Arturia felt her blade bite through the massive whale creature's flesh, discharging a blast of prana directly into the enormous creature. Unfortunately, it failed to pierce any vital areas, instead making the monster thrash and roar in pain. Certainly, repeatedly piercing through it with blasts of prana would eventually fell even a phantasmal beast, but that would take far too long to slay the creature. Keeping her blade firmly lodged in the whale-like creature's flesh in order to avoid being knocked free, the Saber-class Servant noted Ozymandias's advice. Certainly, he was correct. The monster was far too large to rely on regular attack. Targeted assaults on its head or chest were the best way to slay it!

The blonde knight shot to her feet, Excalibur's gleaming form still buried partially in the beast's flesh. Leaning forward, Arturia slammed one armored foot down and erupted forward into a sprint. As she ran, she dragged her sword through the whale creature's flesh, parting it as she ran and sending a spray of blood up in her wake. She could feel it, the massive beast's entire body vibrating with each sound, and as it opened its mouth she could see the light building...!

She wouldn't allow it to attack again!

Saber finally drew her Excalibur out of the monster's flesh as she reached its head, before driving the holy sword point-down directly into its upper jaw, aiming to force its head down and slam its jaws shut!

@PKMNB0Y@Raineh Daze@Rin

"Hmm...?"

With a judgemental expression, Tamamo listened to her Master's explanation. With how calmly he talked, he was either completely truthful, or a seasoned womaniser with way too much experience placating his partner. The fox-eared Caster gave the latter possibility far too much thought before giving him the benefit of the doubt. Besides, she was also curious about the current scenario. Mainly that this person had already summoned multiple Servants, which was a mildly unusual event when it came to Grail Wars.

Atalanta introduced herself to the fox, and she glanced at her fellow animal-eared Servant. Did their Master really prefer such a thing? Tamamo would be happy if that were the case... but she would not tolerate anyone othe than herself providing such a service!
After a moment of seemingly sizing the Archer up, she put on a somewhat-forced smile to maintain politeness and lightly gripped her hand in return, "Lovely to meet you~ I am Cas..."

Come to think of it, they were all freely sharing their true names, huh? Atalanta and Nobunaga... that greatly decreased the odds of this simply being some form of temporary alliance, meaning she could trust the cat and the skeleton. To a point, at least; she would need to be wary of the fact that her Master was in the presence of several women, after all.

"...Tamamo-no-Mae!" She finished, and tilted her head as Keisuke disappeared to fetch some items, "...Cooking? Jeez, I just got here, and Master's already putting me to work~"
Not that she seemed at all annoyed by this. After all, it would be her chance to show off! She could safely assume her newly-picked-out costume was a smashing success, now she just had to prove her wifely abilities were far superior to Atalanta and... was Nobunaga even a contender? Eh, better to be safe and assume yes.

---

Tamamo's wifely competition would normally escape Atalanta completely, being someone who was never very interested in marriage while she was alive, it was perfectly reasonable that Atalanta wouldn't care much for it after becoming a Heroic Spirit as well. However, she was a Greek Heroic Spirit from the Age of the Gods; being competitive was second nature to her. Atalanta wasn't simply going to stand around and tolerate the fox's advancements.

"That is not a beast that anyone can cook so easily," Atlanta said as she noticed Tamamo's interest in showing her skills. "I'm impressed at Keisuke for being able to do it so well. There were not many men who could cook anything when I was alive. Meleager is the only one I think that could do it well in the Argo. It really is a nostalgic sight." Atalanta moved closer and closer to Keisuke while she talked; when she finally said her piece, she was mere centimeters away from him, reaching for the food.

"Actually, do you think that we can meet the others during this mission, Keisuke?" Atalanta asked while she waited a chance to get her share of whatever is it that Keisuke was doing with the Serpent.

"We're supposed to be Servants... what happened to being mysterious and practical? Revealing all the true names willy nilly, what kind of Magus are you?" Grumbling rather irately though decidedly with less bite than before as the flaming skeleton's eye sockets locked onto the sea serpent meat being prepared by apparently court level chefs, the Demon Archer hummed thoughtfully before holding out her katana towards the squishy human in the midst of the myriad super ghosts. "If you need to cut through the meat, use my Heshikiri Hasebe. It's a blade crafted from one of Masamune's direct disciples, Hasebe Kunishige so its quality can be guaranteed." The fact that it was also used to cut through several wooden shelves before splitting a rather rude tea servant in half simply with the weight of its blade was left unsaid.

