Berserker solves the problem like she solves all problems: By constructing a castle.

Hers befits a feline imperator. A three-layer kitty tower, with numerous nooks, ledges, sight lines, pillows and squeaky toy. It is abundant with places to lurk, places to preen, things to do and comforts to rest under. She has even painted a scintillating pattern of paw prints and smiling kitty faces along the side.

She presents it to the cat with a craftswoman's satsifaction.

The cat takes one look at it and instead hops down a stormwater drain instead

Berserker picks up the kitty tower to use as a club to smash open the stormwater drain, the stormwater system, the earth itself and perhaps more besides.

Kat is afraid of cats.

She has been most of her life, though it isn't the kind of terror that would leave her quaking in her foxy shoes, the way that certain kinds of demon or a particularly large and edgy looking bug might. It is more correct to say that she is intimidated, and that she has yet to internalize that she is now significantly larger than most of them (a fact which was not true for most of her life).

A cat is perfect. A cat never loses anything. A cat is proud and unafraid and must be coaxed after long effort into trusting you before they will accept anything you have to offer as better than what they can get for themselves. But mostly it the absolute lack of fear that makes them so imposing.

It's not impossible to briefly corner a cat, or to pick one up without its permission. It is impossible to do those things without being injured, and even a quarter moment's hesitation for fear of pain is too much reflex advantage to give these proud, fierce hunters. But this is a war, is it not? She had forgotten, until she saw Berserker move.

She's not going to get away with anything less than her best effort.

Katherine ducks under a vicious swing of the cat tower, which costs her a chunk of rock from the shattering storm drain to the shoulder. She winces, but there's no time to focus on that. It's a necessary risk to get position, to slide into this narrow corridor and use her body to head off the cat's most obvious escape points. It can outjump her, surely, but Berserker is rapidly seeing to that even being an option, let alone an issue. The storm above or the fox below? Your move, kitty.

As a pair they bound and bounce off of the walls of the stormwater system, narrow passageways cutting off the benefits of agility and creativity. They may reward small size over long arms, but Kat will wear every bruise with pride in just a few minutes time. Around they go, and around, three times in a loop. Berserker's rage is cutting off the escape points, whether she means to or not. And Katherine is well past the point with her Servant where she feels the need to call out and stop her.

No, it's time to trust her partner. It's time to trust her knight.

At last she finds her window, which hisses and arches its back in defensive posture. The cat growls around the bird still dangling from its mouth. But Kat does not flinch. She bends and she lunges, and she closes her arms around that furry belly. Yes, she is scratched. Yes, she is bleeding. From her arms, across her collar, one really nasty one on her left cheek, on the back of her hand where once burned three Command Seals. But she does not let go.

"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow owwwwwiiiiieeees!"

It's not her bravery that gets rewarded so much as the kitten-esque pitch of her exclamation. There are paw-knives dug deep into her wrist and it's hurting a lot more than she told herself it would. Tears bead in her soft eyes, when all at once the pain stops. She feels the wait of a robo-bird drop into her palm. The cat watches her calmly, clearly reassessing. Kat offers it a smile, carefully closing her eyes the way she was taught, to show trust and support.

And then she feels a bunch of sharp cat teeth sink into her arm. She screeches in pain and alarm, and is so surprised she drops the cat back onto the ground. Its eyes gleam in the dim before it lifts its proud snoot into the air and scampers off, slinking through the rubble and disappearing from view.

It's important this be realized: this is not a victory. No cat has ever lost a fight, and certainly not a kill. This is merely pity for an inferior opponent. An offering to an inferior huntress, as an act of generosity. Kat would do well not forget it.

"Got iiiitttt~" she chirps, thrusting the bird up out the shattered ground as proof. It takes her quite a while to scramble out. It takes her no time at all to pat Berserker on the back until she finally settles.

"I thought it was a nice tower," she says, "I mean, I'da gone in there. If I was a cat."

And that's really about as fair of a compliment as anyone can give or get. Kat glances down at her trophy, trying not to look at how many stingy cuts she's covered in, and smiles.

