Fate/Reverse Part 1.30

Heroes and Villains

The witch trembled. She had been named.

Morgan Pendragon stared at the swordsman who had summoned her, trying to read his expression.

His face had been blank and calm every time she had glanced down to make sure the humans were still safe. That mask was still on now, his voice even. She was glad of her own veil, so he couldn’t see her trembling lip.

You knew this would happen, she reminded herself. It is time to face your own villainy.

“Yes,” the witch said, keeping her voice clear and steady. “I am the serpent under the Round Table, the firstborn daughter of Uther Pendragon.”

An ache of pride and resentment flared up like an old wound as she said the words aloud.

“I’m afraid you’ve summoned someone from the wrong side of myth, my Master.” She added the word onto the end to try to soften him, even though it galled her.

The man’s face didn’t change. “Interesting. It’s a shame you’re not a Hero associated with a sword, but as long as you’re here to help…” He shrugged and held out his hand, the red seals glinting in the sunlight. “Then you are what we need right now.”

The words echoed around the monastery for a time. The witch felt a strange sensation deep in her chest. “What… What you need?”

The man nodded. “I’m still unclear on the details, but the last of humanity asked for help. You answered. So, if you have the strength to fight with us, then I don’t see how your past mistakes matter.”

He paused and for a moment that steady expression cracked. A familiar-looking pain swept through his face. He had lost someone.

“I’ve made my own mistakes. I can’t judge you for yours.” Hand still outstretched, he turned to the two women trying to shield themselves by the temple of that new god that had invaded the Isles. “Besides, we needed help, didn’t we? Or did you have qualifications about who gives it, Natasha?”

The older of the two women pushed herself to her feet, her thin limbs unfolding stiffly. She glanced between the three of them: the swordsman, the witch, and the masked shade. “I suppose we can’t be picky.”

Eventually her wary gaze settled on the masked figure and sharpened. “But this doesn’t make sense. We are the last surviving piece of history. So why would one of mythology’s great villains side with us, while the Counter Force tries to destroy us?”

The witch wetted her lips and waited. Despite watching from Avalon, a land separate from time, she still hadn’t seen the exact mechanisms behind the world’s disappearance. And the way the women were looking at her… They didn’t trust her yet. Not that she could blame them.

“You’ve both used that term now,” the swordsman spoke up. “What do you mean?” He pointed a blade at the masked abomination perched up on the temple’s steeple, still watching them intently with its head cocked. “Do you know what that is?”

“I have an idea as to its nature,” Morgan answered. That was at least something she could do. There was nothing like free information for gaining another’s trust.

“That being is an agent of the Counter Force, another side to the collective subconscious that is the source for Servants such as myself. However, this time the summoning was automatic, a sort of defense mechanism for preserving the status quo. That subconscious sent this horrid amalgamation of spirits to correct an error in the grand tapestry of human history. Imagine a weaving of threads so complicated that a single snag could unravel large sections, undo entire lives.”

She bared her teeth up at the masked figure, elongating her canines into fangs to get the point across. “Unfortunately, this one seems to think we are the snag. And that makes us enemies.”

Laughter, deep and rich, floated down from the steeple. “As usual, you’ve got everything halfway figured out, le Fey. I am no mere patchwork. But you’re right that I was sent here to eliminate you all.”

“My name is Pendragon,” the witch hissed back. “And the human— er…”

She glanced back at the woman with long limbs and greying hair, trying to remember her name. “Lady Natasha makes a fair point. Eliminating an aberration like me is fair enough. But these humans are part of real history. You should be trying to save them!”

For a moment, the shade’s form flickered indecisively.

The witch felt a flutter of hope.

Then a bronze bow appeared in the figure’s hand, already strung and dotted with spikes. “Everything you say is true.” The voice was still deep but had lost all of its humor. “These people are survivors. I am not denying that. But history itself has shifted course and they are no longer with the majority, the new flow of things. No matter how I happen to feel about it, this tapestry of yours has become false. I must be the one to prune it away.”

He raised his bow. The witch crouched to flare her wings and the swordsman drew closer to her, his little blade ready.

“Wait!” Natasha’s voice rang out across the monastery. The woman tried to hurry forward, but stumbled with exhaustion.

The masked shade did pause, but the witch kept him in her sights. Cursed blood boiled up through her arms, ready to burst forth into magic at the slightest move.

“We don’t have to fight like this,” Natasha steadied herself on a fencepost. “You said there are now two versions of history, a right and a wrong one?”

The masked figure nodded hesitantly. “That is a simplistic way of putting it, yes.”

“Well, if it’s that complicated, then surely it deserves more deliberation. Why dismiss us out of hand when you are so clearly uncertain about the future?”

The figure’s bow faded away. “Then what do you propose?”

Natasha took a moment to catch her breath, then drew herself up and tucked some strands of hair behind her ears. Her bearing changed, reminding Morgan of a queen. She had liked the woman better when she was cowering.