"I mean, I never said you had to cook too," Keisuke responded to Tamamo's comment, attempting to make use of what little he knew about Western cooking techniques in order to try and reduce the red wine in a separate pan. The sound of the sizzling sea serpent steak against the sea waves battering against the ship gave the Enforcer an odd mental image of a seaside barbecue, though obviously the current scenario was far more serious than something like that. But regardless of how silly the scene seemed, he still had to follow through on his initial plan. Given how the other two Archers seemed more content with waiting around, the Enforcer figured that Tamamo would likely attempt to cook on her o-

"...Ah, you're a little close," Keisuke commented as the leonine Archer sidled up to him to try and get first crack at the food. "But, well... I guess you mean the other Argonauts, right? If we've met Medea and we're in Trojan War-era Greece, I wouldn't say that meeting them isn't completely out of the question. At the same time, though... Given current trends, I'm not sure if I want to."

With that said, Keisuke warily nodded and took the katana that Nobunaga was offering to him, holding himself back from commenting on how a Servant whose strengths revolved around removing Mystery wanted to be secretive. There was a fair bit of irony there, but he would let it slide.

For now.

As Keisuke continued to cook the meat, Medea finally made her way out from the ship's lower level, the now-complete propeller (and some other miscellaneous modifications) floating above her head. With a simple sidelong glance at Atalanta's distance from Keisuke, the Caster let out a deep sigh and, deciding it was better not to add any more fuel to that fire, simply walked over to the back of the boat and began to attach everything where it needed to go.

The installation of the equipment didn't take long, and as by that time the steak had already seemed to be cooked, Keisuke took the meat off the makeshift cooking fire and placed it on a separate dish. With a wary glance at the katana (and remembering, of course, what katanas were used for), the Enforcer opted to put it off to the side and running off to grab plates and an actual cooking knife from the storage (as well as some sort of utensils for eating). A minute later, and he returned with exactly that in hand. By his logic, if the meat cooked in the same amount of time that it would take normal fish to cook and the scales were the only thing really protecting it, then its meat could very well have been as easy to cut with a normal blade as it might have with a supernaturally sharp one.

Drizzling the wine-and-soy-sauce mixture on top of the fish and tossing a few more spices on the meat, Keisuke spun the knife in his hand around as he attempted to cut it.

Clean. Good. So it did have culinary potential.

"...Y'know, I'm questioning why I did all this right now, but I guess good food is the spice of life... Or something," he said, shrugging his shoulders as he cut up the seared sea serpent and placed some on each plate. "Well... Here's to trying something new."

With a nod of his head, Keisuke brought the meat to his mouth and, with a stoic expression on his face, took a single bite.

"..."

"Hey, this isn't half bad."

It didn't take long after that comment for Medea to notify the group that the modifications were in order, and soon after the ship began to move at a breakneck pace far outmatching its earlier speed. Luckily, nothing or no one was actually blown off thanks to Medea's magic, but the rapidly shifting scenery and the wake left behind the ship was certainly a testament to its newfound speed.

A few hours later, and the ship was left to dock at its destination, a definite amount of time earlier than expected.

"We've arrived. Our first order of business is to examine the Labyrinth," Medea said, lowering the bridge to let the group disembark safely. "of course, I myself am not sure of whether or not we'll be met with—"

Before she could finish that sentence, though, a singular arrow whizzed by her head and harmlessly bounced off the exterior of the ship; soon after, a group of solders seemed to march up and point their weapons at the Servants.

"...Resistance."

---

Just as he braced himself for impact, Ozymandias watched as the beast's maw was clamped shut by Arturia in the midst of its attack, causing the energy that was about to be let loose at him to instead run amok inside of itself. It only took a few moments before the creature's head was unable to take the resulting pressure from within, causing it to pop like a gore-filled balloon. The shower of gore was almost comical, but Ozymandias, deciding he would take no part in this, took another step back and fired a barrage of lasers downwards in fron of himself to prevent any of that mess from reaching him.

Not long after the headless creature's limb body fell to the ground, the golden theater surrounding the group seemed to dissipate back into nothingness. The clear skies above-head and calm waters made it feel as if there was nothing wrong to begin with. The giant corpse in the middle of the sea that was releasing gallons of blood into the water, however, was a different story entirely.

"Well done, you two," Ozymandias stated, nodding his head before noticing that Arturia was now drenched from head to toe in the blood, bone fragments, and scattered brain matter of the deceased monster. A frown crossed his face and his displeasure was made quite clear as the pirate captain took back the wheel and turned the vessel away from the corpse and back on towards their target.

A few hours later, just as the other group made landfall, so did this one. Medusa, of course, was the first to disembark, but the sight of two nearly formed rows of stone soldiers that stood at with their weapons ready yet utterly unmoving caused her to grimace.

"...I don't like the feeling I'm getting from these..." she muttered to herself as the other Rider followed suit, his eyes trained on the stone soldiers as he walked off the boat.

"Hm. odd. Their faces show no trace of emotion, almost as if they were statues here. Is that what they are, Medusa?"