"At least we have this. Now we can... oh. Uh, hm. Hey Berserker, d'you know anybody who knows how to trace magic? 'Cause I got nothin'. Leastways without my phone..."

"Technology does indeed dull the mind," said the cats. "Why, back in my day..."

A cat is water with teeth. Eight of them together come as a river.

Clawing. Biting. Cuddling. Sleeping. Hissing. All the things that cats are and can be, through every gap and into every space, between every pair of legs and climbing every fabric surface. Fur as smooth and glossy as an otter's, leaving hairs as long and sticky as a web. Butts are placed in faces. Meows rise like a chorus. And the way they stand together...

It's like a magic eye trick. The eight cats are chaos, ceaseless movement, like looking at the rip and curl of individual waves. Look at them the right way, though, and you can see the ocean. A shape always in the center of that fluid movement; the outline of a person. That cat leaping up onto a fence post forms the outline of a face. That cat snatching at the butterfly gives the impression of a risen hand. A cat is water with teeth, and water shapes itself to the container it is placed in. In the center of all of this fur and pride and arrogance is a hole made out of kindness, patience, and wet meals reliably provided.

The jar is broken, but the water keeps its shape.

"Back in my day, if you wanted to find the gates of Hell, you usually had to die for it," said the catshape of Assassin. "Nowadays you can put a little portal to it directly in your pocket! Still, I like to think that my way has at least a little merit..."

The cats stopped, all looking at Katherine simultaneously, unblinking. "That is to say, hello. I am Richelieu, née Assassin. Please forgive the trouble I have caused you. I hope my master, Actia, is doing well? I could not find her, which I take to mean that she is in the field and does not wish to be disturbed."

"Huh buh bwuh bwuh hweeeeeeeeeeeeeh?!?" said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, model of poise and eloquence.

Further exemplifying the degree to which all of this was expected and normal, Kat punctuated her remarks by sailing a near meter into the air while bushing both of her tails to more than double her normal size, landing gracelessly (but very very princessly!) in Berserker's outstretched arms.

Berserker, to her credit, held her Master firm against her armor and did not immediately pivot on her foot to use her as a fluffy green sword. Only the twitch in her eye suggested she had even considered it. But a knight's duty is clear even in the face of cats, or so it is said.

"Muh, er, M-mister Assassin? Why are you? I mean, uh, hi! Hiya! Hello! It's been a... erm. Wh-why are you several cats? Sir?"

Kat bleeds from her many many kitty cuts in the way of small wounds that manage to convey a lot of drama and war but really don't do a whole lot worse than sting a little. The squint they force her face into makes her look much shrewder and more aware of the suspiciousness of her new companion than she's properly capable of. Actia's Servant always gave her the creeps (and this new magic trick is NOT helping!) but it's not like in all their time together she can really remember him doing anything bad. If he says he's been looking for her then he probably has been, but that's not what her face and posture communicate at the moment.

More she looks like a mess: both very frightened and in the middle of some serious thinkies worthy of the most brilliant foxgirl schemes. More to the point her face is a warrior's face, which is why she still stands in this war holding a dead bird instead of cowering on the sidelines or trapped in some sort of awful dimensional prison or strung up on a pole or whatever other horrible things might have happened to a different world's version of her.

"Also you're not... telling me to kill myself. Are you? Because that is very rude, even for eight cats. And I'm not trying to go to h-h-he, um, y'know Cutie Fox Island or anything like that. Unless? Gasps! Is that where this whole plot started?! Oh no that's so brilliant! I would've never in a thousand years thought to look there! Gosh, we're dealing with a criminal mastermind aren't we Mr. Catsassin sir?"

She frowns and fidgets in Berserker's arms. It feels like so much has gone wrong all at once, and her warrior's mystique will not be the last casualty? Is everybody ok? She takes her eyes off of what's in front of her to squint uselessly in the vague direction of the horizon she thinks she left all her friends.

"No, it would be a sin to end your own life," said Assassin. "Though - that becomes theologically complex in the present day. Mankind, after all, built the physical structure of Hell below the earth. Once the souls of the damned made do with mere rivers of fire, content that the agony of their damnation was not interrupted for commercial breaks. I truly wonder how the Son of God would have fared had he arrived a few millennia late..."

