.

Then the Servant leapt into the air.

The masked man’s fingers curled back, and he chanted faster.

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds—”

The light burned even brighter, humming with a high-frequency whine, but the new Servant was already upon him. For a moment, her fingers glinted like claws and she raked her hand across the mask. The white shattered, now flecked with red, and the harsh light cut out.

“I won’t let you,” the Servant hissed as her opponent clutched at his face.

For a moment Aimon could make out his eyes as they glared at the strange woman. The orbs shimmered with every color of the rainbow, a patchwork of normal hues and what Aimon suspected were mystic eyes. However, the figure’s face remained a dark blur. The white mask reformed over it and an Egyptian khopesh appeared in the figure’s hand, bronze like in ancient times. He slashed at the Servant, forcing her to flutter back.

“You don’t even belong in this version of history,” the masked man growled. His voice was different again, higher in tone and more arrogant. “Why are you even interfering?”

Another wicked smile flashed from under her veil. One hand tightened around something, her nails drawing dark blood. “Because I want to.” She opened her palm to reveal four black seeds. They burst open into more thorned vines, lashing out to coil tightly around the masked figure. “And that is the only reason I’ve ever needed.”

The entangled figure sighed again, now with the steady voice of a young woman. Aimon could see the Servant’s shoulders tense up.

“That is exactly why fate chose a different hero,” the new voice said, cold and merciless. “And lest you forget, my magic is older than even yours, witch.” The vines crumbled away and something shone in the masked figure’s freed arms. A shimmering sword, with an intricate inlay across the fuller and cross guard. Cobalt blue marks made bold patterns in the gold and steel, ending in a sapphire pommel the size of an egg. Light wafted off the flawless metalwork like a fine mist.

Even from far away Aimon could tell it was perfectly balanced just by how it was held, one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. But the Servant he had summoned began to tremble.

“How dare you?” Her voice was quiet at first, full of venom. “How dare you? You- You don’t know anything about my fate! So how dare you!?”

Her wings stretched out and she flung her arms back, the lace floating around them vanishing like dew. Her bare skin, pale and smooth, cracked up the elbow in a diamond pattern. Black blood oozed out, covering the white skin and hardening. The woman’s arms grew scales, her fingers became talons.

Then, with a cry of rage, she flew at the figure in the sky.

The pair sparked through the grey sky, claws and blade skirling against each other with inhuman speed. Aimon watched closely, trying to see who held the advantage, until a hand scrunched into the combat vest he had worn to the battlefield.

“Who are they?” Natasha was clutching at him, her face pale and beaded in sweat. “I can’t follow them anymore. But you summoned her. Can you tell who that woman is? Or her opponent?”

Aimon shook his head. “The masked being is a mystery to me too. Its fighting style seems to change with every strike. And the Servant, well… I’m not that versed in mythology, only historical martial arts techniques. She feels dangerous.”

He glanced up again, saw the Servant flutter to the side of a jab, then whirling for a kick that pushed her opponent further away from the mages. “But she is keeping us alive.”

“That much is true.” The older mage’s breathing had steadied somewhat. She turned to her younger counterpart. “I’m running out of mana. Magdalena, set up your aerial defenses around us. It’s better than nothing.”

The girl nodded and the air around them began to blur with her chanting. Aimon guessed it was hardening into a barrier. He stepped out of it before it closed around him.

“What are you doing?” Natasha hissed. “You can’t fight a Servant, even in top condition. And you just performed a summoning!”

“I called for her aid,” he said. “It would be wrong to let her fight alone.” The mage started to speak again, but Aimon looked at her dead-on, with the full force of his uncanny eyes. “I’ve already made that mistake once.”

She fell silent and nodded.

Aimon dashed towards the fighting, ducking behind whatever cover was available. An old fence, someone’s Sedan in the parking lot, the side of the shed he had left the other girl in, inching closer. He felt tired, but he knew that was just the magic missing from his system. He still had his flesh and bone strength to rely on.

The two supernatural beings were still darting above him, exchanging blows. The woman he had called forth flitted between a spray of fiery spears before sending a return volley of vines. Her foe slashed them away effortlessly.

“Enough of this,” the masked figure said in its female voice. “You are one of the great villains of myth. It is impossible for your ragged band here to be on the side of history.” The ornate sword began to glow gold. The figure alighted on the steeple of the church and twisted, pulling its blade back for a deep thrust, even though its target was hovering several meters away.

Aimon braced himself, double-checking the mages’ barrier. It was closed, and Natasha crouched over Magdalena, shielding her.

This time they were ready. Whether or not this masked being was a Servant, there was no doubt it was about to unleash something devastating. His eyes couldn’t make out the magic, but they could see the distorted space the being’s raw power created. Air blurred around it, wavering like a mirage on a blistering summer day.

Aimon looked up at the woman in the sky, silently urging her to respond in kind. But the wind brushed at her veil and he saw the way she was looking down at him. Her golden eyes, wide and bright, seemed almost nervous, like a young child speaking in public.

She bit her lip. “So be it,” he thought he heard her say. Then her veil lay down against her face and she raised her arms.

A brilliant light, white-gold, poured off the masked figure’s blade. In the same steady voice, it chanted:

“Sword of choosing, cleave this evil away…”

The woman raised her arm and slashed it open with her claws. Black blood bubbled out of her wound and she sang out in a low, hateful drone:

“Burn all ye heroes gathered here…”

The golden light erupted forward and the blood burst into a trail of flame, purplish-black like a bruise. Both of their voices rang out at once.

Caliburn

Serpent of Camlann

The black flame spiraled forward, its tip parting like the jaws of a dragon. It swallowed the golden beam the masked figure had fired, coiling around it until both exploded into a cloud of fire. Black and gold flickered together for a moment, then died out.

The masked figure stood up out of his crouch. The golden blade disappeared from its gloved hands. “So you reveal your true nature after all, witch.”

It extended an accusing finger at her then swiveled its mask down towards Aimon. Its multi-colored eyes burned in the shadows. “That is the ‘heroic’ spirit you would ask to save you, the snake that brought Britain to ruin and tore apart the greatest order of knights: The Witch of the Isle.”

The Servant’s wings flapped hesitantly, lowering her to the ground where her gaze was already fixed. She clutched her wounded arm tightly, silent. Her veil hid her expression completely, though the two mages looked horrified behind their shield.

Aimon stepped out from behind the shed’s corner post. There wasn’t much in the way of swordsmanship to be learned from the stories of King Arthur, but he had at least heard the famous names and places in passing. Maybe somewhere in the long-buried memories of his mother reading to him. Among those stories there was always a certain villain, working in the shadows.

“So then,” he asked of the legend he had summoned, “Your true name is Morgan le Fey.”