“Give us a chance.” Natasha said. “Let us fight for our history and, in doing so, perhaps change this new future for the better. It’s simple Hegelian Dialectics. If you let our versions of human history crash together, something new, something purer, will form.”

The masked figure snorted. Then it laughed. “You make it sound easy! It won’t be, you know. Considering the foe you face, I would say you have little chance of changing anything. It may be kinder for me to erase you quickly rather than let you suffer an impossible fate.”

“We can be the judge of that,” Natasha said, crossing her arms. She looked at Morgan and nodded slowly. “And the judge of hero or villain. I am grateful you’ve come to help us, Heroic Spirit.”

The man who had summoned her nodded and held out his hand once more. “We are in your debt. My name is Aimon Bern. If you are willing, I would be your partner in battle, to protect and rely on you.”

Morgan blinked and realized her eyes were burning. She tried to force the tears back. Was she that weak? Was she really about to cry from having things turn out the way she planned? Or was it just that strange to have people believe in her?

Memories flashed through her unbidden, knights laughing across a round table, a beautiful king wearing her crown, sitting among their adoring subjects. Always together. And her watching, always alone. Even her son would join them, fawning after the king and leaving the reviled witch in the shadows…

Morgan sniffed her emotions back as subtly as she could, grateful once again for her veil’s protection. She was still these humans’ mysterious and beautiful savior after all. Some decorum had to be maintained.

“It would be my pleasure,” she announced, almost even meaning it.

The man’s, Aimon’s, grip was strong and sure when she shook his hand. Morgan tried to make hers stronger, without crushing the delicate human bones. A puff of wind lifted her veil a touch and she smiled at this man who would claim to be her partner, the curve of her lips half knowing and half inviting.

Things were going well.

“So,” Morgan said, turning to the shade. “You’ll allow me to slither away, a monster un-slain, will you?” A spur of hatred twisted her smile before she could catch it. “I’m grateful for your heroism, agent of the Counter Force.”

The masked being chuckled again, shrugging. “Do as you will, cursed one. Perhaps if I were a true agent and not this half-baked representation you see before you…”

He shook his head, voice rising a few octaves into a woman’s. The body under the mask flickered again. “But no, the Counter Force is still in flux. You humans may yet have a shred of influence. I will let you try.”

The masked head twitched, cocking like a bird. “There is only one more question. I sense something, other presences both strong and unsettling. It too, feels in flux. Is there another of you in this monastery?”

“It may be Caster,” Natasha sighed. “He is certainly unsettling, but sadly harmless.”

The mask swiveled robotically as its head shook. “There is another.”

At that, Morgan narrowed her eyes. She cast her sixth sense out, experimenting with the new pathways to magic this Servant body had opened to her. The life left into the English countryside responded to her, opened to her.

Magic lay deep within this patch of land, a good site for a base. And already a Servant had claimed part of it as their territory, fouling a rectangular plot with concentrated despair in lieu of true magic. A regrettable choice for their Caster. Morgan knew she could do much better.

She spread her search.

Yes, there was another warped soul, in the nearby warehouse. She could feel its cursed blood echoing her own, though the nature of the curse was very different. Though, for just a moment, Morgan could feel something else too, something cold and angry.

“Julia!” the young mage girl gasped. She ran up to hover by Natasha’s side. “She’s one of our… allies, even if her magecraft is a little dangerous. You don’t think she’s becoming unstable, do you?”

Natasha shook her head and laid an arm on the girl’s shoulder. “I checked on her, Magdalena. She’s healing herself, that’s all.”

The masked figure snorted and hopped down from its perch on the steeple, landing elegantly among them. “If you say so, I shall trust you. To be honest, you all seem a decent sort.”

Those shifting eyes, brimming with magic too ancient for even Morgan to make sense of, alighted on each of the humans in turn. “Perhaps even the makings of heroes. Very well. I will listen to you, and my instincts. Contend with this hollow future of yours if you wish.”

The two mages smiled at each other, the younger one embracing the older in relief.

Morgan’s own shoulder’s relaxed as she looked into the steady gaze of her summoner. He had beautiful eyes, clear and golden with motes of reassuringly familiar fey magic dancing within them. Then those eyes narrowed.

A sudden gust of wind chilled the back of her neck. No, not wind. She could sense it again, behind her—

Aimon shot forward, tackling her to the ground. Her heroic spirit body endured the impact without knocking the breath out of her, but Morgan was still dazed as the blurry air swept overhead. Magic, she realized.

Old magic.

The masked agent of the Counter Force dropped into a crouch, but the blur was fast.

“Behind you!” Aimon shouted as he sprang off of her. Morgan stayed on the ground, digging her fingers into the earth and pumping black blood into the roots she found there.

The agent summoned up a barbed dagger, but it was too late. A voice sneered from behind it: “You had one job.”

The hazy outline of a man became visible and a silver blade burst out of the agent’s chest.