He lets the thought rest. The questions may be theologically interesting, but they pass far beyond his authority to experiment with.

"Suffice it to say that I am able to prolong my martyrdom by opting into a large - but not limitless - supply of feedback forms, commercial intermissions, and review-writing for every product involved in my execution," said Assassin. "And while I do so, I still have some limited ability to get messages out. So to answer your question; no, Adam's lair is in fact deep underground, near the heart of Hell. And be wary, for he is one of the worst of all demons: the Demon of Righteousness."

The cats lounge, curling their tails, making the silhouette twist in wry amusement. Richelieu is broken upon the wheel of irony, animated by their disaffection.

"His job is to stand before the Devil himself and tell him that he is justified. To explain that everything he did was not only necessary, but virtuous. To do this, the Demon must be righteous himself - and he will be. Personally, he is above reproach, sacrificing and intellectual and balanced, exactly the kind of person who can claim a mantle of moral authority. To see the true nature of the man you must look at his friends, and at his silences."

In the face of such revelations, a hero might be expected to make a clever quip or a statement of resolve and defiance. A Princess might hide a haughty laugh behind the back of her gloved hand and relish the challenge in front of her. Or a philosopher might offer some sort of insight into the nature of this last and greatest opponent that reflects on the Kitty-Cardinal's very useful and intelligent information.

Katherine folds her arms across her chest and thinks in silence for a long time. This has more to do with not wanting to think about a voice coming from the middle of a kitty pile like it was a normal face than it does anything else. When she finally opens her mouth, what she manages is this:

"Ahhhhh, chicken noodle soup. With a soda on the side."

"Beans," she continues, "Honey butter waffle. Marshmallow mango juice."

Please understand she is not ill. This is just what being upset and scared looks like after a lifetime of not learning any cuss words.

"Ok so just to be a hundred percent clear on this, this means that Adam - Mr. Blinky Lights The Argument Bird," she dangles its corpse between her fingers, "Is-- was Caster's Master? He's the one trying to blow up the world? Like, if Berserker and I go stuff him in a locker we're done? Or is it, uh, he, uh, them? Are we talkin', like, what the treasure Actia wanted turned out to be? You've gotta understand, Mr. Assassin Sir, I'm real dumb. So I'm not gonna get it if you don't explain it, y'know?"

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits is not in fact "real dumb". But she is a Fox, and therefore very intimidated by large or shiny sounding concepts. She wiggles her ears nervously and turns with apprehension toward what she can see of the horizon, even though her destination seems to be underground.

Wringing her hands across her wrists, she gives a final fierce nod and turns to face Assassin again to the maximum degree she is able in his condition. The constantly fluctuating mass of furry bodies making up his face is making her dizzy, not to mention scaring her in a way that only cats have ever managed, but she swallows hard and maintains composure anyway.

"Ok well two other things, right? These are kinda important. First of all, uh. Is it too much to ask you in your state to send a message to Miss Saber? Whatever else is meant to go down she's been real nice to me from the start and I'd just really rather she be around, y'know? Sending letters is your whole thing, right? If you need hands to write it you can borrow, er, I mean I'll do it for you.

"...Second of all, can we not play games here? The whole time I've been workin' with Actia you haven't even once given me the time of day. Like, Iono if you've ever spared me a mean glance or a sneer, let alone told me any kinda stuff. Right? But here you are. And here I am. So just, tell me. Plain language please and thanks. What do you want outta this?"

In unison, the cats blinked. Then they all stared at each other with undisguised hostility, regretting their moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability.

"Forgive me," said Assassin. "I am accustomed to keeping my secrets and playing my games. I am somewhat unprepared for dealing with an honest soul - no doubt you understand. So firstly, my confession: My objective here is an unfortunately small vanity. You see, in my life there was a beautiful language called French, the language of love and nobility, spoken in all the courts of the world. Eventually the centers of power shifted to foreign courts. Language evolved and mutated. And with it went knowledge of how to pronounce my name. Over the course of aeons some truly abominable permutations have come into being, and my wish upon the Grail was for a small correction to restore my language to its exalted place."