@VitaVitaAR@Rin@RolePlayerRoxas@Raineh Daze@KoL@Grey Star

It wasn't as if this would be the first time Arturia was covered in blood, given the time period in which she had fought. However, she would have preferred not to have endured the remainder of the boat ride while coated in the innards of the beast. And so, in stead of enduring an almost literal bloodbath, the blonde-haired knight coated her body in Invisible Air and then released it, a burst of sound and wind erupting off her body and repelling the gore, sending most of it splattering into the sea. It wasn't as if that always worked when she was in need of a bath, but in this case she was able to stop it from drying on and clinging to her body.

She stood on the boat's deck, watching as the whale creature's corpse spewed blood into the ocean. It had, of course, been some kind of phantasmal beast. This was the Age of Gods, so such creatures would be in abundance. Regardless, the threat had been ended. The King of Knights was prepared for another attack, but it seemed such a thing never came. Instead, she remained true to her word for the rest of the journey and stood watch over her Master.

When they arrived, however...

The name 'Medusa', borne by one of their allies as of now, of course came with certain things. One such thing was the petrification of living things. And yet... it was strange. These lines of soldiers seemed regimented, as if they were a set of statues instead, rather then humans who were forever locked in their last moments of life.

The blonde-haired girl approached the statues.

"... These statues are strange. We should not let our guard down. They could be some form of trap," she concluded, after a few moments of examining them. They were so life-like, and yet expressionless. It was a regiment of soldiers in stone. And yet, at the same time, if they had become like this by looking into the gorgon's eyes while she was under the influence of the magecraft that Medea had dispelled...

There was no sign of fear or shock.

@PKMNB0Y@Rin@Raineh Daze

It was no shock that all the gore, regardless of probability, seemed to conveniently avoid the Emperor standing right beside it. Were the audience suitably enthralled for a bloody sport, were there baths on the horizon--then she would likely have been as blood spattered as the other Saber. It would, after all, have been merely temporary and for a worthy cause. Yet to spend days stuck on a ship, with no way to really remove the drying gore aside from unpleasantly salty water...

When they made landfall, like the others, she gravitated towards the statues, inspecting them curiously. It was such a glorious regiment, if it were one, synchronised, ready... too synchronised. This was simply an implausible level of discipline for not only all of them to have been frozen together but for all their weapons prepared the same. If her soldiers couldn't manage that, it wasn't like anybody else would have been able to!

"I think that unless Medusa developed a hobby of trying to get identical statuary out of intruders, these must be actual statues of some sort."

---

Hours... only hours to arrive at their destination. Even with favourable winds and Servants using the Riding skill to guide the craft more expertly than normal people could, this was far too short for a sailing voyage of any considerable distance. Which, honestly, meant that things were even stranger than normal, Greek myth was known for its love of long journeys, not things such as the Gorgons and Colchis being on top of one another. Though of course, there was another thing to check--this was an unusual ship. And she wanted answers anyway, so the magus found the old man.

With a poker face, of course: "What is this vessel? Most would have been quite damaged earlier."

"Oh dear, ordinary mortal men. Whatever shall we do." The skeleton said blandly from her perch atop a random barrel even as it continued to munch away at the various grilled pieces of serpent meat cooked up earlier, the illusion making the image of something without the proper organs or tissue eating flesh a surreal sight. "Needs more rice, the flavoring would pair up rather well with that." Various matchlocks materialized out of thin air, the handles inching out of a blazing halo and hovering behind her head in a blatant ripoff of a certain other Servant.

"Imbeciles." At the uttered word, the firearms would then shoot out at high speeds to fire themselves in bizarre motions reminiscent of a swarm of fish even as the satellite weapons aimed to perform the world's most amazing feat of rifle-whipping. Some would fly straightforwardly to smash potential targets, others would twirl and boomerang around so that they used spinning momentum to strike from weird angles, and some would even try to jab themselves into the unmentionable areas before jerking up suddenly. All through the strikes though, there was no lethal intent- though that in itself meant that potential suffering was at a much higher rating.

---

"We should prepare a spool of thread before we even think about entering the Labyrinth. I'm not so sure if even my tracking skills could get us out of the prison built to hold the Bull of King Minos," Atalanta mused as they discussed the next step of their journey moments before the ship touched the shore.

"Lousy," the leonine Archer said in a reproachful voice as the first enemy arrows past them without landing a single hit. "An archer of the Age of the Gods should be able to land a shot at least twice as far, with twice as much wind. Keisuke , stay behind me until we get close enough to jump over the enemy formation and get them from behind. As long as I'm here, no harm shall befall you," Atalanta added before stepping in front of her Master and, quite literally shooting the enemy arrows out of the sky with spotless precision, covering both him and Medea.