It is strange to see a collection of cats laugh. The motion is a flurry of scrambling and pouncing and diving, a whirl of mirth. "Petty, yes? But all of the Servants here came for wishes as ridiculous as this - desires to be remembered on different terms. Only Caster - and I through eavesdropping and preparedness - knew the truth of the Vault."

The cats, exhausted by this outburst of play, settled themselves into perches of rest, the outline of a comfortable chair in half a dozen snoozing tails and fluffy loafs. "In the dying days of the Burrower empire, after the death of the nine suns and the exodus of the settlers, God sent a falling star to the Earth. It was a diseased thing, thick with alien life that viciously grew in the form of a terrible forest atop the desert wasteland. For many weeks the Nineshard Princess fought the jungle to a standstill as her companion descended into the underworld to find the last remaining Lord of Hell. Through song and love, she touched the Demon Queen's frozen heart and earned her aid.

"The Demon Queen used the power of the Sunshards to release nine powerful ghosts from her artificial Hell, what she called the Penitence Loop. The Loop was a ghastly device, a machine that harvested the energies of souls within it rising and falling in a simulated environment, a - what is the modern term? A 'Do Not Create The Torment Nexus' situation, only this one inspired by Eastern religious texts. The Karma Turbine.

"Together they defeated the fallen star and sealed it in the Demon Queen's deepest palace, bound by the Loop and overseen by two Servants set aside for the purpose. To watch over the Star and the Loop, the Queen bound the Demon of Righteousness, Adam, whose personal morality would never allow him to falter in his diligent oversight of his charges. A perfect, self-reinforcing bubble. But then, when you and your friends cast your spell and contact with the outside world was forced upon him, he was entirely free to flatter and corrupt vulnerable souls. The wish is bait. It is achievable with the controlled detonation of the Penitence Loop and its phenomenal accumulated mana supply, and is therefore an honest offer - but the side effect will be the release of the Star to resume its wicked work.

"I sought to kill Saber via Rider early because I knew she would be a particularly deadly blade in his hands - though neither he nor I foresaw her transformation into Avenger. Lancer was a second choice for weapon, and one far less threatening than Saber would have been. I would have been just as vulnerable to his manipulation had I not the forethought to send letters to myself during my last incarnation.

"As to where Adam stands now, with Caster's aid he has begun the process of overclocking the Penitence Loop - accelerating it with mana harvested from defeated Servants so that it will begin to overload and break down. The power of the Star is leaking - you saw it in the underground jungle - and Lancer is absorbing that strength. Sooner or later the seal will crack and the fallen Star - along with all the souls trapped inside the Loop - will erupt onto the surface. It will be a calamity. Caster, in despair, imagined this to be a good thing.

"Perhaps Lancer too might listen to reason," he finished. "But the issue is that I cannot think of a way to talk to her without her killing me before I finish speaking. She is terribly powerful as she is now, and has Adam by her side to explain away or intercept any letters I might try to send her. But nor can we delay too long, lest Lancer's might blossom such that she can fight the two guardian Servants outside of the Demon Queen's mansion directly. I can, of course, carry a letter to Saber - wounded as she is, I believe her to be safely beneath Adam's notice."

"Hum," said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, "Mm. Well... well, well ok then. I guess."

She doesn't laugh. Not at Assassin's wish, or at the absurdity of the cats swarming in front of her, and not even out of plain and ordinary nervousness either. Though neither is she an iron wrought figure of determination. Instead she just turns and quietly stares at Berserker for a very long time before turning back to 'face' Assassin, tapping her chin with her index finger in thought the entire time.

"So if we're what got him going then he's not the... unless he is? No but probably not. I dunno. I think I need to talk to Actia. Oh wait, shoot. Does this mean that we can't let anybody have a wish at all? Even the not icky ones?"

She frowns.

"Actually actually, wait! Wait wait! Like... no but, that would mean if we just keep everything the same then- oh. That's bad, right? Like it's not just bad, it's icky. And I don't use that term lightly!!"

A very flustered Kat has begun pacing around in a circle. This is a habit she picked up from watching a certain someone who may or may not have needed to leave her house more often than she did in the past. It's a gesture she associates with extreme agitation, and the sense of motion helps move her blood to free up her 'thinkies', which are currently trying to switch to 'no' and stay there. She shakes her head. Once, twice, hard. Enough to rattle her brain.

Her tails fluffle from side to side as she turns, and when she stands briefly still, and when she looks up, and also when she looks down. There are thoughts forming somewhere inside of her core, the kind of thoughts that might turn out to make her more dangerous than any fox who ever lived, Fluffybiscuits though she is. It might not have been a complete fluke that she once triumphed over Rose from the River. It might even be the case that the shape of these thoughts make her fully qualified to be a Princess, and not just because Berserker said so.

It might. Or it might mean nothing at all. She isn't even sure she sees where she's going with all of this.

"...Ok well. I guess we've gotta stop Lancer if we can no matter what. Right? If you could just, uh, tell Miss Saber where I'm goin'? So she can hopefully maybe meet me there? If she's ok?? Actually anybody you can find who can help'd be great. I just. Mmf. So. This did not go well last time but I think that's 'cause I just kinda yipped at her y'know? If I use my words maybe it'll go better. None of the Servants can fight her anyway, she's got really weird powers.

"But what I can't do is handle Mr. Blinky Lights McActually. Ok? He's very, uh, Talky Smart in a way that people like Lancer and Caster think is very good and if he starts in on me one more time I'm gonna cry like a baby, ok? I just, like, I just. I'm not made've rocks and iron and whatever, right?? So someone's gotta..."

As she trails off, she finds her mind snapping back to those dangerous thoughts and memories. Guilt and uncertainty claw at her chest, and even 'one step at a time' isn't a strong enough spell to get her through this part. It turns out that saving the world is actually super difficult. And that's why almost nobody ever does it, even when they're the ones who doomed it in the first place, and even when they feel bad about that to begin with.

So her lips part on their own, and she asks another question she's perfectly aware is her fault that she even needs to ask it.

"Also, um. You said," she chirps mid-squirm, "There were nine ghosts. But there's only seven of you Servants."

"What, er, do you... happen to know where the other two are? Or who?"

"Who else?" said Assassin. "The ones left to guard the tomb were the dragons."

Super Magical Idol-Class Dragon Servant, Elizabeth Bathory!

You have been guarding this stupid tomb for like a hundred years and you are doing GREAT at it. Your hair is SO silky smooth and pinker than Pink Dye #8. Your fingernails are razor sharp and pinker than Pink Dye #5. You maintain the kind of performance schedule suitable for a dragon: That is, every waking moment is spent bringing the demons of the underworld to their knees, tears pouring from their eyes and blood pouring from their ears. And whenever you're in between shows, you take a little nap and let that stupid jerk Oroboros handle things for a bit. Oroboring more like.

Two dragons is overkill. You've always said! You've told her at length that she can take a hike because one average dragon is frankly overkill for this kind of work, underworld of demons be damned. It does help being able to take long naps or time out to compose new songs without compromising perimeter defense, but even so it's embarrassing for the both of you. But mostly her. And mostly because of her dumb hair and her cutesy-wutesy tail-biting and her failure to acknowledge how much better she'd look on her knees softly biting your tail - oh! That jerk! You hate her so much! Also she sleeps through all of your performances which is totally unacceptable.

That is to say: you've got a lot of pent up frustrations. And for all the "danger" these demons of the underworld allegedly pose, fewer and fewer of them even make the attempt to come near you. So when you feel the oncoming storm of what can only be a Lancer-class servant coming towards you (honestly what kind of failure would get summoned as a Lancer, the worst class?) it's time to put on a performance so sharp that'll drive your pinker-than-Pink-Dye-#6 heel through her stupid heart. And maybe you'll crank it so loud that even Uwuboring wakes up and pays attention.

Alright, Liz! Show us what you've got~~~!