As soon as the first arrow was loosed, Keisuke immediately moved to take cover as he prepared his own weapon. The first shot was ineffectual, of course, but as a Master running out into the fray of battle would have been the worst possible course of action here. Skeletons had no real concept of 'focus' and could only be directed to a fault, so it was easy to lead them astray. Humans, of course, were far trickier to manipulate in that regard.

As soon as Atalanta declared a course of action, Keisuke gave a brisk nod and broke out of cover, forging ahead as his Servant's suppressive fire gave him leeway to follow after Medea. The Caster had, at this point, been calmly strolling forward, flicking her staff to and fro to knock any incoming spears and other such melee weapons aside with magic bullets of her own make.

"Hm... These don't seem to be soldiers native to Crete," she calmly remarked as a large magic sigil formed behind her back and began to glow in all sorts of colors. "Oh, well. Enemies are enemies, after all."

Without much care at all, the Caster pointed her staff forward and rained down a hail of magic upon the soldiers, watching idly as bodies (and parts of bodies) went flying.

"...Not even an attempt to defend or dodge...?" Keisuke mused to himself as he watched the carnage, catching himself as he narrowly dodged a blow from an incoming spearman before returning with a clean decapitation from his own weapon. "It's like their self-preservation instinct has gone completely haywire..."

It wasn't long before the combined assault of the two Servants (and Keisuke, for however much he had contributed) had wiped out the incoming enemies, which gave the group a moment of reprieve to catch their breath. Medea, of course, did not stand by for long.

"Let's keep moving ahead. If this is the warm welcome we recieved, then I can only imagine what could be occurring near our destination."

Without a moment to waste, Medea floated in the air before flying off in the direction of the labyrinth. With a sigh, Keisuke cracked his neck before running off in pursuit.

It wasn't long before the group had reached the entrance to the labyrinth, and the sight that would meet the group was almost baffling: a large group of soldiers, all dressed identically to the ones that had attacked them just a while earlier, were filing into the maze. The faint sounds of fighting could be heard even here, all the way through the walls, which caused Medea to pause and frown.

"I don't know how many of them there are in there, and though I don't doubt our ability to wipe them out, I would rather not accidentally anger the Minotaur within. Can I ask you two to enter and make contact instead? If he is in the same state as Medusa was when you met us, do not attempt to engage in combat. I'll need some time to set up a barrier here in case that worst-case scenario occurs, but otherwise try to convince him to join you," she said, holding out her staff as a spool of thread slowly formed in front of Keisuke. "Move quickly, now; I need to begin my own preparations, too."

Glancing between the soldiers and Medea, Keisuke nodded his head and calmly took the spool in hand before turning to Atalanta before nodding. Words, after all, weren't necessary for something like this.

With a dash, the Enforcer leaped forward, his katana's blade cleanly reflecting the light of the sun as he lopped through the soldiers, one after another.

---

"Statues... Yes, I cannot think of them as anything but statues," Medusa said walking inland as she turned her head around to face the other Servants. "But they may not be. I cannot remember anything about them at the moment, but my sisters likely remain within the midst of the island. Let us go."

With a somewhat irate look on his face, Ozymandias quietly followed close behind the other Rider, hoping that she would stop talking in ambiguities; the sooner, the better.

It wasn't long before the sound of combat became audible in the distance, which caused both Riders to quicken their pace to see the root cause. The scene in question, of course, was a young girl firing arrows at an array of stone soldiers, and, surprisingly enough, someone that seemed to be an identical twin of hers. Immediately, Medusa's body tensed up, and the Servant firmly gripped her dual weapons as she stepped forward.

"What is going on here?!" she asked, causing the former to freeze and lose focus for a moment as she turned to face Medusa.

"M-Medusa?! You're safe?!" the Archer asked before a ball of magic struck her shoulder and caused her to go flying.

"Euryale!"

In an instant, Medusa dashed forward towards the Archer, only to find that a bunch of stone soldiers had slowly moved into position to block her path.

"Move."

Without an inch of hesitation, the Rider threw herself forward, the rattling chains attached to her knives swinging around as she broke through in an attempt to make it to Euryale.

Ozymandias, watching as this entire scene unfolded in front of him, turned to stare at the other Servant--Stheno, or so he preseumed--and calmly aimed his staff at her. The goal was to rescue, but as before, disarming a Servant was far more difficult than killing one.

As this was all occurring, the old man on the ship simply shrugged his shoulders towards Meran, shaking his head as he did so.

"What can I say? The gods themselves have blessed this old beauty, and I'm very thankful for that, you know," he said, letting out a laugh as he calmly took a seat. "With that look on your face, little miss, you probably have a few more questions for me... Don't you?"

@KoL@VitaVitaAR@Raineh Daze@Rin